After all, there is a reason he is known as the Mad Titan. Thanos is one of the most well-known supervillains to have ever appeared in Marvel Comics. He debuted in The Invincible Iron Man issue #55 in 1973 and has been a staple of the comic book company’s Villains Pantheon since then. He was created by writer-artist Jim Starlin.
He is been at the center of significant cross-over tales involving Marvel’s super-groups for over 50 years, from chasing the Avengers in a rad helicopter to becoming the very essence of the Multiverse itself. In other representations, he is portrayed as a delusional despot who is convinced of his noble mission and search for the Ultimate Prize. In others, he is a cold-blooded conqueror who is become oblivious to Death’s very existence.
His influence is so enduring that the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s decade-long box office dominance in the form of the Infinity Saga was inspired by him. Whereas Kevin Feige’s Thanos was a “strong-willed rationalist” whose beginnings were unknown, Jason Aaron and Simone Bianchi’s 2006 mini-series Thanos Rising gives us a glimpse into the mind of the Destroyer, and it is downright terrifying. Thanos’ genesis narrative is nasty and intimate, and it includes some gruesome murders. Let us go exploring!
The Cursed Son of A’lars: Thanos the Abomination
Every solar cycle, a solitary being wanders the ruins of the once-proud city that sat on Saturn’s largest moon. Titan was a utopia. A city built by (and for) the Celestial-created, borderline-divine beings known as the Eternals. It was a place of illumination and enlightenment, of knowledge and peace, of science and life.
Titan was, for all intents and purposes, a paradise. Until the day its Destroyer was born upon its very soil. Everything was wrong with the circumstances of the Mad Titan’s birth. The labor lasted too long. It hurt too much. And worst of all; the baby wasn’t crying upon birth. All these signs point towards a rather tragic pregnancy complication which is usually survived by only one party.
Yet somehow, the results of this childbirth would be far more devastating than a stillborn baby. For you see, Thanos was born an abomination. As an Eternal-Deviant hybrid, he was already marked to be his generation’s outcast at best; at his worst, Thanos’ inherent savagery would put Titan at the risk of being destroyed by one of its own.
Alas, ever the scientific curiosa, hailed his child as a perfectly healthy result of evolution. Sui-San was more realistic; even though she had given birth to him, she saw something within her offspring’s eyes that made her sanity snap like a twig. She tried to kill him with a scalpel then and there; had A’lars and the doctors not intervened, Titan might still have children roaming its streets.
Thanos grew up an intellectual, just like his father, though he was a major shut-in as a teenager. Alarms would be absorbed in his own work, oblivious to his son’s obvious need for human interaction; and perhaps, even affection. Thanos was a genius, he was eloquent, he was courteous; and most of all, he was gentle.
Thanos was curious and caring. He wanted to discover the cause of his mutation. He would visit his mother at the hospital and talk to her about his dreams; however prescient/ominous they might have been. He even made friends, something that would have been impossible for a “monster” to do. Where most Eternals don’t hesitate in the name of science, Thanos saw simple dissection as a desecration of life.
So great was his pacifism that he vomited after seeing a dissection being performed for the first time. Luckily, he had a companion who was willing to encourage him to “do what needed to be done”. She guided him to a cave that was forbidden to the people of Titan, and told him that to find his resolve, he would have to enter that cave. For three days Thanos was trapped in that rocky hellscape, surviving only because of his mutated genes.
When he finally found the surface, he was hoping to find his friends safe and sound; instead, he was greeted by their half-devoured corpses. Decades later, the denizens of Titan would state that this is where his madness began. A dejected Thanos returned to civilization the sole survivor, brimming with grief; and something way more malevolent.
As he sulked with the very lizard whose kind ate his closest friends, his companion returned to him once again. She brought Thanos out of his silly little moping episode and showed him the truth of things; if he truly loved his friends, he would let nothing hold him back. That night, Thanos journeyed to those caves again, with his companion by his side.
He told her to look away, but she didn’t care; she already knew what he was about to do, and she wanted to watch him embrace his destiny. An Eternal does not take a life if they can avoid it. They celebrate life as a general rule of thumb, and there had been no murders on Titan in its entire history. Armed with the same scalpel that once reviled him, Thanos exacted his revenge upon the nest of flesh-eating lizards with cold-blooded precision. As he did this, his companion watched him go to work and smiled as she always had; and always would.
