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Wayne Markley
by Wayne Markley
One of Marvel’s most fascinating aspects of their world of characters is the vast universe they have created outside of the planet earth and the heroes who live with-in that Universe. As I discussed last time, there are a number of alien races and worlds that marvel has focused on over the years and with the Guardians of the Galaxy movie coming in a few weeks, you will see more of Marvel’s intergalactic universe than ever before. one of the underlying currents in most of Marvel’s space stories, and has been teased as well in the movies, is the villany of Thanos and the various stories called “Infinity”. I am going to take a few blogs to look at this vast epic story which ties together quite nicely over forty years of stories.
Avengers vs. Thanos
First off, there is the character that is typically referred to as the mad god, Thanos. While Thanos is not a god, he is at times quite mad. He was created by Jim Starlin in 1973 as a one off villain in issue #55 of Iron Man. In interviews Starlin has talked about how Thanos was inspired by Jack Kirby’s work on the Forth Worlds series (available in four nice trade paperbacks) which is ironic in Thanos was inspired by Darkseid, yet Thanos has become a far more infamous character (though looking at Starlin’s first drawing of Thanos, Metron was obviously a big influence – ed.). Thanos was born on the moon of Titan, the moon of Saturn, and at his birth his mother tried to kill him. Over time he would develop a fascination with Death, and he would eventually fall in love with her. In the marvel comics universe, death is portrayed as a woman in a long dark cloak, a skull face, and is called mistress Death. Over the next twenty years from his first appearance, Thanos would fight the Avengers and Captain marvel and a number of other heroes a number of times, most notably Adam Warlock. These stories can be found in a hefty trade called The Avengers vs. Thanos. These stories basically make up the first wave of Thanos, and are the second wave of Marvel’s cosmic heroes (the first wave being the Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel). At the conclusion of this wave of Thanos adventures, he was left for dead.
The Silver Surfer: rebirth of Thanos
Of course you cannot keep a good villain down and Jim Starlin brought Thanos back in the Silver Surfer (Vol. 3 #34). The whole story of Thanos resurrection is collected in a trade called Silver Surfer: rebirth of Thanos. The resurrected Thanos is told by mistress death that he must kill half of all living things, including humans, Kree, Skrulls, Badoon, and all of the other various races in the marvel Universe. thus Thanos launches a plan to collect all of the Infinity gems and create an all powerful weapon called the Infinity Gauntlet. By no surprise this was also the name of the 6 part miniseries collecting this cosmic story with Thanos vs. Avengers, Silver Surfer, Adam Warlock, doctor Strange, and many others for control of this all-powerful gems. The Infinity gems (which had been called the soul gems in prior stories) were six different colored gems, each with a unique power, with complete control over their namesake. There was the green gem which was the soul gem; the blue gem which controls the mind; the red gem which had control over power; the orange gem controlled time; the yellow gem was the master of reality; and the purple gem controlled space. So when Thanos had control over all six of these gems, he attained godhood in that he could control anything and everything. This allowed him to carry out his plan to wipe out half of all living things. As a quick aside, the Infinity gems were all in the possession of one of the elders of the Universe, a group of even more cosmic marvel Characters that keep reality as we know it going. The first half of the Infinity Gauntlet is Thanos devising plans to get the gems away from these elders of the Universe. There are short stories with in stories where Thanos outwits the In-Betweener, the Collector, The Gardner, the Runner, Champion, and the Grandmaster. These stores are interwoven with the back story of half the people on earth disappearing and the Avengers, Warlock, and the rest of the gang trying to come up with a way to thwart Thanos. I do not want to give anything away, but these stories are very creative and complex in the way they are interwoven to get Thanos to the end result. once Thanos gains the power of the Infinity Gauntlet he is confronted by Adam Warlock who in turn gains control of the Infinity Gauntlet from Thanos and finds he is no better when given absolute power. The story ends up with Warlock being put on trial by the Living Tribunal (acosmic judge) and it being decided that the Infinity gems should not ever be allowed to be together again. This of course does not last.
Infinity Gauntlet
Ireally enjoyed this whole story which is collected in two volumes, the Infinity Gauntlet and Infinity Gauntlet Aftermath. All the Infinity Gauntlet stories are written by Jim Starlin and drawn by George Perez and later Ron Lim. all of the other stories are written by Jim Starlin and drawn by various other artists. I really like this story because it shows how an epic tale can be told in six issues (and that is a little padded) and can be entertaining and filled with surprises and not drag on forever. It also sets up a number of future stories in the marvel universe such as Infinity War, Infinity Crusade, Infinity Abyss, Marvel: The End, and the recent series, Infinity. Also, there are subtle things mixed in such as AnnihIlus sneaking across dimensions, which would lead to the story in Annihilation many years later. This series also lays the groundwork for some of the marvel films, as Thanos is in the opening and closing scenes of The Avengers movie, the Collector is in the closing scene of the most recent Thor movie, and has a major part in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. As an aside, marvel just released an Infinity Gauntlet Omnibus which is an oversized hardcover filled with all of the original six issues but also all of the crossover books that have not been collected elsewhere. It is a bit on the pricy side, but it is a terrific value.
Infinity Gauntlet Aftermath
I encourage you to check out any go these Infinity stories, but I would for warn you that they read better in order of publication than reading them haphazardly.
As always,l everything written in this blog is my personal opinion and does not reflect the thoughts or opinions of Westfield Comics or their employees. I welcome feedback, or ideas or review copies at MFBWAY@AOL.COM.
Thank you.