Collects Thanos Rising issues #1-5I have heard of and enjoyed the writing of Jason Aaron in the past, but this is the first time I’ve read anything by Simone Bianchi. The two writers worked together on this book. This book has an origin story for Thanos, one of the Marvel Universe’s biggest villains. This book also acts as a set-up story for the 2013 Marvel event, Infinity.Spoilers:Issue One: Thanos Rising #1 tells Thanos’ birth story. We meet his parents, and see some scenes from when he was a kid. He has a brother named Eros that I was unfamiliar with. He liked to draw when he was a child. His mom tried to kill him on the day of his birth, realizing that he was a monster and that he would be the death of many. His dad, known as Mentor, saved his young life. His dad is the ruler of their world. Thanos starts as a gentle kid, but is led to become a killer by a mysterious young girl.Issue Two: This issue is mostly about Thanos being crazy. He discovers that he likes killing things. He starts with lizards and animals, but works his way up to people. By the end of the issue, he is about to kill his own mother in his self-exploration of who or what he really is. Issue Three: This issue starts to shed a little more light on how Thanos’ became an even bigger mass murderer. The little girl he met as a boy, that manipulated him into killing the lizards from Issue 1, has grown into a woman that Thanos loves. She didn’t seem to want to be with him, so after murdering his mother, Thanos left his home world. He joined with some space pirates, and traveled the galaxies. On his journey he took an uncountable number of wives, and sired many, many children. He abandoned them all, and eventually goes to visit his mother’s grave on his home world. There he runs into the only woman that he actually loves, the girl from his past. We learn from the narrator that all the women he has been with were just an attempt to fill himself with love again. He was unable to do so, though, because there was only ever this one girl for him. I don’t even know her name yet, but I wonder if I knew more about Marvel history, would I recognize her as a past character? While stand at his mother’s grave, this woman tells Thanos that the only way they can be together if he kills every single one of his past wives, and all of his children. Then, and only then, will Thanos be able to have true love again. So, without hesitation, Thanos begins his killing spree. Issue Four: I started to get the feeling that the girl that Thanos loves isn’t actually real within the first pages of this issue. Has she been in his mind all along? Is this why he is called the Mad Titan? Or is she a being that can only be seen by those she wants to see her? We get confirmation that she is Death, and that no one can see her, and that even Thanos’ crew believe that he is crazy because they see him talking to himself. He has taken countless lives, often performing genocide, and it might have all been brought on by his craziness. Death still entices him, though, and she convinces him that he needs to kill everyone on Titan, his home world. Issue Five: He murders the people of Titan, all but his dad. His dad uses his science to do a scan and tries to convince Thanos that no matter what plane of existence he thinks Death is on, she isn’t real. It is all in his head. His dad’s machine would be able to detect her no matter where she existed if she was really there. Death starts to act panicked, and wants to convince Thanos that she is real, and that she has been watching him and sensing his destiny since he was born. She kisses him, but Thanos remarks that it is cold…so cold. The story continues, and brings us to present day. Thanos has continued his killing spree, apparently intoxicated by murder, but he no longer longs for Death. He sees her when he visits his home world, years after the last time we saw him there, and Death cries out that she needs him and that it has been so long. This is what I think is happening…Thanos still likes killing, but he doesn’t need the personification of Death anymore. That’s where the story ends, with Thanos realizing that he has always been alone. When I picked up a copy of Thanos Rising from my local library, I didn't really know what to expect. I have a passing familiarity with the character – Infinity Gauntlet, his romance with Death, his title of the Mad Titan – but little else to go on. So when I set down the five-issue mini-series, I found myself pleasantly surprised. Not blown away, just... Content.The story, an origin for Thanos written by Jason Aaron and drawn by Simone Bianchi, begins with the titular character's return to his home moon of Titan and then, through flashbacks, recants his life up until that point. Born to a genius scientist and horribly mutated, it was his mother who first saw the evil he would later become and tried to kill him as she held him in her arms. Though she was stopped, we soon come to realise that this was not necessarily for the best. Through the aid of a mysterious female, Thanos' fascination with murder grows until it turns to obsession – an obsession only exceeded by his obsession for the woman who is almost constantly at his side.Perhaps the thing which impressed me most was just how calculating and distant from his actions Aaron manages to make Thanos. Even at his most murderous and bloodthirsty, there in a scientific mind at work, and his speech, so often clinical and distant, helps push this idea forward. The only time we see this change is when he speaks with the unknown woman, in which we see the passion which stirs within him show itself. This dialogue between the two is excellent, and makes much of the character development which Thanos goes through a joy to read. As for the story itself, it has good set-pieces, but by about halfway through you can tell where much of it is going through a mixture of a somewhat formulaic plot as well as what we know will become of Thanos in the future. However, by the end of the story, you'll be left with no doubt that Thanos is truly worthy of his title.Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of the artwork here. There are some nice close-ups, but those panels where we see entire bodies or multiple characters often feel like too much detail had been put in. While some artists, such as Jim Lee, can make this level of detail work, Bianchi's style means that we loose much of it as these details become blurred and the lines become too thick. Some of this blame may fall on the inking and the colouring more than the original sketches, but it's still something I feel I have to mark the book down for. There is also a strange technique in a few panels towards the end of the first issue where characters will have their outlines drawn and then left completely white which seems to serve no purpose and is never used again in later issues.All in all, Thanos Rising is an solid introduction to the Mad Titan, managing to keep itself away for clichés which could so easily have plagued an origin like this. However, I could not get behind Bianchi's artwork, and while you will remember some moments, just as many as forgettable. It's definitely worth a read, if only to prime yourself for Marvel's future cinematic outings.
What do You think about Thanos Rising (2013)?
Interesting back story and insight into the childhood and beginnings of Marvel's greatest villain.
—Mega
Not what I agreed to when I picked up a title about Thanos.
—Drsf82
