https://www.newsarama.com/22848-jim-...-thanoses.html
Woah! I thought Ewing was the one who came up with the multiple Thanos theory in his Ultimates stories.
A bit of context: Basically the last five-six years starting with Bendis's Avengers Assemble arc and Aaron's Thanos Rising Marvel's been streamlining Thanos to be more of a simplistic, thuggish space villain like Mongul or Despero or Annihilus, so as to synergize with his portrayal in the movies (which ended up being quite different, amusingly enough). the nuances and character development given to him by Starlin were thrown out of the window and his relationship with Death has been simplified.
And even though Starlin still tried to kind of-sort of acknowledge these changes in his OGN trilogy, 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 the Beyonders and God Emperor Doom straight after didn't quite fit timeline-wise, his portrayal of Death (silent hooded figure who doesn't like wanton violence) is also very different with Aaron's portrayal of her (the same one that is used in the last Thanos ongoing series).
So the local continuity fixer Al Ewing decided to explain the contradictions by introducing the idea of two Thanoses in his Ultimates run. Theres the Starlin Thanos who found love with Starlin's lady death in Infinity Finale. And the Thuggish Thanos, the Thanos the editors and the casual fans want, the Thanos as he was used in Avengers Assemble, Thanos Rising, Infinity, Civil War II and the second Thanos ongoing.
...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.
I'm not sure if he literally means three different ones or just how the writing has changed so much the character really doesn't seem to be the same one, because the are the clone shenanigans.
Regardless the breakdown is pretty clear into the different eras, and only the 1st is a beloved character that stood the test of time and ended up having influenced the version on the big screen, despite editors and Writers recent attempts at erasing his stories from continuity.
We need a Morrison's style story with meta commentary where Starlin Thanos meets Thuggish Thanos.