Why Thanos doesn't need armor in Avengers: Infinity War

Thanos and Drax, about to sit down to a quiet meal and possibly some bloodshed.

• Thanos is so physically powerful he doesn’t really NEED his armor to defeat 90% of the people he faces in combat.
• The other 10% are noticed only because they’re smart enough to attack in groups.
• Between his physical prowess, his superhuman heritage, his intellectual prowess and technological mastery, he can make himself nigh invulnerable.

Thanos doesn’t wear armor all the time. Truth be told, unless he is facing an enemy whose power is as great as his own, he doesn’t need it.

Thanos (in the comics) is descended from a subspecies of humanity called Eternals. Eternals have increased physical characteristics such as superhuman strength and durability. The average Eternal could lift a bus over their head with their bare hands. With some practice manipulating their internal energies, some could lift a tank.

Thanos is one of the strongest Eternals to have been born on Titan and with training, physical enhancements, cybernetic prosthetics and even magic, Thanos is as resistant as any mortal being can be to most kinds of normal injury. It takes an extraordinary weapon, technology or mutation to give even a naked Thanos pause.

Gamora, rightfully called the Deadliest Woman in the Universe, keeps Thanos on his toes in a battle between the two of them.

Thanos’ armor is very similar to Tony Stark’s armor in that it has multiple capacities built into it. Unlike Stark’s, Thanos is not dependent upon the suit for his superhuman abilities.

His armor augments his powers to a significant degree making him even more durable than he is already with his host of physical, mental and technological abilities make him with armor.

A fully armored Thanos is proof against things like Thor’s hammer Mjolnir, or Black Bolt’s active voice which has the directed force of a multimegaton nuclear warhead.

In this scene, Thanos is likely using his suit’s ability to absorb, redirect and deflect the energy in Black Bolts quasi-sonic vocal discharge. Even with his own abilities and his suit’s augmentation, at the end of the conflict his armor is completely destroyed.

If Thanos were to have any number of the Infinity Stones, (2 or more) he doesn’t need armor and you are less than significant than the sand beneath his feet on a beach. With the right combination of stones, you could BE the sand beneath his feet…

Truth be told, whether he wears armor or not, he’s more deadly than just about anything or anyone you meet anywhere. If you see Thanos without armor, it means he doesn’t consider you significant enough to wear any while he disembowels you.