Jim Starlinis feeling good.
Starlin is enjoying the moment.
They were very open and generous.
Credit: Jesse Grant/Getty Images; ©Marvel Studios 2018
Its been quite a journey from an inauspicious beginning that did not exactly kindly Marvel mastermindStan Leeat the time.
Its more of a full circle than you realize, Starlin says.
We did a funnyIron Manissue, and Stan Lee hated it so much he fired both of us.
Marvel Comics
But out of this strange beginning we both ended up contributing to the MCU.
Fate has this strange way of arranging things that you just dont see at the moment.
I never imagined him being up on the big screen.
Marvel Studios
Thanos has changed a bit in the journey from page to screen.
In Starlins comics, Thanos was an interstellar conqueror who invoked the Freuds concept of Thanatos, a.k.a.
humanitys death drive, by literally trying to woo the female personification of Death.
In the film version, Mistress Death is nowhere to be found.
Any author who does is obviously being foolish.
They were working to make a conclusion to 20-odd movies, so plenty of adjustments had to be made.
Half the characters from the Thanos comics are not in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
They took him from being a nice little cult character into a pop icon, so I cant complain.
Im a happy camper.
So, EW asked Starlin to explain his vision for the original Infinity Gem.
This aspect, over the eons, broke down and congealed into these six gems, Starlin says.
I tend to go towards does exist, but its not a visual object.
Its effects can be visual, like how they have Soul World in the movies and comics.
Basically, the stones are the six aspects of life as I broke it down.
As Starlin describes it, Thanos is never more nefarious than he is in that particular story.
We had a lot of fun with that.
Only recently, since theAvengersmovie, has he exploded into super-stardom.
My ability to use him got limited, and Im out of the Thanos business entirely at this point.
Alan Davis has finished penciling it, so itll be out sometime this year I understand.
Thats it for me and Thanos.
Now Starlin can take time to sit back and watch the sun rise on a grateful universe of nerds.
