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Thanos: A God Up There Listening #1: Review

Oct 2014
Rob Williams, Iban Coello

Story Name:

Thanos: A god up there listening : Part 1 of 4


Synopsis

Thanos: A God Up There Listening #1 Synopsis by Rob Johnson
Much of this series will be a flashback to an early exploit of Thanos, but that doesn't begin until the last pages of this issue. This issue mainly concerns the present day part of this series starring Thanos' son Thane. And first of all it has to tell us a whole load of backstory.

In the Thanos Rising mini-series we learned that Thanos sired many children to alien women, and then killed them all at Death's urging. The Infinity series/event told us that the Titan later learned he'd missed 1 boy, and he then outdid King Herod by scouring the galaxy killing all males of a certain age. Eventually it turned out that it was Thane, an Inhuman healer on Earth. Thane had not yet been subjected to Terrigenesis until the Terrigen Bomb was unleashed during Infinity. This transformed him from a healer into a source of death which killed all the life around him in the city of Orollan. Ebony Maw of Thanos' Black Order found him and gave him a suit to control his powers. Now his left hand deals death and his right hand encases things in amber. At the end of Infinity Thane trapped Thanos and Proxima Midnight in amber.

Now ever self-serving Ebony Maw transfers his allegiance from father to son and offers to teach him about Thanos by taking him to his father's living biography. Thane is glad to leave the ruins of his home. They fly from Earth in Maw's spacecraft but are attacked on the way SWORD forces. Maw evades them by activating the ship's cloaking device.

Eventually they arrive at the planet Malady whose atmosphere is alcoholic. Thane wears a breathing mask to stay sober. Ebony is unaffected but is also invisible. They approach Sclerosis Syd's bar looking for an alien called Trynka. The bouncers won't let Thane in because they think he's already too drunk (because he's talking to an invisible companion). Maw stops him from attacking them and uses his power of persuasion by whispering in their ears that Thane is son of Thanos. They immediately back off in fear.

Inside (as the word Thanos spreads through the clientele) they locate Trynka who's well drunk. Ebony explains that Thanos knew nothing of this biography because *he* secretly arranged it. The DNA of Trynka's race can record events so that you can relive them via telepathy. When they accost him the living biography recoils in fear and starts babbling about death, rage and ego. It turns out he's talking about an encounter some years ago between Thanos and Ego The Living Planet.

And we see Thanos' fleet approaching the Planet and the Titan gives the order to annihilate Ego.


 

Review / Commentaries

Rating:
4 stars

Thanos: A God Up There Listening #1 Review by (June 25, 2022)
I'm basing these synopses on the 4-issue paper reprint, not the 6-issue online original. The paper version was published weekly in October 2014.

Layouts for this issue by Daniel Govar, Geoffo and Mast (the last 2 did the layouts for the online version?)

SWORD is an agency designed to protect Earth from alien threats. It was initially a division of SHIELD but has gradually become more autonomous.

The present day action is obviously set just after the Infinity event.

I'll locate the flashback in time when we know more about it next issue.



> Thanos: A God Up There Listening comic book info and issue index

Elektra

Excelsioring your collection:
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Holy smokes, Batman!
(The Boy Wonder)

Iban Coello
Iban Coello
Andres Mossa
Dustin Nguyen (Cover Penciler)
Dustin Nguyen (Cover Inker)
Dustin Nguyen (Cover Colorist)
Additional Credits
Letterer: Clayton Cowles.
Editor: Wil Moss. Editor-in-chief: Axel Alonso.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.