Thanos #1: Screw New York! Let’s Get Fresno!

Thanos #1 has to be one of the most daunting launches that Marvel has put out in years. With previous creative teams doing such oddball, fan favorite swings with the Mad Titan, starting Thanos off with a new mini series definitely takes a lot of guts. Shifting the focus away from Thanos himself, Thanos #1 opts to focus on a new character, Roberta Marshall, who may be the most obvious disguise for an existing character that Marvel has ever introduced. That being said, this new direction and foundation proves to be a lot of fun, even if the stakes at hand are not as extreme as what the previous creative teams have done before. 

Christopher Cantwell is no stranger to the Marvel universe, having written a variety of characters over the last few years. Thanos #1 is indicative of his writing style and how he likes to ground the world before things go off into  hectic direction. This story does a lot right, while stumbling just a little bit in the small details. Of all the towns in the world for Thanos to rip off of the face of the earth… why Fresno? Anyone who has been to (or near) Fresno would think that there has to be some sort of inside joke that led to this happening, although, it is likely more so tied to the mystery behind Roberta Marshall.

Without any prior context, or any inside knowledge, it has to be obvious to just about everyone that Roberta is Death. There are several indicators throughout the issue, such as: her goth appearance, the way the elderly woman claims to know her, the Illuminati’s insistence on her importance, as well as Thanos’s obsession with her. This also ties back to the setting of Fresno. Of course the Illuminati would be hiding the mind wiped embodiment of Death within one of the places that no one would ever look. It would be way too obvious if she was in a well known place like Los Angeles or New York, so Fresno has to be the designated hiding spot. Overall, Marvel and Cantwell are not fooling anyone with this mystery so hopefully the reveal doesn’t take all four issues.

Luca Pizzari and Ruth Redmond do a fine job on the art; however, they are not given much to do until Thanos actually arrives. This is where they got to push this issue into gear, delivering some very high energy, comic book goodness with one of Marvel’s premier villains and superhero teams. Some of the most stunning work here is Pizzari and Redmond’s depiction of space, making it look very horrifying and empty. Marvel loves to make space look like this vast cosmos, but here it looks so different, which masterfully matches the tone of the story.

Rounding out the creative team is Cory Petit on letters. Not only does Petit do a fun job with the onomatopoeia, but the way he separates the dialogue with background noises makes the issue read in a very lifelike manner. All of this makes the issue’s noises and dialogue pop off the page, with certain aspects really adding the overall readability.