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Thanos Rising #4

Jul 2013
Jason Aaron, Simone Bianchi

Story Name:

(no title given)


Synopsis

Thanos Rising #4 synopsis by Rob Johnson
Rating: 4 stars
We've skipped forward more years in Thanos' early life. Now his single pirate ship has expanded to a fleet which travels from world to world committing genocide. Along the way the Mad Titan has given himself energy projection powers.

On the latest world a survivor tries to kill him but of course fails. He asks why he did this and Thanos replies that it was to win the love of his mystery consort. He advises the bereaved alien to go see the woman in his bedroom on the ship and ask her if the carnage is finally enough. The alien obeys but all he's sees on the bed is a dead female of another species. He reports back to Thanos that the woman said nothing because she's dead. But the Titan kills him before the last word is uttered and says that she said nothing because it's not over. And he sees his 'consort' welcoming him back into the ship.

Back on Titan Mentor is still (years afterwards) mourning at the grave of his wife Sui-San. He still refuses to believe their son Thanos killed her. A'Lars' ascended father Kronos appears to him to once again try to persuade him of the truth and to do something about the butchery his son is committing. He predicts that 1 day Thanos will return to destroy this moon of Saturn, and Mentor must be ready to kill him. If A'Lars won't do something then Kronos *will*.

The mystery woman finds Thanos in his lab creating a large throne (possibly the 1 he teleports around on in later days). She taunts him when he asks how many he must kill before she will be his. She replies that it will be when he no longer needs to ask that question, when he is a god who has the universe in his hands. The Titan objects that he is already a god who can have anything he wants. She counters that he is still afraid of *himself* and the moon of his birth.

The angry Titan calls his guards to throw her in a cell. But they don't know who he's talking about. She laughs at him because he hadn't realised that only *he* can see her. She tells him his men think he's mad for talking to himself, and for taking corpses into his bedchamber and begging them to touch him. She's never told him her name but now she reveals herself as Death, the only thing he's ever loved and the only being who could love him back.

Shocked he blasts her skeletal form but she only asks him for a kiss. He rampages through the ship killing his own men until he reaches the combustion chamber. A loyal follower tries to stop him throwing himself in, but is burned up by the proximity. But then Thanos discovers the 1 thing he can't kill - himself.

Returning to skeletal Death he accuses her of turning him into a monster. She replies that he was born a monster which is why his mother tried to kill him at birth. Death only helped him to realise his destiny. Thanos prepares his fleet to ravage Titan.


 

Review / Commentaries


Thanos Rising #4 Review by (May 21, 2022)
Riccardo Pieruccini helps ink this issue.

Kronos' intention to do something to stop Thanos is a prefiguring of the creation of Drax The Destroyer as 1st seen in Iron Man vol 1 #55. But there and elsewhere Mentor is shown as a willing participant in the creation of a nemesis for his son.

Death is probably also referring ahead to the Infinity Gauntlet event when the Infinity Gems give Thanos control over everything.

In the Cosmic Ghost Rider mini-series CGR kidnaps Thanos as an infant intending to kill him, but relents and puts him back. Death at the end of *that* series suggests that Thanos wasn't born evil but this experience made him so.

There must be a long time between this issue and the attack on Titan next issue because there are other issues to fit in between. Issues where Thanos knows his undetectable companion is Death. The largest such interloper is the Thanos (2019) mini-series which tells the origin of Gamora and spans her pre-teen and teen years. Perhaps in the intervening years her grew his fleet from a collection of pirate ships to a mercenary army.

The creation of his nemesis Drax also fits in this gap.



> Thanos Rising comic book info and issue index

Elektra

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Simone Bianchi
Simone Bianchi
Ive Svorcina
Simone Bianchi (Cover Penciler)
Simone Bianchi (Cover Inker)
Simone Bianchi (Cover Colorist)
Additional Credits
Letterer: Clayton Cowles.
Editor: Steve Wacker. Editor-in-chief: Axel Alonso.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.


Plus: Kronos (Chronos), Mentor (A'Lars).