shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Aug 16, 2016 9:14:40 GMT -5
Personally, I think that's what made Thanos fascinating. Every other would-be conqueror is thwarted at the last minute. Thanos was an exploration of what would happen if the good guys couldn't stop him. Thanos undoing himself may seem like a cop out, but when you stop to consider it, what would any mortal do with all that power? They'd probably existentially crap themselves and do the exact same thing. I don't know that this makes Thanos a Mary Sue. He's smarter than everyone else, and (as a result of this) ultimately more powerful than everyone else, but in the end, he's just as sad and incomplete as the rest of us, if not moreso. Both the end of Thanos Quest and Infinity Gauntlet make this painfully clear. Smarter than everyone else; more powerful than everyone else; completely unbeatable. Sounds like a Mary Sue to me. Surely if the good guys couldn't stop him, he would just kill everything in the universe? That is his stated goal, after all, and if he is so much smarter and more powerful than everyone else, and completely unbeatable. what else is he going to do? But different strokes for different folks, I guess. What you find 'fascinating', I find insufferable. It's not a Mary Sue because he doesn't get what he wants. He's deeply flawed on the inside even while he's unstoppable on the outside, and that's the monster he cannot defeat. That doesn't sound like a Mary Sue to me at all. it sounds like a brilliant inversion of the cliche arch-villain. Thanos Saga ends with him crying. Infinity Gauntlet ends with him reflecting in humility. |
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Post by foxley on Aug 16, 2016 17:18:48 GMT -5
Smarter than everyone else; more powerful than everyone else; completely unbeatable. Sounds like a Mary Sue to me. Surely if the good guys couldn't stop him, he would just kill everything in the universe? That is his stated goal, after all, and if he is so much smarter and more powerful than everyone else, and completely unbeatable. what else is he going to do? But different strokes for different folks, I guess. What you find 'fascinating', I find insufferable. It's not a Mary Sue because he doesn't get what he wants. He's deeply flawed on the inside even while he's unstoppable on the outside, and that's the monster he cannot defeat. That doesn't sound like a Mary Sue to me at all. it sounds like a brilliant inversion of the cliche arch-villain. Thanos Saga ends with him crying. Infinity Gauntlet ends with him reflecting in humility. As I've already said, I do not find the character interesting so I am biased, but does not the need to have Thanos 'undo' himself lend a certain saneness to the stories, i.e. for X issues Thanos will effortlessly knock around the most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe, only to decide in the last issue that he will not go through with his evil scheme? Makes we wonder why the heroes bother fighting him. After all, they can't beat him and they should know by now that if they wait long enough then he'll just give up. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Aug 16, 2016 17:24:23 GMT -5
does not the need to have Thanos 'undo' himself lend a certain saneness to the stories Yes. Desperation and heroism combined, I suspect. But yeah, the action in these stories isn't really compelling because you know action isn't going to be what stops him in the end. In a way, I think Thanos' story would have worked better as a novel, free to spend more time in his mind and less trying to draw out monthly battles. |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Aug 16, 2016 18:58:19 GMT -5
Fascinating reviews, Shaxper. Thanos Quest and Infinity Gauntlet (and Starlin's Surfer run) came out at the zenith of my comic collecting days and I adored this stuff at the time. I also liked Starlin's Surfer, even though his purpose for writing the series was clearly to set up the Thanos story he wanted to tell. The Surfer's origin issue that you mentioned did more for the Surfer's character, and certainly explored more, than all the accumulated stories prior.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Aug 16, 2016 19:13:57 GMT -5
I also liked Starlin's Surfer, even though his purpose for writing the series was clearly to set up the Thanos story he wanted to tell. The Surfer's origin issue that you mentioned did more for the Surfer's character, and certainly explored more, than all the accumulated stories prior. Starlin seems to have a thing for making an established character that he inherits thoroughly unlikable in a way that makes sense for who they are, then giving the character a major encounter that "fixes" their personality, allowing Starlin to produce a character that is, essentially, all his own. He did this with Captain Marvel when Eon came around, he did it with Warlock when he returned in the pages of Silver Surfer, he did it with Surfer here, and you can even tell he was trying to do this with Batman when he made the move to DC, but someone stopped him. He then went on to do the same thing with Jason Todd, except that, instead of changing him, he killed him. |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Aug 16, 2016 19:37:48 GMT -5
Good point. Some people hate the Impossible Man issue early in Starlin's run, but I loved it. I think this was Starlin wanting to had a bit of nuance to the Surfer's character, which I love.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Aug 16, 2016 19:39:06 GMT -5
