This video, along with the great essay by Tegan O'Neil on Thanos Rising, shows why i'm a member of the ''no one can write Thanos but Jim Starlin'' club (although i like Ron Marz and Keith Giffen's take on the character). It really shows that Starlin inteded Thanos to be more than just ''Marvel's Darkseid'', but it seems that Marvel's editors and bean counters are unable to see Thanos in the same way as Starlin and the fans.


Marvel's editors and Writers have proven plenty of times that they will Always ignore Starlin's writing on Thanos, the guy who not only created him, but also made him a compelling byronic character and freudian metaphor and gave him a solid character arc from villain to anti-hero where he learned through bitter experience that genocide and destruction will not convince Lady Death to love him and that not even omnipotence will make him happy. In the last 5 or 6 years Thanos was used when Marvel editors needed a cosmic jobber, capitalizing on his appearance in the MCU and on the reputation of the Infinity Gauntlet, while glossing over his character development.

Hickman, Lemire and Cates take on the character has for the most part, rung particularly shallow as far a I'm concerned with Thanos being protrayed as a barbaric cosmic potentate and more or less reliant on brute force to get his points across as opposed to using his cunning and scientific resources, and we know that the brutish, rampaging villain is Mangog and Juggernaut's shtick, not Thanos. And Bendis use of him as a saturday morning cartoon villain with guns who can be punched by anyone, including Street level vigilantes, was pretty infuriating. The less said about Jason Aaron's regrettable goth-tinged Thanos Rising story the better.

Oh man, it would be great if there was a cosmic storyline that reveals that Bendis' saturday morning cartoon Thanos and Lemire's bloodthirsty thug Thanos were actually one or two Thanosi clones and that the mastermind behind the return of the Thanosi were Tyrant (i liked Cosmic Powers despite the 90's cheese) and Garthan Saal, as to solve the loose ends of Dan Abnett and Lanning's run on Nova and GOTG. So bring on the Thanosi when you come back, Mr. Starlin!

I'm kidding, i know the recent graphic novels by Starlin tried somewhat to reconcile his protrayal of Thanos with the Others, but some things still didn't fit like how he could do the stuff in OGNs and be imprisoned on Earth after Infinity and deal with Incursions straight after didn't quite fit timeline-wise, Starlin's portrayal of Lady Death (silent hooded figure who doesn't like wanton violence) is also very different from Aaron's portrayal of her (scantly clad manipulative bitch). So the local continuity fixer Al Ewing decided to explain the contradictions by introducing the idea of two Thanoses in Ultimates #11. The Starlin Thanos who found love with Starlin's death in Infinity Finale. And the Thuggish Thanos, the Thanos the editors and casual fans wants, the Thanos as he was used in Avengers Assemble, Civil War II and Lemire's Thanos.

...That being said, pretty much all of this is nothing but my headcanon, because the way Ewing phrased the concept of Thanos' existence in different aspects allows for multiple interpretations.

Still, i think Thanos needs to be put on a long hiatus after the new Infinity Siblings trilogy by Starlin, like he was pretty much during the 80's after The Death of Captain Marvel. There are plenty of heavy weight villains Marvel Writers could use instead of another weak, and dumbed down version of Thanos.

Of course, Thanos has become too big of a cashcow for Marvel to let Starlin write him only when he feels like it and his protrayal of Thanos as a introspective anti-hero can't be the villain the editors wants him to be. But there are the hardcore Starlin fans like me, who hate seeing Thanos being depicted as a thuggish villain, so Marvel throws them a bone by allowing Starlin to do new Thanos stories with the OGNs. It's kinda like what Renew Your Vows is for the Spider-Man fans who hated One More Day, or what Fallout New Vegas was for the Classic Fallout fans (AKA the No Mutants Allowed crowd) who hated Fallout 3.