Issue(s): Iron Man #55, Captain Marvel #25, Captain Marvel #26, Captain Marvel #27, Captain Marvel #28, Captain Marvel #29, Captain Marvel #30, Marvel Feature #12
Cover Date: Feb 73 - Jan 74
Title: "Beware the... Blood Brothers!" / "A taste of madness!" / "Betrayal!" / "Trapped on Titan!" / "When Titans collide! / A clash of Titans! / ...Mind-slave!" / "Metamorphosis!" / "...To be free from control! / A time for confrontation! / End of an empire!" / "The bite of the Blood Brothers!"
Credits:
Mike Friedrich / Jim Starlin - Script
Jim Starlin - Plot
Jim Starlin - Penciler
Mike Esposito / Chic Stone / Dave Cockrum / Pablo Marcos / Dan Green / Al Milgrom / Joe Sinnott - Inker

Review/plot:
Friedrich scripts to Starlin's plots, but Starlin assumes full writing duties for Captain Marvel #29-30.

You can watch Starlin's art evolve as this story goes on. He starts off a little scratchy and his characters have baby faces. He quickly becomes more sophisticated within the course of this arc. Thanos especially evolves from a poorly drawn skinny dude...

...to the classic character we know.

Part of the evolution may actually be due to the inker. This run of Captain Marvel includes some very early work by Dave Cockrum on inks, and then Al Milgrom.

The plot starts off in Iron Man #55, mainly because Starlin had an idea and that was the book he was assigned to. During a board meeting where Stark is discussing his company's transition from weapons manufacturing to ecological research, Iron Man is contacted by an alien named Drax the Destroyer...

...who is a prisoner of the Blood Brothers, who are working for Thanos.

It's said that Drax was created by the god Kronos of Titan in order to destroy Thanos...

...at the request of Thanos' father Mentor and his brother Eros. This is the first appearance of all of these characters.

It's interesting that, at least in this scan, Mentor and Eros both have the same grey-purple skin color as Thanos. It's "fixed" for the reprint.

We haven't seen this in a while, but Starlin goes with one of those classic "Iron Man dressing" scenes.

During the battle with the Blood Brothers, Mentor and ISAAC from Titan focus an energy attack through Iron Man's uni-beam chestplate, which normally is just a flashlight.

Drax helps Iron Man fight the Blood Brothers.

...but the Thanos they were fighting turns out to be a robot...

...and Drax and Iron Man part ways.

The story then continues in Captain Marvel. This comic had been fighting cancellation, and actually was cancelled twice, but it was revived most recently with issue #22. Starlin came on as artist in #25 and continued his Thanos plot. It begins with Rick and Mar-vell being manipulated by a combination of Skrulls, including the Super-Skrull...

...and Rick's girlfriend Lou-Ann, who it turns out is under the sway of the Controller.

The Super-Skrull manipulates things (no pun intended) so that Captain Marvel winds up fighting the Thing.

All are working for Thanos, who is interested in probing Rick Jones' subconscious mind.

It seems that after the Kree-Skrull War, the Supreme Intelligence implanted the location of the Cosmic Cube into Rick's head, in case Rick was ever needed again (it is said that the power that Rick tapped during the Kree-Skrull wars couldn't be used again).

They are rescued by Mentor and Eros...

....who recruit Mar-vell into their two person resistance force against Thanos, who has taken over Titan (the following picture is a feature at the end of issue #27).

Mar-vell gets a rematch with the Super-Skrull and wins.

Meanwhile, Rick's girlfriend has made her way to the Avengers Mansion per Rick's direction in order to get help with her control disc. Mar-vell/Rick arrive as well, and while they trade notes, the Avengers are picked off one by one by a shadowy figure with a silhouette that is meant to make us believe it is Thanos.

However, it turns out to be the Controller. The Controller has enslaved a thousand people with his control discs, including people in important places in government and business. Thanos has improved his technology, as well. Thus, with the strength of a thousand people, the Controller is able to defeat the Avengers and Captain Mar-vell.