Good point. Some people hate the Impossible Man issue early in Starlin's run, but I loved it. I think this was Starlin wanting to had a bit of nuance to the Surfer's character, which I love. I couldn't stand the Impossible Man either, but he illustrated the flaws in The Surfer's character in contrast. And that's what Starlin needed in order to force a big change upon him later down the road. |
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Post by Ozymandias on Aug 17, 2016 12:55:07 GMT -5
Thanos Quest #1-2Look, I have never in all my years of comic reading ever uttered this phrase before, but here we go: "The '90s version was better." It truly seems like everything that was wrong or missing in the original Thanos Saga is being carefully corrected here. I complained about the Soul Gems seeming to be a contrivance that came out of nowhere, our never getting an explanation for how Thanos acquired them, a truly unimaginative use for them by the climax, and absolutely no exploration of how Thanos' failures and successes affected his relationship with Death. THESE are the things that fascinated me, not tedious endless struggles with Iron Man, Daredevil, Captain Marvel, The Avengers, or Warlock. This is the good stuff, and Starlin is finally giving it to us, free to tell the story he (perhaps) always wanted to now that he doesn't have to make some third rate superhero the protagonist of the story. Seeing things from Thanos' perspective is fascinating and creates the uncomfortable internal conflict of compelling us to root for him even when we know we shouldn't. And, while I truly love Starlin's pencils when he's at his best, Ron Lim's art is superior. That's also something I never say about '90s artists. This story truly seemed to be the best of all Starlin had been striving for back in the day. It will be rewarding next to re-read The Infinity Gauntlet, finally having experienced all the past history leading up to that saga. Colour me surprised! We usually have similar tastes in comics!!! I thought the '90s Thanos stuff was a tedious retread of things that had been done far better in the '70s, and had to wait for the recent trilogy of hardcovers to regain some interest in Starlin's mad titan! While the gems had been left mysterious and unexplained in the original saga, here they were given a definite (as well as limiting and sort of irrational*) explanation. I like things to remain unexplained in cosmic stories, as it gives them a grandeur that explanations diminish. I mean, wasn't Galactus more awesome when he was a planet eater of unfathomable origin than when we learned he was just an alien who was exposed to radioactivity? The plot of the Infinity series also got to be very repetitive, with a bunch of heroes ganging up against Thanos. That had been new in Avengers annual #7 but got old very quickly. The art by Perez in the Infinity gauntlet was all right, but the only time I liked Ron Lim's was in the recent hardcover in which the Warlock-Thanos conflict was seemingly resolved for good. Different readers, different perceptions!!! * I mean, if you have a gem that controls reality, why do you need the other five? You can alter reality at will to read minds, get infinite power, steal souls and what have you... Also, how can Thanos claim that the gems are more powerful than a cosmic cube, since it, too, controls reality? All a cosmic cube owner has to do is wish the gems to cease existing and there would go the comparison! Clicking on the "like" button just didn't seem to be enough. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Aug 17, 2016 14:41:55 GMT -5
I thought the '90s Thanos stuff was a tedious retread of things that had been done far better in the '70s, and had to wait for the recent trilogy of hardcovers to regain some interest in Starlin's mad titan! Oh, there's definite retread. All of it is a retread, really, but I also feel like it's all being done better this time around, like this is the story Starlin always wanted to tell but hadn't gotten quite right back then (whether due to editorial restrictions, his own newness to writing comics, or what have you). There are many times when things work better not explained, but the Cosmic Cube and the Infinity Gems both felt like conveniences -- there was nothing to them other than being MacGuffins. At least when Reed Richards got his hands on the Ultimate Nullifier, and we didn't learn where that came from or how it worked, it was at least a unique concept. The Soul Gems were nothing until Starlin went back and tried to give an origin and specific properties to them. I take it that any one of those gems, by themselves, would be an awesome and unstoppable power much like the Cosmic Cube. Having all six is redundancy, both granting Thanos all the power possible and ensuring that no one else uses them against him. Is the story still problematic? yes. Are there still major pacing issues? YES. But I feel like Starlin got a lot right here that was missing the first time around, and I'm enjoying the heck out of it far more than I did the original. This should mean more coming from someone like me whose favorite comic era is the Bronze Age and who generally sticks his nose up at stuff from the '90s. |
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Post by Ozymandias on Aug 17, 2016 15:50:26 GMT -5
There are many times when things work better not explained, but the Cosmic Cube and the Infinity Gems both felt like conveniences -- there was nothing to them other than being MacGuffins. What makes you say they were MacGuffins? |
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 17, 2016 16:44:24 GMT -5