From Musing to Matricide: the Emergence of the Mad Titan
Where he couldn’t stand the sight of a living thing being opened alive, Thanos was now able to dissect live specimens and deduce their entire life history with terrifying speed and efficiency. By the age of 12, Thanos had explored all of Titan. He walked upon the burning core of Saturn at 13, and by the time he was 15, the Mad Titan had mapped out thousands of galaxies beyond his own. But none of his scientific pursuits answered his ultimate question: Why was he the way he was?
His studies had taken a decidedly morbid turn. Thanos had graduated from slicing open green tails and ice rats; his secret lab was like a snapshot from the nastiest gore-fest that a grindhouse can offer. He had gutted everything imaginable- including a gargantuan Cave Ape- in an attempt to understand himself better, but life presented no answers to him. For all his strength and intelligence, Thanos of Titan could not solve the one mystery upon which his entire life rested. So he decided to open up things closest to his own anatomy.
In the eons that Titan had existed, there had been no crimes of passion, no executions, no acts of war; murder didn’t exist in their society until Thanos invented it. When he set upon a mating couple and abducted them for his studies, he told them that he would remember that moment forever. But then his mother came home, and suddenly, young Thanos found himself at a crossroads. He had told himself he didn’t enjoy killing.
He truly believed that he was a scientist in search of the truth; the blood he had spilled was the price he had to pay for hidden knowledge. That’s what he told his companion, too, as she helped him dig the first graves dedicated to homicide victims on Titan. Something about the way his mother told him she knew what he was had disturbed him deeply, and he decided that from that day forth, Thanos of Titan shall kill no more.
Two weeks later, he found himself at the same spot, agreeing with his companion where he had vehemently denied her accusations before; he didn’t kill for deeper understanding, he did it because he enjoyed it. As usual, she empathized with him entirely and was the only person since his early childhood who had even begun to understand him.
Swept up in a wave of emotion, Thanos begs her to hold him and give him the love he has always been denied; but she berates him, tells him he is a child yet and informs him that he has already found the only thing he will ever truly love. Thanos quietly continues digging graves he was responsible for creating and returns to his gloomy abode to seal his murderous fate. The Eternals are a race of beings that have no need of surgical tools- or torture, for that matter. And yet Thanos had invented them from his own imagination.
He had killed 17 people- boys, girls, and a couple of professors- and while he kept telling himself it was for science, he knew what really drove him to kill. The only time Thanos of Titan ever felt alive and truly seen, was when he was spilling the blood of another living creature. It took him a while to come to terms with his monstrous nature, but he finally understood what his childhood dreams were trying to tell him.
For 4 years, Thanos dreamt 2 distinct things; a scalpel trying to end his life mere moments after his birth, and that very scalpel taking the life of his would-be murderer. And now, as he stood over his bound-and-gagged mother, Thanos felt that he could truly understand what he was.
He told her of his studies and reasoned that if he could just rip out whatever caused his mutation from his mother, he would no longer be a monster. Alas, that is exactly what he would turn into, in addition to becoming a kingslayer before reaching full adulthood.
Till Death Do Them Apart: The Greatest Love of Thanos’ life
When Sui-San died, everyone on Titan knew who did it. Thanos left his homeworld immediately after and escaped to the outer rim of the galaxy, where life was cheap and the law was scarce. During his self-imposed exile, the Titan discovered a new perspective on things. Where he had only taken lives so far, Thanos created a life for the first time. Having found himself a wife during his journey, for the first time in his life, the Son of A’lars had to contend with the fact that he had a son of his own.
He’d hoped that marriage and parenthood would be able to fill up the emotional void that ate away at his very soul. But after sleeping with countless women, and siring children upon most of them, Thanos found that he had grown incredibly bored of his exploits. He joined a pirate spaceship known as the Horkos in an attempt to give his listless existence some meaning. Thanks to him, the piece of junk sang like a bird and the crew managed to become notorious in galaxies all over, as one of the most-dangerous space pirates in the universe.
Though Thanos’ genius kept his comrades alive and allowed them to indulge their whims however they wished, he never took a direct hand in it. Killing is something he had left behind. He thought that by repeating the cycle of promiscuity and plunder enough times, he would eventually start to feel something at the very least.
Fate took a look at the broken Titan and laughed its harshest laughter. Nothing Thanos ever did was enough to plug the hole inside him, and that was when he mused about her. He tried not to think about his former companion too much; she was the only one who seemed to really understand him, and while his love for her was irrational, it was the only real emotion he had ever felt.
