Preview: The Mighty Thor #701 with art by James Harren

[JKtheMac]

You said "When he died he didn't just fade away, his story continued with a confrontation with the self-appointed figure of Death that is Thanos." Which is factually wrong, because Marvel didn't die and then confront Thanos after his death as you said, he slid into a coma, THEN Thanos shows up and they fight; it's made very clear that Mar-Vell is still alive at that point, in fact that rather is the point of their confrontation. You can actually read this confrontation with Thanos as "real", though occurring on the metaphysical plane, or simply as being all in Mar-Vell's dying brain, at least in the context of this story - later on of course Marvel goes all-in for the afterlife and it's no longer ambiguous. And yes, Thanos does act as a psychopomp in this story, no argument there; but the way you said it, with your capitalisation of the "D" of death ("figure of Death that is Thanos") makes it sound like you are referring to Thanos as literally embodying death in this story which he doesn't.

There is no difference between Death as an anthropomorphic figure and a psychopomp. Thanos was acting as Death with a capital D in this story, even with Death also appearing as his feminine counterpart. Like I said, you are discarding the metaphysical as not literal. I don't think that is what the story is trying to do. It is very literally depicting the process of acceptance of death, and the coma is just the physical simile. Thanos really was there, he really did help him come to an acceptance of death, it wasn't an illusion, it was a vital and important part of the cosmic concepts in the story. I imagine you really hate recent Starlin books, if you want everything to conform to a materialistic viewpoint. Starlin is clearly not a materialist, and we cant expect his stories to be so.

[JKtheMac]

To avoid filling a preview thread with spoilers I will start a spoiler thread, now that I have written a summary.

[genji]

i go now in 701 spoiler now thanks JKtheMac