With so many big names and big events plastered across the shelves of your LCS, sometimes great comics get left behind - buried in longboxes until someone comes along to find these Hidden Gems.

The Thanos Quest Books One & Two
By Jim Starlin, Ron Lim, John Beatty & Tom Vincent
Published by Marvel Comics

Thanos: “I fully intend to gain all my desires, but have no wish to cause your death in the process.”

Collector: “That seems somewhat out of character for you; almost humane.”

Thanos: “Perhaps I’m going soft in my twilight years.”

Reading about heroes is great, but sometimes there’s nothing quite like a good villain story for sheer vicarious pleasure. And when it features a Magnificent Bastard like Thanos, it can be fantastic. A lead-in to the Infinity Gauntlet miniseries, the two issue Thanos Quest chronicles the Mad Titan’s journey to gather the six Infinity Gems. After being resurrected by Death herself, the object of his desire and worship, she tasks him with adjusting the cosmic balance by wiping out half the living beings in the universe. While contemplating how to accomplish this, he discovers the true history and power of the Gems he once previously used. He sets out to reacquire them, using guile, murder and sheer power to get what he wants. One-by-one he wrests them away from their current keepers, the cosmic being the In-Betweener and five of the Elders of the Universe - the Champion, the Gardner, the Runner, the Collector and the Grandmaster. Fully assembled, the six Gems grant him power on the level of a god, with full control over Time, Space, Reality, Power, the Mind & the Soul.

My personal favorite acquisition is how Thanos manipulates the Champion. Finding the Elder fighting on a war-torn planet, Thanos challenges him to combat, not even mentioning his desire for the Champion’s Power Gem. Champion charges into the fight, only for Thanos to use his momentum against him, sending the Elder smashing through several tons of rock. After a number of the Titan’s energy blasts, Champion decides to simply bludgeon Thanos with his fists. Thanos responds by activating his force field, and Champion’s powerful blows are blunted. Becoming frustrated after numerous blows, Champion jumps in the upper atmosphere, intending to crash down upon his opponent. Just before impact, Thanos casually teleports away. Champion’s landfall, backed up by the unlimited power of the Gem, hits with the force of an atomic arsenal, setting of dormant volcanoes, which in turn set off more seismic disruptions, and leads to the destruction of the entire planet. Floating in the planetary debris, clinging to a chunk of rock, Champion declares victory until Thanos arrives on his mobile space throne. Champion demands to battle him for the vessel, but Thanos declines. The Elder begs for transport to another planet, which Thanos agrees to, for a price: Champion’s Power Gem. Champion first scoffs, but eventually agrees to the bargain. The Mad Titan takes his prize, and tows Champion to the nearest inhabited planet with his tractor beam. He then releases the immortal Elder into a decaying orbit, sending him plunging down into the planet’s atmosphere and eventually it’s surface. As Thanos says, “Our agreement never stipulated to anything about a soft landing.”

It’s no surprise that this is one of Thanos co-creator Jim Starlin’s best work with the character. His characterization of the Mad Titan is so enjoyably evil it carries all the way up through the current Thanos Imperative miniseries. Lim’s usually colorful art is muted a bit by Beatty’s inks and Vincent’s colors, and it really works here to give the book a more somber feel. Any fan of either Starlin, Thanos himself, or Marvel’s cosmic characters needs to give this story a read, and you’ve got several options. There’s the two issues themselves of course, which you can go back issue hunting for. Both are available to read on Marvel’s Digital Comics Unlimited site. They were also collected in a magazine-like trade, but I’m not sure if it’s still in print. But I highly recommend picking up the Silver Surfer: Rebirth of Thanos trade, available in both hardcover and softcover. They’re a little pricey, but you get not only this mini, but also the first half of Starlin’s run on Silver Surfer that comes immediately before it, and contains the resurrections of both Thanos and his enemy Drax the Destroyer. I give The Thanos Quest itself 5 out of 5 robotic Thanos duplicates.