At that moment, however, Marv is transported to another dimension by a Ditko-esque floating being named Eon.

Eon provides a history of the Titans, and then causes Mar-vell to face the ramifications of his warlike past, including a visit from the lifeless corpse of Una. Mar-vell agrees to change his ways and become a peacemaker and a protector, and he is granted the power of Cosmic Awareness.

At this point his hair also turns blond and there are minor alterations to his costume (so minor that i can't identify them!).

The history of the Titans is interesting. In Olympia, the tyrant Uranus was overthrown by Kronos, Oceanus and other younger Titans. Uranus was exiled to the planet which now bears his name (To father the people seen in the Golden Age Marvel Boy stories?). After Kronos's consciousness became one with the Universe, Olympia was split between warlike Zuras and peaceful A'lars.

Zuras forced A'lars out of Olympia, and he settled on Titan, the moon of Saturn, where he mated with Sui-San, one of the few survivors of a war ravaged civilization there. A'lars became Mentor, and Titan became a world of great peace, ruled by the super-computer ISAAC, until Thanos was born. This history is interesting to me because the name and appearance of Zuras matches the leader of the Eternals that Jack Kirby won't create until 1976. Much later in Roger Stern's Avengers run the link would be picked up on, establishing the Titans as Eternals, but it's eerie how the seeds are established here, as if it were the plan all along. Important update: It turns out that the names of the Gods were sneakily updated in the trade paperback. In the original comics, it wasn't Zuras but Zeus, etc. Disappointing! And i wish they wouldn't do things like that in the reprints.

Meanwhile, Drax has failed to stop Thanos from acquiring the Cosmic Cube.

Captain Marvel returns to Earth and, after taking a break, tracks down the Controller with help from Iron Man. Due to being a kinder, gentler protector instead of a warrior, Captain Marvel now attempts to talk his opponents out of fighting first. Needless to say, this doesn't work against the Controller.

Still over-matched in power, Mar-vell's cosmic awareness allows him to wear down the Controller, but it is Thanos, seeing that his lackey doesn't meet his standards, who ultimately seemingly destroys the Controller using the Cosmic Cube.

Thanos says that those before him used the cube "foolishly for many absurd and, in the end, useless boons."

Thanos says he won't make the same mistake, but don't believe it.

While Mar-vell focuses on the Controller, Iron Man heads out to where he first found out about Thanos: the desert compound where he fought the Blood Brothers. On his way through the desert, he passes the Thing, who has been walking home since Marvel Feature #11.

That's just... mean. The Thing follows Iron Man on foot. Iron Man finds that the Blood Brothers are active again, and he actually tries to flee, knowing that last time he fought them he had the help of super-powerful Drax the Destroyer. While fleeing he winds up crashing into the Thing...

...and they both are captured. However, they eventually escape and manage to beat the Brothers...

...who are revealed to be space vampires.

Like he did with the Controller, Thanos rewards the Blood Brothers' failure by zapping them away with the Cube. Iron Man tells the Thing that due to the amount of energy he expended during the fight, he won't be able to carry the Thing home.

Wowah wah wah waaaaaaah!

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 9 - Thanos War. First Thanos, Drax the Destroyer, Starfox, Mentor, ISAAC, Blood Brothers, Eon. Captain Mar-vell gets a power up, becoming the universe's cosmic protector.

Chronological Placement Considerations: The Marvel Chronology Project has the Avengers appearance in Captain Marvel #27-29 taking place during Avengers #119. I don't see any reason why it couldn't just as easily take place afterward. The Thing's appearance in Marvel Feature #12 takes place directly after his appearance in Marvel Feature #11, but Thing actually appears in Captain Marvel #26 before that. So the real sequence is Captain Marvel #26> Marvel Feature #11> Marvel Feature #12, but since i haven't cut up my trade they're placed slightly out of sequence on this site.

