Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Thanos and his war fleet bomb Titan. Thanos sits on the throne he was building last issue as Death (invisible to everyone else) applauds him. He descends with his consort (in the form of a living woman again) to the surface and personally despatches the survivors. Then he claims Death's love. But she points out that his father Mentor is still alive.
Father confronts son with the only gun on the moon of Saturn. But the pacifist can't pull the trigger on his son, even though he knows (after years of denial) that Thanos killed his own mother Sui-San. Thanos grabs the gun and turns it on his own head, but it doesn't harm him.
Then he uses his personal blasting power to knock Mentor through a wall into his laboratory, which is he thinks a fitting place for the father to witness his son's wedding to Death. A'Lars of course can't see the woman and now realises that the Mad Titan has gone on a genocidal spree for love of a phantom who doesn't exist. And he uses all the scanning devices at his disposal to prove it to his son. Death of course reminds Thanos that she's invisible to all but him, while Mentor claims that his science can detect beings from any plane of existence. The 'woman' is a figment of his imagination, and Thanos only loves himself. Death repeats her promise to love Thanos forever if he kills his father. Thanos blasts A'Lars again but leaves him alive to witness his son continuing to ravage the cosmos. As the villain leaves, Mentor calls to his father Kronos (ascended to godhood) and asks him to kill Thanos.
Now it is Death's turn to have to pursue Thanos, saying surely he doesn't believe his father's lies. Thanos questions whether he is indeed as mad as they say. Death at last consents to kiss him. But he finds her kiss cold and it does nothing to content him. So he walks away and leaves her.
Now we return to the present day of the beginning of #1 where Thanos was paying an annual visit to the ruins of Titan and his mother's grave. Death comes to him in a corpse form, and this time it is she who is begging for love. But the Titan walks away again, forever alone.