"Show Them Who You Are, Thanos of Titan"
To start things off I feel the need to point out that I have literally no exposure to Thanos prior to reading this, aside from the cameo in the Avengers movie. I skimmed through his history on the articles here and on wikipedia, but I've never seen him in action.
I know not everyone is a fan of Simone Bianchi's artwork, but pretty much everyone who IS a fan is a huge fan. You either don't like his work or you absolutely love it, and I absolutely love it.
I found this to be an extremely fascinating and compelling deconstruction of the childhood outcast backstory. Thanos was born EXTREMELY different than the rest of his race, and though it caused his mother to attempt infanticide, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it didn't cause him to be ostracized by the other kids during his childhood. It was refreshing and kind of heartwarming to see how true a utopia this was, where the children are quick to accept and even seek out friendship with someone so different.
But Thanos was destined for cosmic destruction. It wasn't even the mutation that frightened his mother, it was his destiny she could see in his eyes, death. I'm a little confused as to why death just happens to be a kid on Titan while Thanos is a kid, and completely noticeable to everyone, but it makes her manipulations that much more intriguing. She only pushes him so slightly, tilting him gently not towards brainwashing him as much as just setting him up to go through the ordeals that would awaken the death in his eyes. I'm unfamiliar with the specifics of his love for Death, but I was under the impression that it was unreciprocated, but here it's DEFINITELY Death who's infatuated with him.
In Conclusion: 5/5
I was completely enraptured by this story from the moment it began. Bianchi's artwork set such a perfect scene, and I saw some brilliantly altered psychiatry unfold. Thanos' origin very narrowly avoids cliche in such a manner that it's practically pointing out how cleverly it avoids it. The fact that he goes from a kid who wouldn't hurt a fly to what happens at the end needed very little pushing from Death shows the evil that was always inside.
0 Comments