As AF notes in the comments, the Space Parasite seemingly appears in issue #27 (right corner in the scene below). You can't tell if it's really Randau, the Space Parasite, that has appeared before and will appear again, or just another member of his Xeronian species. But as AF also says, the character is dressed like Randau on the cover(although his skin is miscolored). And, aside from Randau, the Xeronians are supposed to be a peace loving species, which would mean they wouldn't sign up with Thanos' mercs. So i'll count it as an appearance.

References:

• Rick received photon ray treatments in Captain Marvel #22 in order to save his life. These treatments subsequently caused Captain Mar-vell to lose power when he's not in sunlight. The doctor who gave the treatment (Lou-Ann's uncle) is killed and used as bait by the Skrulls in issue #25.
  
• When the Skrulls are messing with Captain Mar-vell's head, they take the form of a number of his past enemies, this includes Ronan, who at this point is still meant to be frozen as a result of the Kree-Skrull War. We also see ("From various mags. Take our word for it - R.T.") Megaton (Captain Marvel #22-23), Hulk (Captain Marvel #21), Zarek (last 'seen' in Captain Marvel #16), Metazoid (Captain Marvel #5), the Sub-Mariner (Captain Marvel #4), and an Aakon alien (from Captain Marvel #8).
  
• The Cosmic Cube was last seen in Sub-Mariner #49.
  
• The Kree-Skrull War was depicted in Avengers #89-97.
  
• Iron Man first faced the Controller in Iron Man #12-13.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: The Life & Death of Captain Marvel TPB

Death also appeared in the "War Is Hell" series a year later, gaining the cover top left corner spot, but that Death had definite male characteristics.

Has anyone wondered, given Mentor & Co's skin colour is shown as purple, that Starlin intended them to somehow be linked to the Magus?

Nathan, your questions usually turn out to be Socratic, so i'm waiting to see where you're going with this, but the obvious answer is pretty mundane. The Titans were initially grey-purple because Thanos was, with the idea that Thanos' coloration was just a trait of his species. Cynics will say Thanos is that color because Darkseid was; in any event i think the idea was to give Thanos a stone-face look. And Magus, created later, is purple because he's a dark version of Warlock and purple prints better than black. Also, by the time Magus was introduced the rest of the Titans were being colored pink.

Given the Titans were all shown as initially purple-skinned it was obvious they were not intended to be Eternals (a later retcon I didn't like).

Wondering if Starlin initially intended there to be something about the atmosphere on Titan that turned its inhabitants purple-skinned!?

I still believe he intended Sui-San to secretly be a Skrull (and not a Deviant-strain).

I recall Starlin at some point saying the Magus was supposed to be silver, but they couldn't get the coloring to work so he became purple. Warlock of course is meant to be gold but usually looks orange.

Foom #1 announced Sub-Mariner to be co-star for MF #12.

A sign in #25 reads "Milgrom", but Al Milgrom isn't listed in the credits for that issue, so he may have done some uncredited work there.

In #27, some of Thanos' army include some unnamed Badoon and what looks like one of the fake aliens from Amazing Spider-Man #2(depicted as a real alien). A Z'Nox appears on the cover. Michelangelo's horned Moses statue appears on Titan.

As for the alteration in Mar-Vell's suit, take a loot at his boots.

Ha! Oops, I was typing quickly and of course meant "look." (Wish you could edit these posts -- oh, well!)

Too late. I looted Mar-Vell's boots and they are very stylish and i'm not giving them back. (Thanks for pointing out the costume change, Instantiation, and sorry my primitive system doesn't allow editing of comments.)

Can't blame you! (about either the boots or the system . . .).

One quick further thought here: These issues really represent Starlin's apprenticeship phase or something like that. You can clearly see him evolve as both a writer and an artist, throwing out tons of ideas and getting it together. My feeling is that by CM #27 he's *there*. And that's quick. Thanos now looks like himself. And there's that great touch about how he gives the Super-Skrull, who is terrified of Drax, that Unisphere, which he says will protect him. But then it turns out to be worthless, just a ball of glass -- and what a great page that is. Many more would follow . . .

