Devil: Thanos of Titan
Ranking: 9 out of 10
Breakdown: Millennia ago a race of beings known as the Eternals fractured into separate groups. These beings, who by all appearances are Gods, fled to separate parts of the universe. The eternal Kronos led his followers to the Saturn moon Titan. The eternal named Mentor built a city for his people beneath the surface of Titan and raised a family. He and his wife bore two children, Eros and Thanos. Immediately upon his birth Thanos's mother, Sui-San, knew she had given birth to a monster.
Thanos was born with the deviant gene. His body was malformed. He was different from any other person living on Titan. He grew up devoted to studies, a peaceful quiet existence. Until he met a girl, a girl no one else could see, a girl who urged him on toward a destiny: The greatest mass murderer the universe has ever known. First there were a number of missing children. Then his own mother. No murder had ever occurred on Titan before. He fled Titan after that. In deep space his atrocities continued and he refined his craft. Upon his return he murdered nearly every eternal living on Titan. His father Mentor, brother Eros, adopted sister Moondragon, and a small handful of others escaped.
Kronos, saddened that such a monster came from his people, created another monster whose sole purpose in life, one goal was the destruction and death of Thanos. This man's name was Drax the Destroyer. With relentless singled mindedness Drax pursued Thanos across the galaxy in hopes of one day slaying the mad titan.
Thanos then heard of a weapon on Earth so powerful that he could deliver unto her the deaths of all the lives in the universe: The Tesseract a.k.a. the Cosmic Cube. Unknown to him, Earth had heroes, defenders, avengers. The greatest threat the Earth had ever known stood before these heroes. One by one the heroes fell until only two men remained, Drax the Destroyer, and a Kree soldier named Captain Mar-Vell. The final showdown between Drax, Captain Marvel, and Thanos took place. Thanos transferred all the power of the cube into himself becoming a God. Drax fought on despite the odds never backing down. The known universe lay seconds away from oblivion when Captain Marvel performed the impossible, he shattered the Tesseract. The power backlash thrust Thanos back into his own body, smote, and defeated.
Floating in space thralls of Thanos's saved him on the brink of death, even having a near death experience, meeting Mephisto himself. It was in the netherworld where he had an epiphany. Thanos awoke with new resolve. He traveled into deep space, adopted a daughter named Gamora, and began rebuilding his army.
In the far reaches of Space he became aware of an even bigger threat, more dangerous and powerful than himself, a being called The Magus. This being scared even Thanos. He allied himself with a powerful hero named Adam Warlock. Together with the help of Gamora and Pip the Troll, they defeated the Magus. This event would prove to be the first of many meetings between Thanos and Adam Warlock, a friendship/rivalry destined to span the ages. During this event Thanos learned of the existence of the six infinity stones or soul gems, Warlock himself possessing one of them. Each stone or gem granted absolute power over a particular facet, Space, Time, Reality, Power, the Mind, and the Soul.
Thanos systematically collects all the Infinity Stones and merges them into one massive gem stone capable of destroying all known and unknown existence. The Avengers, Earth's mightiest heroes, assemble once more to thwart his evil machinations. The Avengers fall before Thanos's might. Adam Warlock, aware of the diabolical plot of his former ally, steps in to fight alongside Earth's heroes. Captain Marvel returns too, the only man to ever best the mad titan. Captain Marvel destroys Thanos's weaponry while Warlock faces off against Thanos. In the end both Warlock and Thanos die at each other's hands. Thanos, the worshiper of Death, could finally be at her side. But it was not to last...
During his time being dead Thanos learned that he was not an equal to his mistress as he had longed for. He was simply another thrall of Death. This left a disquiet in his soul. While gazing into the Infinity Well he learned of the true nature of the Infinity Stones and how to properly wield them. He begged Death for a second chance to prove his undying love for her. She granted him life once more under the condition that he deliver unto her death like never before. The Silver Surfer saw this in a premonition, a prophecy of doom. Both Captain Marvel and Adam Warlock, the only two men to have ever defeated the mad titan, were dead. The Silver Surfer took the premonition as a sign, a cosmic destiny thrust upon him to be the one to stand against the greatest evil reality had ever known. Thanos proved stronger than the Surfer but Surfer proved relentless in his determination to stop him. Thanos faked his death, ending Silver Surfer's pursuit, allowing him to go about silently collecting the soul gems once more from the elders of the universe. Through deceit and guile and his clever twisted mind Thanos succeeded in collecting the Infinity Stones for a second time, placing each one in a separate spot along his gauntlet. Upon his left hand he bore the INFINITY GAUNTLET, the greatest weapon the universe ever beheld.
As a simple display of power and offering to his beloved Death, Thanos blinked half the universe's population out of existence, a trifle display of what he was now capable of. The universe shuddered. From the lowliest of creatures to the abstract cosmic beings beyond the scope of human understanding, all felt the grave circumstances now in play. A contingent of heroes assembled. The gods themselves banded together. Kronos resurrected Drax to fight alongside them. But it would not be these heroes and omnipotent beings that would save the universe. Adam Warlock returned from the dead to battle his old ally yet again. Through a number of failed battles and failed plans, countless lives lost, finally the heroes triumphed. Thanos was relieved of his Infinity Gauntlet, Adam Warlock taking possession of it. The threat was ended.
Thanos found himself in the least expected of positions. During his tenor as the holder of the gauntlet he became a "Supreme Being" more powerful than Death herself. Death did not appreciate one of her thralls usurping her power and rendering herself a slave to his lust. His reach had exceeded his ambition and as a result she spurned him. No longer did she welcome him into her cold dead embrace. Thanos, no longer allowed in Death's realm, suffered a crisis of faith. His reason for being no longer existed. He needed a new purpose. And he would find his new purpose in the return of the one man whom Thanos feared in all the universe, THE MAGUS.
