Thanos (2016) #1 Review

Thanos (2016) #1

If you have been following comics for any amount of time recently, I don’t think that it’s a surprise at all that we’ve seen an influx of movie characters starts to take the spotlights. A couple of years ago we had Thanos Rising, which is one series that really understands The Mad Titan.

This week, Marvel launched the first issue of a brand-new series featuring Thanos, which is going to put the entire spotlight on the tyrant himself and take us in a brand-new direction.

So, let’s just jump right in to the story. As the book gets going, the writer here Jeff Lemire (Essex County, Extraordinary X-Men – X-Haven), who should be a familiar name to a lot of you takes a little bit of time to catch up with what’s been happening.

The last couple of time we seen Thanos, things weren’t exactly going as good as they should have been. During Civil War II, he was defeated and he was taken down again by Doctor Doom before that in Secret Wars.

So, Thanos is kind of having not the very best time of his life but we shouldn’t get worried as Jeff Lemire is here to deliver us a story that is largely devoid of anything that’s happening and this pretty much sure that it’s just the status quo update to one this comics takes place.

King of Black Quadrant

There is Corvus Glaive of the Black Order, who is now sitting on the throne that once belonged to his Master; Thanos. Because long after serving his Master as a loyal deputy of his cult, Corvus believes that he runs the Black Quadrant more efficiently than its previous ruler who became too distracted from his goal and got deeply involved with earthly affairs that led him to his current downfall.

Also, under his new aspiring leadership, many new territories were conquered and came under control.

An Angry God!

However, his well-run quickly ended when the Master finally showed up on the front door. The heavy resistance against Thanos was futile as always and he finally came face to face with his former servant.

The following confrontation obviously was not in Glaive’s favor and there we have a moment of their own where this two look back at their past, which was a bit poetic even for the likes of evil that they are.

The Return of the King

The title might give you the idea about the series being entirely focused on The Mad Titan but this is where you gonna get thrown in for the first major twist. It actually has a good supporting cast of characters that are going to hang around the series.

Then there is his charming brother Eros AKA Starfox and the self proclaimed Champion of the Universe, Tryco Slatterus looking for him for a mission. He reveals to the latter about the return of his brother and Tryco is sent here by his Inhuman nephew Thane, whom we were introduced to during the “Infinity” crossover event.

A Champion's Fox-Hunt!

All of these characters take the focus off Thanos alone to make you feel the broader vision that is actually going to reach out to some of the other assets that are dealing with what Thanos is going through.

Another good aspect that you are going to get while reading this is the fact that there doesn’t necessarily seem to be a good or a bad guy as Thanos is known as a villain but this series paints him and everybody around him in a way as kind of doing what they need to do as a person.

The Beg for Mercy

This is just sort of how things are and you never really get the sense of Thanos is back again with a plan of universal destruction, instead you see the characters related him in conflicts and confusion. If you have previously read Thanos Rising, then you can easily see it that this comics portrays him as more than the guy from Titan, who wants to destroy the whole universe and kind of feeds off of what was happening in Thanos Rising to layer this character to a more relatable stance.

Thane and Death

The sense of urgency depicted in this book is another good thing about it. While it took it’s time to go into all these characters and status quo around the Cosmos, it really takes its time to properly introduce Thanos to us as if you are new into his character, then you have only seen him into the movies (The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers – Age of Ultron) and that only tells you very little about him.

A Reckoning Secret!

At the end of the book, there is the biggest surprise left for the readers in the book and that’s something I’m not going to reveal to you but it will give you the idea of where this series is going from here. In my honest opinion (that’s why I wrote about it in the first place) and I think this was a great comic.

Yet, they could have used a more villain focus but that would have taken the core of the main plot of the story. So, we left those for the seismic shift for the future of the Marvel Comics Universe. Overall, the writings were good and the artwork by Mike Deodato Jr. (Guardians of Knowhere, Original Sin) was pretty solid. I’m eagerly waiting for the next issue of the series and where it’s all going to lead us.

If you have an opinion on this topic, then PLEASE feel free to shoot your comment below.