I don't know- I think he's still having trouble in issue 30- the narrator lecturing the reader about how great Mar-Vell's inner strength was, etc. was just horribly overwritten. Starlin said that after that issue, Roy Thomas gave him a speech about how words are tools, not pearls.

Just to clarify, I wasn't trying to say his work was "perfect" from that point or anything, just that he was finding his groove, esp. as an artist.

And maybe it's just me, but I never considered Roy Thomas's work to be "beyond criticism" either.

Also wanted to say the obvious to fnord12 -- what a fantastic resource this is. Thanks for all the hard work you've invested in it.

About the one strike I can give against my precious Marvel Essentials is that typically they're super good about throwing in sibling issues of a storyline but sadly not so with the original Thanos storyline. Damn thing kept getting cut up between Iron Man and Avengers books and so on so I always felt like I needed to read further back.

Since I plan on getting several trades of Captain Marvel, Thanos and Quasar maybe I'll finally appreciate this.

There just better be some Blood Brothers in a future Marvel movie!

So, wait. Originally they just created Drax? And then only later decided to have him be Moondragon's father? Who thought THAT was a good idea?

It really isn't that bad a concept that someone as cosmic as Drax the Destroyer is actually a human "rebuilt" to be this super-being, especially with the connection with Moondragon. With all the crazier things done to humans in this universe, what happened to Drax is nothing and it sort of gives more stakes to Heather.

This arc doing what it did really is sort of the works of a mad genius, with Starlin starting out as an artist with Iron Man, having this crazy idea that also cleaned up some messes in continuity (Rick Jones in that preposterous end to the Kree/Skrull War) and created a rival to some of the innovative ideas going on at their "Distinct Competition" (Kirby's Fourth World) while giving a greater importance and development to the more cosmic aspects in the Post-Kirby world. Even with some seeing him as a Darkseid ripoff, Thanos really is a class by himself with all that starts from here on...and heck, it even saved Captain Marvel's reputation considering the conundrum mess he was in from birth.

Ataru, would do you mean by the conundrum mess Captain Marvel was in from birth?

I meant all the stuff with the Captain Marvel character from '68 to just before Starlin. Reading it over on here and seeing all the crazy things done with him, it just shows no one had any idea what to do with him other than to create another hero to exploit cosmic aspects like the Surfer or Thor.

One of the things I quite like about Thanos here is that he comes across as a villain who knows the cliches and is determined to avoid them or make them work for him. He works through pawns, avoids direct conflict with the heroes even tough he physically outpowers them, uses misdirection, and clearly has multiple ways of getting what he wants and plans within plans.

Randau the Space Parasite appears as part of Thanos army briefly in Captain Marvel #27. Page 14, panel 2.

There's a better pic of him on the cover, albeit miscolored, but costume design-wise it makes it clear it's Randau and not a generic Space Parasite.

Nice find, AF. I've added a scan and some notes in the Considerations.

"poorly drawn skinny dude."
Yeah and Volcana is obese.
Never mind the poorly drawn part Thanos looks pretty ripped and strong there. I mean yeah he's smaller compared to how he's drawn later.

Thanos clearly evolves over the years, but he's hardly a "poorly drawn skinny dude" in his debut panel.

Considering Thanos #1 was basically a robot...maybe he didn't think it was worth building something closer to himself. It's not like Thanos always has to worry about needing Doombots or an LMD of himself.

It's possible this robot was a test run for his later copies.

I'd give those explanations a No-Prize.

A panel in #30 showing the Controller's thralls includes Spiro Agnew and Archie Bunker.

The Controller mentions that Thanos rescued him from an asylum; presumably this is Pinehurst Sanitarium from his previous appearance in Iron Man v.1 #28.

I'm years late to this, but LOL @ "Roy Thomas gave him a speech about how words are tools, not pearls." Roy Thomas of all people.

