Thanos Rising #2 has transcended expectations. The slow build to Thanos's first act of violence in book one accelerates in book two with several consecutive grotesque acts. It is requisite, however, that years must pass between killing the lizards in their nest in the first book, and the boredom that gives Thanos his motivation for murder. He ages four years between chapters. Four years of developing his massive intellect. Four years of frustration, and aggravation. Four years of seeking answers. As he has sought his answers, he objectifies his victims, making them no more than the subject of a question.

If writer Jason Aaron was trying to capture the empty soul of a galactic-sized villain, he has done it – and achieved it in the second chapter.

Thanos is bored. He has surpassed all of his instructors, including his father, who is the most gifted scientist among the eternals. Thanos is after answers, answers to questions he does not even know. Aaron uses dissection to illustrate Thanos's obsession, and Simone Bianchi illustrates with just enough gore, and requisite taste.

In the opening, Thanos is able to extrapolate not only what the lizard on his school desk ate before it died, but how it died, how far the creature travelled from its borough, and if it had reproduced in its lifetime. Thanos retires to his own lab, accompanied by the mysterious girl who offers him no respite, but maintains a listening ear, and subversive motivation. IHe begins dissection on a huge ape – while it yet lives.

We witness his actions culminate in the creation of a mass murderer with an unquenchable thirst for destruction. Ultimately worse progresses to worse in this chapter. What Aaron has successfully narrated in this brief opening chapters is a step-by-step progression toward murder. Thanos, or any other psychotic, going from normal kid to serial murderer in one page is unrealistic. Rather Aaron has honored the development of character by making Thanos take terrifying steps to the ultimate sin. What really makes a monster is not the murder, but what the murderer gets from the act.

If he likes it, he will do it again. Thanos likes it, we already know that. But in book two we are privileged to witness him blossoming into a monster.

The comic makes us witnesses to the development of one of the most terrifying characters in the Marvel Universe, and it is more frightening, and much more satisfying than I had hoped. Transcending my expectations is not easy to do. This series delivers.

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