Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Nebula and her space pirates are aboard Thanos' old flagship Sanctuary when Thanos himself pops in and announces that he's come to claim his ship back. Nebula scoffs that her grandfather is dead but most of the crew used to serve him and believe in a prophecy that he would return from the dead. The Captain orders her lover Geatar to kill the imposter but it is Geatar who appears to die. Then Thanos denies any relationship with Nebula because he has no children, never mind a grandkid, and he sets her on fire with an eye-beam and she runs away screaming. The Titan sends a crewman named Mantrax to make sure she dies, but when he finds her he puts the flames out and takes her somewhere to hide and recuperate.
Thanos promotes 1st Officer Stxy to Captain and gives him some orders. But then his mistress Death summons him to her realm, where her servant Ratter speaks for her as usual. In #34-35 she sent him back to the living to cull half the population of the Universe, which was becoming dangerously overcrowded, and she wants to know why he hasn't done it. Thanos reminds her that she warned him that Silver Surfer might stop him. The Surfer "holds a special position within the celestial balance" (I don't know why) so they can't just kill him. He says he has devised a plan to neutralise the problem, which came to him while staring into Death's Infinity Well.
Meanwhile Surfer is scouring the Cosmos for Thanos. We see him questioning a group of humanoids on an unnamed planet who thought the Mad Titan was dead, and aren't happy to hear otherwise. They promise to contact Norrin Radd via Mentor of Titan if they hear anything. But as he leaves the planet a giant hologram of his foe's head who tells him he's on the planet Pyraxlon and awaits Surfer there for a reckoning. But he'd better hurry if he wants to save the planet.
SS suspects a trap but zooms off to the scientifically advanced world, which seems to be covered in a city powered by geothermal energy. He suspects Thanos intends to cause a thermal overload to wipe out half the planet's population. (As he did in #36 when he tricked Norrin into infecting another planet with Earth germs.) Now his musing lets us know that in that issue he memorised the energy signature of the villain's teleporting 'throne', and now he detects it. He zooms down to face his enemy but Thanos gloats that he *expected* SS to track him by this method.
Surfer attacks with blasts of the Power Cosmic but Thanos' shields easily dispel them. Then his chair 'ports to behind the hero and Thanos blasts *him*, to more effect. And then is gone again before Norrin can strike back. SS tracks the chair again and this time intends to disable it to prevent further escapes or sneak attacks. But when he reaches him we see the Titan uncharacteristically confused, pleading and weeping. But Surfer strikes and the throne explodes, with a greater force than he expected. When Radd power-shrugs free of the rubble he finds Thanos reduced to a skeleton. Surfer creates a box to enclose the remains and take them back to Thanos' father Mentor.
However when he's gone the real Thanos and throne reveal themselves. The Titan breaks the 4th wall to ask the reader not to tell Norrin he's alive. The 'Thanos' who died was actually Geatar (who Thanos presumably didn't completely kill earlier), and Styx had followed orders to surgically alter him to be Thanos' duplicate. Surfer should be fooled long enough for Thanos to gain the power he needs to become unstoppable. (Which we will experience in the 2-part Thanos Quest.)