Thanos Rising #1:
Summary: This issue gets started on Titan, with Thanos being born. Yep, it's a flashback origin tale! Huzzah! Anywho, Thanos is born and his mother, perhaps seeing in her son what was to come, tries to kill him. Thanos's mom is stopped however, by his father, Mentor. From there we fast forward a few years and see that kid Thanos is a highly intelligent kid, liked by everybody, but kind of squeamish around blood. Oh, and Mentor ignores him, while his mother is locked up in a mental institution. An odd girl at Thanos's school(Death, perhaps?) takes an interest in Thanos, and encourages him to take his friends to some abandoned caves. While the kids are looking around, they end up getting trapped in a cave-in, and Thanos ends up separated from his classmates. Thanos ends up digging for three days, only coming across some lizard-like creatures. Thanos promises the lizard creatures that he won't eat them, regardless of how hungry he gets. A short time later, Thanos comes across the other children, and is horrified to see that the lizard creatures had eaten them. Thanos ends up getting rescued, while Titan mourns their lost children. The strange girl approaches Thanos again and suggests that he avenges his friends. This issue ends with Thanos heading back to the caves and slaughtering every lizard creature he can find.
Thoughts: This comic was... interesting, I guess. I mean, I know a lot of Thanos's history, but nothing really in-depth from this early on in his life. Now, there were a few things that bugged me, such as Mentor's disinterest in Thanos, as well as a lack of Starfox. The Starfox thing was especially odd. I could swear that Starfox was Thanos's younger brother. But this comic kind of contradicts that... If Thanos's mother ended up in a mental home after Thanos's birth, how could Starfox have been born AFTER Thanos? Thanos's popularity in school also contradicted his established origin... I remember him isolating himself due to his appearance... So yeah, there were a few things that bugged me as a fan of Thanos. With that said though, this comic was an okay read... Especially for people who aren't as familiar with Thanos's history as I am.
Score: 6 1/2 out of 10.
Weird girls are always trouble...
It's interesting to hear you say that, since I was wondering about how some of these aspects fit into Thanos' established origin, of which I don't really know anything. For example, I thought it was clever that Aaron avoided having Thanos' appearance be the thing to ostracize him (given how obvious that storyline has become by now), but I was wondering if it had previously been the case in prior retellings. Also, I'm kind of assuming the girl is Death, right? She's just a little _too_ weird not to be. I enjoyed it, though. I like this question of whether Thanos is manipulated into evil or if he comes by it naturally. The scene of him killing the lizards at the end really was sad.
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