Writer JASON AARON and SIMONE BIANCHI has their work cut out for them in THANOS RISING #1, which sets the stage to tell the early beginnings of the Mad Titan (and scourge of universal life itself) THANOS.
This series begins with Thanos the Destroyer visiting his mother Sui-San's grave and from there we're taken back years prior to Thanos birth and his early childhood days on Titan in the underground city of the Eternals, where he's being raised by his mostly-absent father, Mentor.
THANOS' childhood days aren't easy, as expected. He's often looked at differently due to his purple exterior and brilliant mind. He's also finds his dissection class particularly disturbing, and is led by some other children in his class to some kind of cave. In this cave, Thanos is caught in a landslide and the other young companions he came with are apparently killed...their corpses consumed by creatures that dwell within their cave. Since Thanos survived the attack, he is looked at differently by everyone else. But Thanos, now freed of his misgivings about death and gore, has changed. He goes back to the cave to kill all the creatures inside.
BIANCHI's artwork is amazing to look at, so visually the book is great. As for the story itself, I don't know how necessary it was to give Thanos this type of "fallen from grace" origin story. Why did Thanos need some kind of personal tragedy catalyst to make him evil? Couldn't he just be evil for evil's sake? OR why tell anything about him at all? You don't really need to know the background about a particular character to understand their motivations. Look at WOLVERINE. He was an incredibly popular character even before you learned everything about him down to his shoe size. JIM STARLIN was able to make THANOS intriguing without giving too much of his background on Titan with Eros and Mentor.
Regardless, it is an interesting book, and one that is worth picking up the additional issues of the series...and I plan on doing just that!
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