Thanos #3

Writer: Jeff Lemire
Artist: Mike Deodato
Publisher: Marvel Comics

About half of Thanos #3 builds the case that Thanos is the meanest, most destructive, most heinous force of nature in the Marvel Universe. He is Thanos the Mad Titan, Thanos the World Killer. He is responsible for more death and carnage than any single being. Those who oppose him, or even stand on the fringes of his forward path, are annihilated.

His reputation as a right bastard has been softened by years of criss-crossing the moral line that defines good and bad deeds. HIs evil reputation is bolstered in this issue by the firsthand accounts of Thanos’s old acquaintances and nemeses. His atrocities are enumerated--he murdered his childhood friends, his family, his planet, and whole galaxies. Their testimony paints the picture of an insane, narcissistic, sadistic serial mass-murderer beyond redemption in the eyes of civilized society. Thanos is the big bad to end all big bads.

These interviews are juxtaposed against a fistfight between Thanos and the Shi’ar Imperial Guard. The Guard caught wind that Thanos was exterminating life on a populated moon in Shi’ar space. Last issue, Thanos learned from his father that his illness was terminal and without cure. In a fit, Thanos ripped his father in half and started extinguishing life on the moon. He made his point, but drew unwanted attention.

The Shi’ar Imperial Guard are not lightweights. We even get to see some of Gladiator, a former member of the heaviest hitting super-team in the Marvel Universe, the Annihilators. This is the type of fight we want to see in a comic book about Thanos. The biggest, toughest badasses in all the universe throwing haymakers at one another.

Jeff Lemire and artist Mike Deodato have completely won me over with the first three issues of this series. Thanos is the worst of the worst again. All he does is put his boot to anthills while trying to save his own life. His terminal illness may make him slightly less powerful, but his desperation and urgency to find a cure make him more deadly.

He faces formidable obstacles at every turn and does not realize that covert hindrances await him as well. As his mission moves along, he draws the attention of more powerful enemies until he is finally punching at his own weight class. Thus far, we’ve seen Thanos’s brute strength. I suspect we’ll soon see his equally impressive guile.

This is everything one could wish for from a Thanos title and it seems to get better with every issue.