From: rnmg1200@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (A Lady and her Walrus)
Subject: Re: Warlock back from the dead
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 06:07:56 GMT

In article <visser.715410885@convex.convex.com> visser@convex.com (Lance Visser) writes:
>In <1992Sep1.212003.4760@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> dvandom@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (David VanDomelen) writes:
>
>+>Remember, the whole point of what Warlock did to Thanos was that he *wasn't 
>+>dead* and in fact *couldn't* die.  Face it, if I guy loves Death, the greatest 
>+>punishment is to make him immortal and immobile.  And yes, Adam wasn't really 
>+>dead either, but I didn't see any logical reason for him to be able to make new
>+>bodies for himself & friends.
>
>	That is a retcon.  Thanos was quite clearly dead at the end of the
>Marvel Two in One annual given that he showed up as a helper to death in
>the Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel.

Gee, the way they described it in the Death of Captain Marvel GN was that 
Thanos was essentially trapped in the nether regions between life and death.
At least, that was the way it seemed to me when I read it back when it first
came out.  I was under the impression that the "last task" he was assigned 
by Death was to bring Captain Mar-Vell into the fold, and upon completion
of this task, he could finally rest.  That, to me, made it a much better 
statement on the nature of Thanos' character than anything else ever could:
He was willing to aid one of his greatest enemies in order to please her.
Other megalomaniac villains would've said, "No, I'd rather rot than help that
do-gooder" or something equally chintzy, but Thanos was willing to help 
the good Captain along, so Mar-Vell could better understand what it was that
drove Thanos all his life:  Death.

In any event, the way they portrayed Thanos' statue and talked about him as if
he was still alive implied (to me, at least) that he wasn't dead, but unable
to die.  Nowhere did they come out and say, one way or the other (again, this
is my recollection, since the GN is in Texas and I'm in IL) that Thanos
was actually dead.  And at the end of the Marvel Two-in-One (which is also
in Texas) I seem to recall reading that very same statement, or words to that
effect.  It always seemed fairly obvious to me that Thanos was neither dead
nor alive until the end of the GN, when he was finally given "permission" to
die.

>	His current status has never really been explained.  His original 
>body was clearly turned to stone and destroyed,   ....The Silver Surfer
>issue which brings him back has death loosing his "spirit" or some such
>thing.  
>
>	That leaves two possiblilities:  Either Thanos was raised as a ghost
>by death or death has the power to grant "life" and give out new bodies
>to the dead.

This I _do_ remember.  Thanos states on a couple of different occasions (once
in SS, and a couple of times in Thanos Quest) that Death made for him a new,
more powerful body to use.  He said one time (I seem to recall this being
in the issue of SS where he faced Drax and the Surfer) that he was twice as
powerful as before, ie he was twice as strong, etc.  This would easily put
his current incarnation above Wonder Man-level strength, and on a par with Thor
(when Thor was wearing his girdle).  One question I'd like to know the answer
to is:  Is the body otherwise the same as the old one?  Which is to say, is he
still effectively immortal?  I seem to remember the original OHOTMU entry 
on him saying that he was augmented with cybernetics; are they gone, or 
did Death just make them more powerful?  You're right when you say that not
everything has been explained, but these are trivial quibbles; What I want to
know is why didn't Death just "unmake" him right after the Infinity War?
Granted, he's kind of insignificant when you consider the billions upon 
billions of other life forms in the universe, but she was royally ticked, the
way I understood it.  You'd think she'd at least lower his power levels a notch
or two.

Anyway, enough rambling...

The Walrus


Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics