Originally posted by long pig
Did you even see the Galactus IB fight? He didn't use any of his powers, he fought h2h like an idiot.
He fought HtH because his blasts had no effect on Galactus, and his powers did nothing either, since Galactus was unique.
In betweener's main power is that he is able to generate a blast which will kill anything because it generates a force that is the opposite of their life force. This power does not work on unique entities with no counter for their powers though, mostly meaning Silver Surfer, Galactus. He was able to kill an Elder of the Universe with a single shot even though he was supposedly banned from Death's realm.
The reason why in-betweener got beat down in the Nexus was because that is where his powers were at their weakest, at the even point between Order and Chaos. It was the opposite while crossing over realities through a black hole; his powers were at their strongest.
In Betweener still had the majority of his powers inside of the containment bubble where Order and Chaos had placed him; as soon as the bubble was broken he was at his weakest, which Thanos planned upon and gave him the cosmic backhand.
The fact that Thanos came close to matching In Betweener's power while he was in the bubble is an excellent feat, but Thanos said that he was trying as hard as he could to match him, implying that he fell somewhat short.
To this day, the Thanos quest 1 and 2 remain two of my favorite comics of all time. The art was top notch and Thanos showed real trickery to overcome his opponents; he knew that he could not get what he wanted by brute force alonen, it was his intellect that was truly his best talent, not his physical prowess.