So what was going on here with the Zeus/Zuras thing? Well, not here, really, I suppose, but...
The retconned version is that both Zeus and Zuras, who look very similar, are both sons of Chronos? Or Chronos and Kronos are two different characters with near-identical histories? I've learned by googling that Zeus and co. were represented by Zuras and the Eternals on Earth because of their similarities, but can't find how it was supposed to have come to be that they both exist (also learned that even the ancient Greeks couldn't decide if Chronos and Kronos were one being or not, which I never knew before).
Did this retcon come about because of the Eternals not being in continuity, originally?

Zuras is an alien, Zeus is a God. There's no connection in origin. Chronos was later renamed as Kronos and retroactively is just known as Kronos. Zeus has no connection to Kronos. The Zuras-posing-as-Zeus/Eternals-as-Olympians was Mark Gruenwald in Thor #300. Gruenwald in Untold Tales of the Marvel Universe and then Roger Stern in Avengers #246-250 (which were edited by Gruenwald too) were the ones who establish the Titans as Eternals.

The Titans are aliens, but Zuras and the Earth Eternals are surely 'from' Earth?

Well, I was trying to be succinct with it.

See the comments for Thor #283-301 for a little more on the ambiguity between the Eternals and the Greek gods.

Benjamin Savannah should have a tag here, since he's seen for a panel or two -- long enough to be killed.

@Ataru320: Interestingly, in issue #32 ISAAC explicitly compares the unliving demons Thanos creates to Drax.

Added Benjamin Savannah. Thanks.

Another Titan coloring comment: Ben refers to the Blood Brothers as Purple-People-Eaters in a quip in the Marvel Feature issue. They're colored blood red in the reprint, but the scans above make it seem like it was closer in the original.

The original Sheb Wooley song plays off the ambiguity about whether the People-Eater was purple itself, or if it ate purple people. So maybe they were snacking on purple Titans. :)

Some of the trippy ways Eon is drawn also suggest some of the lyrics of the song to me, at least in a way that might have been filtered through Jim Starlin and a heavy dose of LSD.

I have a question about the hooded silent character that appears in these stories: is it Death? If so, where was it revealed, exactly?

Yes, it's Death. It's revealed in Captain Marvel 33.

33 is where we first see her with a skull face, but she's first named in the scan fnord has above from issue 28, where Thanos "introduces" her to the Destroyer.

That was Starlin being clever- Thanos tells Drax that he's introducing Drax to Death- Drax thinks it's a threat and doesn't realize Thanos was being literal. It's not 100% clear she's Death until Captain Marvel 33.

Eros' appearance is interesting here too -he has that fox-like symbol on his chest without explanation -I wonder what Starlin's idea here was? He didnt take the "Starfox" name until Stern's Avengers run, right?

@Hugh, no, he didn't. I personally found it very weird when they changed his "professional" name, and you'll notice it hasn't been used for a long, long time. Eros gets his name from the Freudian idea of the life and death drives, Eros and Thanatos. But, yeah, the fox was always there. We know Starlin stole Gamora's look from Esteban Maroto; maybe Eros's look was a rip-off as well. Alternately, knowing Starlin's fondness for cats (see Dreadstar's Oedi), maybe the symbol was supposed to be a cat. Sometimes it looks like a dog.

@Michael, I didn't read these books in realtime, so if there is anyone on this site who did, I'd be interested to hear when any of them picked up on what was really going on with Thanos. Curiously, if you reread 33 carefully, neither Isaac nor Mantis knew who Thanos' "dark-robed companion" really was prior to his defeat, but everyone somehow sensed it as soon as he was gone.

I like that set of panels where after Captain Marvel gets his upgrade he re-faces the Controller who is like 'nah, take him down my goons!' He monologues and off screen Marvel pummels them. Then the Controller has the nerve to look shocked when he realizes Captain Marvel easily beat them. "HUH!? How did you defeat my perfectly ordinary mooks!?"