The Thanos Quest #1-2

The Thanos Quest #1-2

Originally released in 1990

Written by Jim Starlin

Art by Ron Lim

Cosmic storylines tend to be a blind spot for me, for both Marvel and DC.  I have read the Infinity Gauntlet story, though, and this two-part comic serves as a prequel to it, explaining how Thanos got the Infinity Gems in the first place.  Tasked by the woman of his dreams, Death, to kill half of the life in the universe, Thanos seeks out the Soul Gems (which he renames the Infinity Gems upon discovering their true purpose) to take them from the Elders of the Universe (and the In-Betweener, an agent of order and chaos) in order to speed up the process.

Out of the comics that I've read for this blog, this was the first one that had me questioning how I should credit the people behind the artwork of a book.  The penciler, Ron Lim, does a great job (the layout of the panels does a great job with building up suspense, and the ultimate fate of the Gardener, one of the Elders, is a disturbing one), but the inking (by John Beatty) and colouring (by Tom Vincent) helps to make these alien worlds and twisted realities shine, particularly when Thanos gets his hands on the Reality Gem.

As the title would suggest, Thanos is the focus of this story, with the narration consisting of his internal monologue.  His opponents have the Infinity Gems, which would theoretically make him the underdog in this story, but he's the only one who's aware of the true nature of the stones - the Elders of the Universe (and the In-Betweener) are either completely unaware of how to use them or only use them subconsciously.  This gives him an advantage that only grows as he gathers more and more of the gems.  However, he's not in complete control throughout the story - there are times where he is caught off-guard or has to think on his feet, though he still gets some "all according to plan" moments as he manipulates the godlike beings who hold the objects of his desire.

These issues do a good job at establishing how dangerous the Infinity Gems would be the hands of anyone, let alone a death-worshiping madman like Thanos, and help to establish Thanos's state of mind going into the Infinity Gauntlet storyline.  After the Earth-based stories of the past few days, a space-focused storyline was refreshing, particularly when it came to visuals, so I'll keep cosmic stories in mind (such as Annihilation for Marvel, or something Green Lantern-related for DC) for the future.