The Thanos Imperative: Ignition #1 is a one shot that I guess kicks off The Thanos Imperative event in the Marvel Universe. I admit I missed a bunch of Marvel’s cosmic mini-series and events- I never finished (or really understood the issues I read) Marvel’s Annihilation [read here] in 2006 or Marvel’s Annihilation: Conquest a couple of years later. Some of the cosmic Marvel characters include Nova, Quasar, the new Guardians of the Galaxy, the Silver Surfer, Adam Warlock, the Space Knights, Galactus, Blastaar, and many others. This is something that in the 1990′s I would be all over; I loved all of the various Infinity Gauntlet series and everything Jim Starlin ever did with Thanos. I thought Ron Marz was a space icon with the Silver Surfer. I even made my mom buy me Warlock and the Infinity Watch even though the cover price was super high back then.

You can call it being out of the loop, or being taken aback by all of the continuity changes Marvel has made since then, or Marvel’s propensity to make a crossover as big as possible over so many titles, that I never got into Annihilation, and haven’t started to read any of their cosmic titles yet. I mean, no one can do Marvel cosmic like Starlin, but I heard the  new writers are good guys. So I figured I’d give The Thanos Imperative: Ignition a shot since it’s being hyped as the start of the new storyline.

So, if you’ll excuse my ignorance of Marvel’s cosmic continuity this millennium, here are my impressions of the one-shot The Thanos Imperative: Ignition-

• Writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning set this issue up fine, but this was one case where most of the story was already told in the intro page that the Marvel production people put in the front.
• The artwork by Brad Walker didn’t do a whole lot for me…Moondragon and Mantis were one of the hottest Marvel women when Ron Lim and others drew them…everything seemed soulless and foreign to me.
• Storyline and continuity-wise, it looks like Thanos is part of the cycle of life…he’s Death’s Avatar, or something, and he has been reborn once again.
• The Thanos Imperative will effect all the space alien races, entities, and cosmic characters in the Marvel Universe.
• Thanos isn’t in this THAT much, so don’t expect this to be Thanos Quest.
• The two villains in this issue are the Magus and Evil Quasar. I believe both come from the Cancerverse, which is a skewed universe. The main villain appears to be Lord Mar-Vell (Captain Marvel), who wants to extinguish Death- a direct homage/reference to Jim Krueger’s Universe X and Paradise X.
• DC’s cosmic stories (Green Lantern) are in a class by themselves.
• DOOMWAR had a better kickoff. I mention DOOMWAR because the title also features a villain.

Well, I think I’ll continue to give the main limited series and on-shots for the Thanos Imperative a chance, although getting all of the crossover issues from a bunch of comic books series seems out of the question at this point.

Tags: adam warlock, andy lanning, annihilation, Blastaar, brad walker, Cancerverse, Captain Marvel, Comic Book Reviews, Conquest, dan abnett, Death, gauntlet series, guardians of the galaxy, infinity gauntlet, intro page, Jim Krueger, jim starlin, Magus, Mantis, marvel characters, marvel universe, mini series, Moondragon, Nova, paradise x, quasar, ron lim, silver surfer, Thanos, Thanos Imperative, Thanos Quest, universe x