I thought the '90s Thanos stuff was a tedious retread of things that had been done far better in the '70s, and had to wait for the recent trilogy of hardcovers to regain some interest in Starlin's mad titan! Oh, there's definite retread. All of it is a retread, really, but I also feel like it's all being done better this time around, like this is the story Starlin always wanted to tell but hadn't gotten quite right back then (whether due to editorial restrictions, his own newness to writing comics, or what have you). There are many times when things work better not explained, but the Cosmic Cube and the Infinity Gems both felt like conveniences -- there was nothing to them other than being MacGuffins. At least when Reed Richards got his hands on the Ultimate Nullifier, and we didn't learn where that came from or how it worked, it was at least a unique concept. The Soul Gems were nothing until Starlin went back and tried to give an origin and specific properties to them. I take it that any one of those gems, by themselves, would be an awesome and unstoppable power much like the Cosmic Cube. Having all six is redundancy, both granting Thanos all the power possible and ensuring that no one else uses them against him.I don't see that the gems are redundant at all. Powerful? Yes. But if you take a glimpse of Warlock and the infinity watch book, they all have different uses. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Aug 17, 2016 19:16:51 GMT -5
There are many times when things work better not explained, but the Cosmic Cube and the Infinity Gems both felt like conveniences -- there was nothing to them other than being MacGuffins. What makes you say they were MacGuffins? Mc·Guf·fin məˈɡəfin/ nounBRITISH noun: MacGuffin an object or device in a movie or a book that serves merely as a trigger for the plot. The Cosmic Cube and the Soul Gems both interchangeably exist to grant Thanos power. There is no back story in regard to them, no specific unique properties, nothing about them that justifies their existence beyond furthering the plot. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Aug 17, 2016 19:19:12 GMT -5
Oh, there's definite retread. All of it is a retread, really, but I also feel like it's all being done better this time around, like this is the story Starlin always wanted to tell but hadn't gotten quite right back then (whether due to editorial restrictions, his own newness to writing comics, or what have you). There are many times when things work better not explained, but the Cosmic Cube and the Infinity Gems both felt like conveniences -- there was nothing to them other than being MacGuffins. At least when Reed Richards got his hands on the Ultimate Nullifier, and we didn't learn where that came from or how it worked, it was at least a unique concept. The Soul Gems were nothing until Starlin went back and tried to give an origin and specific properties to them. I take it that any one of those gems, by themselves, would be an awesome and unstoppable power much like the Cosmic Cube. Having all six is redundancy, both granting Thanos all the power possible and ensuring that no one else uses them against him.I don't see that the gems are redundant at all. Powerful? Yes. But if you take a glimpse of Warlock and the infinity watch book, they all have different uses. I've not read that. I don't mean that they are exactly the same, but rather, as RR pointed out, you can pretty much conquer reality with any one of them. If you control time, you can do anything. Same with reality, or power, or people's souls. Any one of them would be all you need to control nearly everything. Thanos covers his bets by collecting them all and also ensures no one will use the other gems against him, but he doesn't really need them all. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 17, 2016 20:48:07 GMT -5
What makes you say they were MacGuffins? Mc·Guf·fin məˈɡəfin/ nounBRITISH noun: MacGuffin an object or device in a movie or a book that serves merely as a trigger for the plot. The Cosmic Cube and the Soul Gems both interchangeably exist to grant Thanos power. There is no back story in regard to them, no specific unique properties, nothing about them that justifies their existence beyond furthering the plot. That's correct, but even if we decide to explain that they are remnants of the soul of a primordial being who committed suicide because he was tired of being alone (or some story in that vein), they remain objects with no other reason to be than to further the plot. They're now McGuffins with an origin, which in my opinion diminishes them. I was quite happy with the "mysterious objects of immense power" shorter version! Besides, it's not as if they were conjured up just in time for Avengers annual #7... We had seen one on Warlocks's brow, another on the Gardener's, and yet a third on the Stranger's. I enjoyed how they popped up one by one, hinting at some mysterious origin, without things being too explicit. Kind of like the Parliament of trees in Swamp Thing, in a sense. It was cool when there was only one, with an ill-defined origin, but explaining in detail how it came to be and how there were also Elementals of Fire, Water, Meat and even a parliament of Planets really killed the sense of wonder for me. At least It's Starlin himself who revealed what the gems were. We know the final version corresponds to his vision (no matter how stretched too thin, in this critic's opinion!) |
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Post by shaxper on Aug 17, 2016 22:17:23 GMT -5
another on the Gardener's, and yet a third on the Stranger's. I enjoyed how they popped up one by one, hinting at some mysterious origin, without things being too explicit. Where did these moments take place? The Avengers vs. Thanos tpb does not include them. |
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