Why i don't like Thanos Rising

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

Plenty of people praise the Thanos Rising story by Jason Aaron, thinking he did something profound with Thanos, when in reality, he badly streamlined both Thanos and the society of the Titanian Eternals as estabilished by Jim Starlin and really, it served more as a prologue to Hickman's Infinity event.

I dislike this comic. I dislike it so much as a fan of Marvel Cosmic and Jim Starlin's works. It undermines decades of established character history. I refuse to consider it canon at all and neither should any Thanos fan. It is among the worst things Marvel has ever produced. I say this without exaggeration. Up there with Captain America being a HYDRA agent and Spider Man's One More Day and Thor becoming a jobber with multiple hammers who is suddenly weaker than She-Hulk.

1) It’s like Jason Aaron had a checklist for writing Thanos’ backstory and he went through it as fast and put as little thought and effort into getting it done as possible. It lasts only five issues. As soon as Thanos does one thing, the issue is over. It’s only in the very last two issues that Thanos starts to be an evil overlord, at no point does Thanos take any sort of initiative. Even then he’s just going around slaughtering random planets aimlessly.


2)
Instead of Thanos’ mother being a member of a highly tolerant and enlightened society of ancient superhumans, she was crazy and tried to kill Thanos at birth because he was ugly (and the thing about this comic is that it says she was right.) Instead of Titan being this highly advanced science world with demigods from greek mythology and related to the Eternals, it looks straight out of the Jetsons, and its people die as easily as normal humans.
Can you imagine the outrage if someone makes a Gandalf or Sauron origin Story where he was a former Drug addict in a mundane urban setting? Or if It turns out the Force from Star Wars is supplied by a bunch of micro-org....uh, nevermind.

3) Chronos, the God of Titan and Thanos' grandfather, can casually show up at Mentor and Thanos’ breakfast table. He knows that Thanos is murdering people, but says nothing. It’s almost like Aaron forgot that Titan had a holographic super computer called ISAAC who could have fulfilled this role, instead of having Chronos, Titan’s God just hanging out with the titans and gossiping.

4) Instead of Thanos being fascinated by nihilism and finding Death in a forgotten temple on Titan, she manifested as a hallucinatory and diabolical teenage girl that strung him around by his balls his whole life. Instead of Lady Death being silent to Thanos, something that caused great frustration in Thanos, she instead never shuts up, constantly nagging “When are you going to kill more people? Come on. When you’ve killed enough people, then we can do the nasty!” Death would not say this. This is utter blasphemy. She also wouldn’t cackle like a mad woman and relish in the agony of people dying. Death does not like suffering. Death is a soother of pain and a impartial force of nature.

5) Instead of Thanos killing his mother on Titan with the nuclear bombardment, which is something Starlin reiterated again and again was the official way that Thano’s mother died, Thanos vivisects her while she’s wearing her most sexy lingerie.

6) Instead of Thanos swearing to have never children,because a faithful servant to Death would never create life, he instead sleeps around and has many illegitimate children.

7) Instead of Thanos touring the universe, honing his mystical and scientific skills and mastering his powers, we learn he was a common dock worker for a small band of pirates. Instead of acquiring power and authority by force and cunning, Thanos accidentally becomes a space pirate captain when he swings his sword at the previous captain with his eyes closed because he’s too scared to fight.

8) this Thanos is so stupid that he never realizes who the teenage girl who has followed him around everywhere, the one that no one else can see is. When he finds out she’s actually Death, he’s horrified and attempts suicide. The Thanos i'm used to read would smile and say “I always knew who you were. Why did you hide your true self from me all this time? You are the keeper of my heart, and I love you as you truly are.”

9) Death even tells him that she’ll love him once he “becomes the God who holds Infinity in the palm of his hand.” That’s funny. Did Mr. Aaron not read Infinity Gauntlet where a major plot point was that Death absolutely hated Thanos after he acquired the Infinity Gems and had the audacity to become more powerful than her? Was he too busy making Jane Foster an invincible Mary Sue and turn Odin into a colossal jerk?

10) And then to add more inconsitencies, it tells the reader Death might not even exist, except in Thanos’ mind. Which is weird since Eros saw Lady Death in Infinity Gauntlet too, along witmany other characters.

11) Speaking of Eros. Yeah. He’s not in this comic. I think he’s just in one panel at the breakfast table with Chronos, Thanos and Mentor. It’s almost like the author realized that the younger brother of Thanos would be a problem if Thanos’ mother was crazy and she would be terrified of producing another monster like Thanos. If so then just when and how was Eros born and conceived? It doesn’t matter, because Mr. Aaron doesn’t care about such a pivotal character in Thanos’ backstory. It’s sad when I have to point out continuity errors to an author who was paid to pay attention to continuity.

12) the comic ends with Thanos winning Death’s love, and he just walks away from her. HE walks away from HER. What next? Sauron finds the One Ring, and sets it down on a rock and walks away because it got some rust on it and it doesn’t quite fit his finger anymore? It’s just as plausible as the idiocy I’ve just witnessed.

13) Tegan O'Neil was right! whenwillthehurtingstop.blogspot.com/2013/04/sir-thanos-rising-1-marvel-made-mistake.html


14) Even taking away the horrible portrayal of Thanos, it makes no sense continuity wise. According to this story, Titan was destroyed YEARS ago. So how do all the stories that have taken place on Titan exist in continuity? And Death even used Marlo for a period of time to hide from the god Walker, so at least Marlo, Rick, and Hulk know Death exists as well as Warlock, the Surfer, etc.



I get that Thanos is a tough character to write – full of inconsistencies and contradictions. This story line is not the way to resolve the inconsistencies and contradictions. It would’ve been better to just deal with them the old fashioned way: don’t think about them too much and write a good adventure story with Adam Warlock, pshychedelic artwork and metaphysical philosophy. There is no logic or reason to Thanos’ craziness. That’s why crazy is called crazy and Thanos is called “The MAD Titan.” This attempt to impose a dark psychological background story onto Thanos to explain his madness just feels wrong and stands in stark contrast to the best Thanos stories told to date.

Would you accept a Batman origin story where it was revealed that Bruce Wayme was a crazy hobo named Steve who built Alfred as a robot butler, created Joker in a lab and tortured Dick Grayson to make him Robin and couldn’t actually fight without the aid of his Batsuit, even if DC considered it canon?

This wasn’t Thanos. This was a bad remake of Derf Backderf's My Friend Dahmer.

The sad thing is the average comic book reader or someone who wants to learn more about Thanos is going to pick this up and regard it as official; this Thanos Rising portrayal of a confused, easily manipulated, sexually frustrated, weak, whiny little jerk.

Why didn’t Jim Starlin write this instead?! Or even Ron Marz or Keith Giffen?


Basically, this book is an embarrassment to the Thanos characterisation and continuity. Thanos Rising is at best the distorted memories of a Thanosi clone dying in Thanos' laboratory. I'm relieved that the Russo Bros. ignored this story for the MCU version of Thanos.

Oh, and the comic also implies that Thanos sleeps with rotting female corpses on a regular basis. Because that’s a mental image that comic book readers need in their heads.