Reviewer: Jesse Baker
Story Title: The Thanos Quest
Written by: Jim Starlin
Penciled by: Ron Lim
Inked by: John Beatty
Colored by: Tom Vincent
Lettered by: Ken Bruzenbak
Editor: Craig Anderson
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Originally published in 1990 and later collected in a single giant-sized special in early 2000, “The Thanos Quest” was Jim Starlin taking the Thanos character into his very first solo adventure. The mini-series features Thanos’s quest to steal the six soul gems from the Elders of the Universe and recreate the dreaded Infinity Gauntlet.
At it’s heart, “The Thanos Quest” is your typical “Evil Villain Versus Evil Villain” story. Thanos is a genocidal worshipper of death and the Elders of the Universe are a bunch of obnoxious jerks who use the soul gems for petty, selfish reasons, so there are no outright heroes in this story. Thanos goes about robbing the various Elders in creative fashion while preparing to use the might of the Infinity Gauntlet to destroy half of the universe as a tribute to Death.
The artwork by Ron Lim is great and he does an excellent job at portraying the various parts of the cosmos that Thanos must travel to in search of the immortal Elders. Starlin does a great job portraying Thanos as a scheming bastard you can’t help but love. The ending is particularly well-written as Thanos, fresh from his triumpth and basking in his new-found Godlike power, finds himself rejected by Mistress Death on the grounds that the cosmic entity that represent the concept of death is beneath Thanos now that he has been elevated to the level of supreme being of all existence via the power of the Infinity Gauntlet.
