Thanos’ exploits in the service of Death have made him a formidable opponent and a scourge of the universe, whose name sends a shiver down the spines of even the Godliest of heroes. At the start of Donny Cates’ Thor series, the God of Thunder saw his end at the hands of Thanos in a premonition. With the Mad Titan lost in the timestream when Druig usurped the throne of the Prime Eternals from him, there is still time to explore his past to find a way to prevent a terrible future. Thanos: Death Notes #1 from Marvel Comics features stories from Torunn Grønbekk, Christopher Cantwell, and others, with artwork from the likes of Andrea Di Vito, Geoff Shaw, and Israel Silva and letters from VC’s Travis Lanham.
Thanos: Death Notes #1 is an anthology of stories showing Thanos’ past in a new light, sometimes from the perspective of other characters and other times. Thor begins the journey on the doomed planet of Titan, Thanos’ homeworld, and finds A’Lars’ laboratory. A’Lars kept track of his son during his murderous campaigns, conducting experiments and compiling data to find a cure for his son’s deviant gene that he thought contributed to his bloodlust. As Thor goes through the cataloged data, he finds that Thanos has added a footnote to his father’s files, offering the Thunder God a rare chance to peer into the mind of a madman.
Torunn Grønbekk and Andrea Di Vito set off the search for Thanos’ past from Thor’s perspective. The main narrative follows up on the Mad Titan’s first appearance in the comics. Christopher Cantwell takes charge of the storyline here, proceeding with a long brooding conversation between Iron Man and a robotic version of Thanos. The story, although simple in its execution, aptly shows the cold, calculated nature of the mass murderer. However, the lack of details in Foreman’s artwork makes for generic-looking backgrounds until the visuals build up to a shocking climax.
The horrors of Thanos’ sadism segue into the next segment, inked masterfully by Geoff Shaw. The overlapping shadows create an underlying tension as J. Michael Straczynski shows a different side to Thanos in a riveting romantic tragedy. A set-in-stone moment that seals the Titan’s fate, the character takes the wrong lessons from his past. Yet, the story has undeniable emotions that not even the hardened warmonger can deny. “The Bar At The End of The Line” by Kyle Starks is an offbeat tale that dispels any form of ambiguity from the character. Rather than building up to an enigmatic climax, the narrative depicts just another day in Thanos’ life amongst the mortals, nothing that readers haven’t seen already. The artwork from Ron Lim and Israel Silva is cartoonish in its approach, trying to match the comedic timings of the writing.
Thanos: Death Notes #1 is full of foreboding as writer Torunn Grønbekk takes the reins of Thor’s saga from Thor #29 in a new adventure that will connect all the dots. But, for the time being, Thanos and his agenda take center stage. The filler issue does its best to portray every facet of the character in an impartial light, showing Thor exactly why he should be afraid of the Titan when and if the future he fears ever comes to pass.
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