It's a few years old, but i think it's a Worth read for Marvel Cosmic fans and Thanos fans, or for people who wants to know the character better after watching Infinity War, or for those who wondered what makes Darkseid and Thanos different characters.


http://whenwillthehurtingstop.blogsp...e-mistake.html

Really well written, professional quality article. I agree with his thoughts on Thanos, especially the differences between the character and DC's Darkseid(anyone who labels Thanos as a Darkseid wannabe has next to zero familiarity with the character and Jim Starlin's stories).

However, i think theres some flaw on what he thinks how Cosmic comics should be:

“That’s what cosmic is all about. Cosmic isn’t about telling crime stories or action stories or thrillers in an exotic setting. Cosmic is about heightened reality, a form of storytelling defined by the absence of familiar referents, riven with symbolism, and steeped in fanciful mythology.”

I respectfully disagree. Things like Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5 and Warhammer 40,000 shows that cosmic stories can be done with the tropes of action-packed pulp adventure stories, dramatic war stories and political intrigue stories tweaked with a outer space setting.

Heck, Silver Surfer stories can be compared to tv shows of the ''walking the earth''(see TVTropes) genre like ''Kung Fu'', ''Fist of the Northstar'', ''The Pretender'' and, uh, ''Xavier Renegade Angel''.

Even many of Kirby comics were this same grade of re-hash. Sure they’re steeped in altered reality, epic fantasy and over-the top visuals, but they are firmly based on a kid-friendly smattering of older tales, mundane tales of other media, or like the author of the article himself said; mythology. Frankly, we have modern mythology, and the Silmarillion with Lord of the Rings, Conan the Barbarian, or Seven Samurai are just as much a part of that as Camelot, the illiad and the Odissey.

Unfortunately, nearly all of the stuff we see in comics is unoriginal and borrowed from somewhere. Everything has an eye test. Doing a version of Game of Thrones or Saving Private Ryan in space works if its done right. To me, I call it cosmic more on a subjective feel. Honestly, just being bizarre and ''Castaneda-esque'' or ''Kirby-esque'' is almost an acceptable descriptive adjective on its own that needs little dissection. (or vivisection in Thanos case LOL) For the most part, Cosmic is about space and adventure.

However, the core message of the article, that Thanos is supposed to be more epic and mystical than being ''Jeffrey Dahmer in space'' is spot on. Thanos deserves better and the author really understands what makes the character tick.

I had similar issues when i read Thanos Rising. Marvel editors wants this simplistic re-invention of characters that only manage to fail to grasp the classic stories and the authors.

I see it all the time with things like Star-Lord being written as ''Han Solo meets X'' or Adam Warlock being ''Jesus Christ meets X''. They want everything simple. Thanos has only gotten worse until this point. Even since Aaron wrote him he’s been even more the generic “mustache twirling villain in the black hat” in comics, cartoons and videogames, more than even those ''My Friend Dahmer'' tropes. I’ll be honest, Donny Cates's run on Thanos had an interesting premise, but it quickly became a mediocre read, with Thanos acting more like a thuggish cosmic potentate like Mongul or Blastaar than Starlin's Thanos, and the only thing the series accomplished was getting rid of Thane (i know, spoilers).