By Jason Aaron & Simone Bianchi (Marvel Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-543-7

In the wake of the epochal Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company’s entire continuity was reconfigured as a jumping on point for new and returning readers. From that point on the banner MarvelNOW! indicated a radical repositioning and recasting of all the characters in an undertaking designed to keep the superhero universe an inviting, interesting place to visit.

This involved a varying degree of drastic rethink for beloved icons, concepts and brands, always, of course, with one wary eye on how the material would look on a movie screen…

Thus in advance of the forthcoming comics event Infinity and his own movie debut, the renegade Mad Titan Thanos got his own tell-all 5-issue miniseries (running from April to August 2013) collected here as a brooding, moody and extremely gory chronicle of rejection, depravity, insanity and death.

Lots and lots of death…

Thanos first appeared in Iron Man #55, as did his nemesis Drax the Destroyer, in the prelude to an epic campaign of conquest from 1972-1974 which appeared in Captain Marvel #25-33 with side skirmishes in Marvel Feature #12 and  Avengers #125 plus a few issues of Daredevil. The alien “Masterlord” seemed obsessed with conquest and destruction; using an army of space pirates, a coterie of super-villains and the wish-fulfilling Cosmic Cube to attain his ends.

In the end Thanos transformed himself into God and was revealed to be in love with the personification of Death herself. Only a cosmic entity who had awaited his emergence for eight billion years eventually turned the tide of terror.

This tale was a key event in Marvel history, innovative and still deeply thrilling on a raw, visceral instinctual level. Thanos, the death-obsessed master-villain, was a critical and commercial success in all his appearances: battles with Captain Marvel, the Avengers, the Thing and Spider-Man, whilst his destruction at the hands of the agent of Universal Life Adam Warlock was an absolute highpoint in superhero storytelling.

Thanos died but was of course brought back from The Great Beyond to resume redressing the imbalance between the Living and the Dead to please his mistress. He also worked hard fulfilling equally dark and deranged agendas of his own – such as waging an all-out war for hands-on control Reality and becoming the Supreme Being…

Scripted by Jason Aaron and beautifully illustrated by Simone Bianchi, this fearsome glance into the formative years of the Scourge of Life begins amidst the shattered ruins of Titan where Thanos regularly returns to cogitate amongst the fragments of his earliest atrocities.

The moon of Saturn had been home to an offshoot race of Eternals for millennia when the boy was born to saviour, supreme scientist and leader A’Lars and his wife Sui-San. The babe was born disfigured, a mutant amongst a population of perfect people. However it was the chilling look in the child’s eyes and not his deformities which prompted the exhausted mother to try and kill him the moment she first held him…

With Sui-San under permanent medical restraint, the freak grew up lonely but not outcast – although something in him made all the other kids uncomfortable. Eager to please and fit in, young Thanos exhibited great scientific aptitude but only ever really had one friend, a girl who constantly challenged him to greater and more incisive enquires – especially biology…

To tell more would ruin some delightfully dark passages and spoil an extremely engaging reconstruction of the Cosmic Destroyer as he transitions from comicbook mad dictator into that most popular of modern monsters, the serial psycho-killer.

Suffice to say that the saga of how Thanos leaves home, destroys home, becomes a pirate and sires an army of children before at last discovering his true vocation and destiny is a most intriguing and plausible journey: one that will impress contemporary readers and most die-hard fans alike.

Also included are pages of extra content for tech-minded consumers via the AR icon option (a printed portal providing code for free digital copy on Marvel Comics app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices and Marvel Digital Comics Shop: a special augmented reality content available exclusive through the Marvel AR app which includes trailers, character bios, video commentaries and more) as well as a good-old-fashioned cover-and-variants gallery by Bianchi, Marko Djurdjevic, Carlo Barberi, Mark Brooks, Skottie Young, Ed McGuiness & Mike Deodato Jr.

™ & © 2013 Marvel. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.