The Infinity War once again pitted all the known universe against a single adversary, Adam Warlock's evil half, The Magus. When Warlock possessed the Infinity Gauntlet, in order to be a just ruler, he severed all good and all evil from his being. The Magus was thus reborn. In silent The Magus collected a menagerie of cosmic cubes from dozens of scattered dimensions, the largest arsenal of weaponry ever collected. One cosmic cube had enough power to destroy our own galaxy. A dozen cosmic cubes could destroy reality itself. Thanos found himself on the side of the angels, allying once again with Adam Warlock to defend reality. Together they defeated the Magus and Thanos found himself the savior of the universe. In the end however, the collection of tesseracts vanished, stolen by another unknown party.
The Infinity Crusade proved to be another universal threat requiring Thanos and Warlock along with earth's heroes to join forces yet again for the salvation of all. Warlock's good half, personified as a golden woman called THE GODDESS, stole the cosmic cubes and prepared to wipe away the sin of the universe in a fiery baptism. A zealot to the most extreme. Thanos and Warlock eventually triumphed finally ending the threat born out of the aftermath of the Infinity Gauntlet affair. The gems then disappeared out of our reality and have yet to full return. Thanos, would be villain, unlikely savior, now turned to a quiet life. But idle hands do the devil's work...
Thanos appeared on Asgard to plague Thor. Thanos appeared in the Savageland fighting against Ka-Zar. In every instance he seemed different somehow, unlike the Thanos of old. These were in fact clones of Thanos, escaped experiments of the mad titan himself. Adam Warlock, the new Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell's son Genis Vell), and others soon discovered a host of Thanos clones with mad ambitions to conquer the universe, even attempting to kill their progenitor himself. Thanos joined Warlock and Captain Marvel in seeking out and destroying his test tube created offspring in a battle referred to as the Infinity Abyss.
Following these events Thanos monitors a powerful signal in deep space. Through his computations he discovers this power to be at the heart of the universe, a power beyond all others. A megalomaniac named Akhenaten possessed a portion of the power and threatened the safety of the cosmos. Thanos, in an effort to prevent the horrible from occurring yet again to his reality, sought the power himself in order to prevent darker minds from gaining it. In this he succeeded. With absolute power once more in his grasp an old urge welled up inside him. With power such as this maybe he could win Mistress Death's affections again. This dream of his would not come to pass. Adam Warlock appeared to him once again with grave tidings. The universe is dying. The balance has been broken. To restore balance a sacrifice is needed. To save the universe Thanos seemingly sacrifices himself and gives up the power at the heart of the universe.
The forces of the universe would not keep him dead and gone however. For some abstract reason yet unknown Thanos found himself alive once more, only he and Warlock retaining the memories of what happened at the Heat of the Universe. Those events spurred yet another change within him. He set about on a course to rectify the many wrongs he had wrought throughout the universe. His first act of atonement was to protect the Rigellians from the planet devouring Galactus. The epic battle ended with Thanos victorious and Galactus withdrawing upon learning of an outside force manipulating him. Thanos next embarked upon a pilgrimage to a massive inter-galactic prison called the Kyln. There Mistress Death appeared to him goading him into continuing her work.
Thanos allied himself with a being from the Negative Zone named Annihilus. Together they captured the still weakened Galactus, siphoning off his incredible power to run their ships and fleet. A massive armada from the negative zone dubbed "The Annihilation Wave" was unleashed upon the galaxy destroying everything in their path including the home planet of the Nova Corps, XANDAR. The wave moved further across the galaxy causing wide spread destruction. Richard Rider of the Nova Corp, Ronan The Accuser of the Kree, Thanos's adopted daughter Gamora, Peter Quill the Star-Lord, Kl'Rt the Super Skrull, the Silver Surfer, Drax the Destroyer, and others formed a resistance movement. Drax confronted his age old adversary Thanos, decimating the guards and ripping Thanos's still beating heart from his chest! Thus Thanos died once again, welcomed to the realm of the dead by his beloved Mistress Death.
Thanos would return again and again only to be thwarted by the likes of the Guardians of the Galaxy and even his own son Thane. Currently he has been kept on ice in a state of living death.
Review: Okay, if you made it through all that then I'll reward you with a quick summary here. In short, Thanos is the greatest villain ever to threaten the Marvel Universe and perhaps even all comicdom. He's different from the typical megalomaniac found in comic book. His scope of vision is far beyond other comic book characters and the execution of his schemes a well calculated. He's powerful and frightening.
Thanos 1st appeared in Iron Man Volume 1 issue #55 February 1973. For many years the character was written almost exclusively by writer/artist Jim Starlin. The character remained consistent and uncompromising. His first appearance marked the beginning of the first modern comic book epic that crossed over into several books. With the character came a story that changed the landscape of what comic books could do.
He receives a 9 out of 10 because it seems whenever another writer other than Jim Starlin writes the character Thanos seems inconsistent. Writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning have come the closest to getting him right. The latest Thanos epic by writer Jonathan Hickman seems weak by comparison and inconsistent with the character.
Needless to say he is one of my personal favorite comic book villains and one of the best characters within the entire Marvel Universe. A little hint, he is the purple guy at the end of the Avengers movie and he will be the enemy the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy face down in Avengers 3! Look forward to seeing more of Thanos in the years to come!
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