Four-Color Critiques #4: Love and Death
Four-Color Critiques #4: Love and Death
May 16Who is the greatest Marvel character?
(That’s a rhetorical question.)
Sorta depends on how you define “greatest.” Is it the character with the most appearances in print, or the best stories told about him/her? Is it the one who’s made the deepest penetration into the popular culture at large? Is it the character with the coolest powers, or the most interesting personality, or the strongest supporting cast?
For me, the greatest Marvel character is the one who best epitomizes exactly what the Marvel style of storytelling and characterization is all about. That character is Thanos.
That’s right–Thanos.
I’m tempted to issue some kind of caveat here, so that I’m not seen as a sensationalist maniac who’s trying to suppose that the greatest creation ever to spawn from the Marvel Universe is a B-list cosmic villain most famous for wearing a gem-encrusted glove, which makes him sound more like Liberace than anything “great.”
But fuckit–let my words stand! Let them bounce from the roofs of the houses of the holy! I LOVE THANOS!
And Thanos loves Death. Which, oddly enough, is really why I love him.
***
Let’s talk first about what defines Marvel’s characters. Obviously there’s a lot going on–superpowers, melodrama, sudden transformations from “recovering alcoholic rich superhero” to “dick in a suit of armor.”
But what does it MEAN to be a Marvel character? What makes a Marvel character so very…MARVEL-OUS? (I’m gonna feel that one in the morning.)
To me, it boils down to a single word, five letters: Angst.
I’m gonna get all lazy columnist on your sorry asses and hit you with the Dictionary.Com definition of “angst”:
A feeling of anxiety or apprehension often accompanied by depression.
Yeah, that’s about it. For all the creative fireworks and seismic tremors the merry Marvel Bullpen has given us over the years, their most significant contribution to the superhero ethos was there from day one, nearly fifty years ago, when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the Fantastic Four and gave birth to…I don’t even know what. A universe? Sure. A new way to tell superhero stories? Absolutely. A fundamental shift in the way pop culture views its own creations? Maybe.
It’s all about the angst, that peculiar emotional sludge that is always churning in the life of every Marvel character. Spider-Man could go out with MJ and get some nookie…if only he didn’t have to stop Doc Ock. Iron Man could be the hero Tony Stark has always wanted to be…if it weren’t for the damn booze. Captain America might be comfortable in his own skin again…if he hadn’t been frozen in ice since World War II.
Every Marvel character has one little blade between their ribs that insures they will always experience angst, and thus always reveal themselves as ultimately more human than superhuman. Sure, they accomplish the unthinkable; they punch out planet-eating uberbeings and take on alien infiltrations and invasions.
But that’s not what they’re ABOUT. Each character’s essence is that individual twist–the single element that keeps them solidly planted on the ground, and insures that readers will always be able to relate to them, because even though our problems may not exactly involve balancing costumed adventuring with taking pictures for the Daily Bugle and trying to finish college, deep down we can all understand how Spidey and his ilk feel. We’ve been there, even though we haven’t actually BEEN THERE. Dig?
Which brings us back to Thanos, and his own definition of angst. At first glance, he’s your standard megalomanaical supervillain, gifted with powers beyond mortal ken by virtue of the Deviant gene. How could Thanos possibly be relatable to us mere humans, scratching and biting down in the filth, struggling to maintain even a modicum of sanity in a relentlessly maddening existence?
Because Thanos could rule the universe as we know it–hell, he could remake the goddamned thing in whatever image he chose–if only he could just get over a chick.
Thanos is desperately in love with Death. Death doesn’t love him; she keeps him at arm’s length, teases him, manipulates him to her own ends. But Thanos keeps coming back for more.
Roll that around in your head for a bit. The dude wants a girl who doesn’t want him, and he keeps beating his head against the brick wall of her affections, but nothing ever changes. She still won’t give him the time of day. That chick happens to be DEATH INCARNATE, but still. It doesn’t get more relatable than that. We have all been there. I spent about ten years of my life there, between the onset of puberty and meeting my wife.
When you combine that groundlevel emotional base with whacked-out notions like Infinity Gems, a chair that floats through space, and killing half the universe to score some action, it’s damned near irresistable.
What brought all this on? I finally got around to reading my copy of The Life and Death of Captain Marvel a while back, and that put me on a bit of a Starlin cosmic kick, so I ordered Silver Surfer: Rebirth of Thanos. It’s a scattershot volume, but it reminded me yet again: Oh, yeah, Thanos kicks ass.
Generally speaking, I’ve realized I’m a sucker for Starlin cosmic. It’s got all the angst you could want but instead of it just being Spidey worried about Aunt May, it’s Thanos trying to kill half the people in the universe. I guess I like it cause the stakes are higher? It’s an excuse for trippy artwork and story elements, that’s for sure, and so it appeals to my innate passion for WHACKED-OUT SHIT.
It’s always about Thanos for me, too, whenever and wherever he appears. That Silver Surfer collection is ostensibly about the Silver Surfer, since, y’know, his NAME is in the title and everything. But it’s a Thanos book. Ditto the Captain Marvel collection; everyone makes hay about Captain Marvel dying of cancer and how groundbreaking and touching it is, but the whole enterprise didn’t become REAL to me till Mar-Vell slipped into a coma and started FIGHTING THANOS IN HIS DREAMS. Then I paid attention.
Thanos demands attention. He demands many things, most especially fealty from Lady Death, but most of all he demands attention. He is the true hero of any story I read where he appears; my eyes are continually drawn to his face, and my loyalty always lies with him. Sure, it was badass in Infinity Gauntlet when Captain America tried to take on Thanos armed with only his shield; I still wanted Thanos to kick his red-white-and-blue ass all over the cosmos.
There’s something too about the extremes of Thanos–the insane lengths to which he will go just because he’s super-into a chick. It’s a tiny, all-too-human emotion, writ LARGE. I’ve done some dumb shit to get the girl in my day, so again, I can RELATE.
Did Stan and Jack imagine that their whole idea of “more real” superheroes would give birth to something like Thanos? I can’t believe they did, but the seeds were always there, because for nigh on fifty years now, the angst has endured. Spidey never really gets to relax and enjoy his powers and his friends; he may win sometimes, but the next conundrum is just around the corner.
And Thanos will never really score with his lady, which frankly is fine by me. I need him out there, pining for the inevitable end of life itself, wishing he could find a way to win Death’s bony hand.