Thanos would kill to be with her again; and even though he deceived himself into thinking otherwise, his inner demons had already made his decision for him. Upon being informed that the captain who had prospered immensely from his intellect wanted to end his life, Thanos accepted his fate with closed eyes and a peaceful smile. At least in Death, all his questions would be answered.
But as he waited for the sword to strike the final blow, something happened. When he opened his eyes again, his captain lay in the dirt missing both arms and a spine. Thanos of Titan was born again that day, and his rebirth was christened with blood. Taking over the crew of the Horkos, he returned to Titan to meet the woman he had always wanted. She played coy with him, teasing him about his “alien harlots” and bastards that littered the galaxies like stars.
The Son of A’lars appealed to his Mistress once again, telling her that she was the only one who had ever made him feel the pain of love and the burning passion of desire. This time, she didn’t spurn him; instead, she asked him what he was willing to do in order to make her his bride. And when Thanos confessed that he would do anything in his power to have her, she set him on the path that would make entire universes fear his name.
To prove his loyalty to her, Thanos must sever his past; all of it. After killing one of his former lovers and children in cold blood, he asks his mistress if that is enough. She simply asks one question; “Is that all of them?” That question would serve as the catalyst for the first wave of mass murders that would eventually earn Thanos the reputation of being the Mad Titan. But he was okay with that; as far as he was concerned, every life he took was for love. And what is Death, if not the greatest love of Thanos’ life?
The Last Straw: Thanos Finally Embraces His Madness
As he lay waste to yet another helpless planet with his pirate crew, Thanos of Titan wondered when mass murder began feeling so dull. He had combined his genius with his bloodlust to create energy projection weapons that would allow him to disintegrate opponents at his whim. But without breaking bones, spilling innards, and flowing blood, it looked like killing had lost all its charm for the Mad Titan.
No one knew how many people Thanos had slaughtered; least of all him. He had stopped keeping count after he killed off his last lover and her offspring. His men had never been taught how to count that high anyway. During this particular raid, he was approached by yet another frenzied native who tried to kill the man ravaging his homeworld.
He asked him a question he had become quite adept at answering; why was Thanos doing all of this? The Son of A’lars used his scientific background to explain that he had followed the principle of random selection to the T; the Mad Titan added that he did it all for love. Understandably confused, the survivor asked Thanos who exactly would want him to commit genocide on an intergalactic scale just as a method of courtship.
The Mad Titan invited him to see for himself. What he saw wasn’t Thanos’ constant companion; all he saw was the reason for his madness, and he didn’t live long enough to tell the tale. In the aftermath of his recent conquest, Thanos was found arguing with his Mistress in his lab, as usual, demanding that she tell him how long he had to continue on his path. Once again, she told him that nothing he had done so far was enough.
She would only be his when he transcended limitations and stopped asking how many lives were enough for her to be his. An enraged Thanos asks his guards to lock her up in a cell and treat her with contempt to teach her humility; but to his horror, they simply ask, “Who?” It is revealed that the one person who understood Thanos since his childhood, the one who encouraged him to embrace his destiny, the one who had made him fall hopelessly in love with her, was none other than Death Herself.
Every conversation Thanos had ever had with her had only been intimated to the two of them; for the rest of the world, he might as well have been talking to thin air. Every time the Mad Titan thought he was begging his lover to hold him and give him the touch and affection he so craved, he was talking to a rotting corpse.
With his sanity now having been dissolved in the acid of delusion and toxic love, there was only one thing he could do. Thanos began taking his ship apart, blasting anything that entered his sight in an attempt to end the torture he had endured for years beyond measure. But he finally found the one thing he loved more than Death; himself.
The Mad Titan couldn’t go through with the act of killing himself. Realizing that he had sealed his destiny with his own actions, Thanos of Titan made two decisions that day; if Death didn’t come willingly to him, he would take her, and he would do anything to achieve his goal. With that thought, he told his crew to set course for his homeworld; and to ready the bombs for some indiscriminate violence.
Titan’s Armageddon: Thanos Finally Comes Home
For all the time he spent roaming the stars, Thanos rarely thought of his homeworld. He would have flashes of the night he last saw his mother, but that was the only “attachment” he had left to Titan. And now, as every ship in his armada unloaded its payload on Saturn’s largest moon, there was but one thing he could think of. Everyone on Titan knew the identity of their reckoning the moment the ships entered within firing range.
But this was not going to be a raid like the countless others that had been carried out in the name of the Destroyer. Titan was for Thanos to kill. He ordered his men to sheathe their weapons, return to their quarters, and wait; wait, till he was done cleansing the very earth upon which he was born, and bathing it in the blood of innocents. It didn’t take him a long while to accomplish his goal.
After putting thousands to rest and leaving Titan in ruins, Thanos was finally prepared to take what he had always wanted when he was confronted with the last vestiges of his previous humanity. Though he thought he had killed everyone, Thanos missed one person; his father A’lars. The Mad Titan did not hesitate in attempting to kill him, and actually expressed amusement at his blindness.
All these years, A’lars had avoided a genocide-happy maniac that was growing right underneath his nose; and his ignorance had come back to bite him. Thanos could care less about his deadbeat father; after killing him, he would get the Ultimate Prize, after all. Death would fulfill her promise and become his bride for all eternity. But while Thanos argued with his ever-deceitful paramour, his father revealed to him something that leave him changed for good. A’lars was called Titan’s Mentor for a reason.
He had built the settlement from scratch and overseen its progress for 5,000 years. He was one of the leading scientists in the universe and had created devices capable of measuring things most sentient life didn’t even know existed. He used one of his creations to show his son that the bride he was talking about; wasn’t real. A’lars’ device could detect an entity’s energy signature across all universes and dimensions.
If there were, indeed, a personification of Death that was guiding Thanos on his genocidal campaign, it would have shown up on his screens. Instead, all that the machine showed was a concerned father and his oh-so-misguided son. If people thought him stone-hearted so far, it would be nothing compared to what was to come.
In his rage, Thanos cursed his father to live; and bear witness to the defilement his son will cause across the cosmos. He also abandoned the Woman, who started all of this; who had been with him since his birth and would be with him till his last day. Death finally gave Thanos what he had been asking for, and finally embraced the Mad Titan. But her cold kiss and his father’s words made him realize that the only thing he had ever loved- and that was responsible for all his horrid actions- was something else entirely.
Every solar cycle, a solitary being wanders the ruins of the once-proud city that sat on Saturn’s largest moon. Thanos, the Destroyer of Titan, comes home not to gloat over his success, or his conquests, or even seek out his former lover.
No matter how much Death might beg him for one last kiss, Thanos returns to his homeworld for one reason only; and that is to remind himself that everything he has done, all the lives he has taken and the planets he has destroyed, everything that defines who he is today, he did for himself. Thanos of Titan was cursed with a burden more bothersome than a cosmic gauntlet; for everything he did and will do, he was, is, and always will be, alone.
In Conclusion
While Thanos’ origin story is familiar to most of us, we personally think that Jason Aaron and Simone Bianchi have given us the best version yet. Admittedly, it doesn’t focus enough on his familial relationships; his mother appears in two issues, his father is the stereotypical detached parent, and Eros Starfox is only mentioned by name. Believe us, Thanos’ issues with his family-run way deeper than Thanos Rising made it seem.
But apart from that, it is one of the most psychologically-disturbing Marvel Comics origin stories we have read in quite a while. Thanos is in love with Death, and his courtship of her isn’t new for Marvel fans; what is, is the fact that it could just have been a delusion all along. Up until issue #4, things seemed relatively straightforward, however macabre they might have been. But when A’lars revealed that there was no one but he and Thanos in the room, it marked a pivotal shift in the tone of the mini-series.
So far, Thanos had been doing what needed to be done to get what he wanted. He never hesitated before taking the life that he himself had created, just to appease his lady. The very idea that she was just a figment of his imagination gives a whole new meaning to Thanos’ moniker of the Mad Titan. If that were to be true, then everything he has ever done holds no basis; aside from the fact that he now holds sole responsibility for those actions.
Thanos Rising isn’t a perfect read and could have fleshed outside plots and external elements a bit more to round out the entire narrative. But what it lacks in organization, it more than makes up for with its dialogue-work. Jason Aaron managed to make a genocidal tyrant look like the softest little pug for half an issue; that is not a mean feat.
His expert understanding of Thanos’ character and its legacy lent itself to the story and made for a truly spine-shivering experience. If you somehow weren’t sold on the idea that Thanos is a complete nut-case, then you should read through all 5 issues of this mini-series ASAP. And then we’ll see if what the Son of A’lars truly wants is a perfect balance or endless chaos.