Character of the Day: Thanoseid

In my excitement and anticipation for the return of Nova (is it really him? how's he coming back? if he survived the Cancerverse, what about Star-Lord and Thanos?) I recently reread The Thanos Imperative, the great mini-event that, at the time, seemed to be the final chapter in Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning's cosmic stories.

Thanos was an integral part of the story; the Avatar of Death, Star-Lord's ace-in-the-hole, he was the only being capable of halting the Cancerverse version of Mar-Vell and his unkillable masters the Many-Angled Ones. In the end he destroyed this enemy universe, yet was not given what he wanted; death, both in the sense of being dead and finally getting to be with his true love, lady Death. This enraged him, and as the cancerverse blinked out of existence, Nova and Star-Lord remained behind to keep Thanos from returning to our reality.

In the neural pathways of my brain reserved for comic book thoughts (which make up abotu 85% of my cranium) I free associated with regards to Thanos; I thought of his history in the Marvel Universe (every Infinity miniseries, including Infinity Abyss which I want to find since I've never read a comic where Genis-Vell, son of Mar-Vell and brother of Phyla-Vell, was in the role of Captain Marvel) his several deaths and returns (Annihilation War, Imperative) and his long discussed similarity to DC's Darkseid.

Researching which all powerful, mostly-malevolent and destructive cosmic character came first, I came upon the being known as Thanoseid, a synthesis of the DC and Marvel characters that appeared in the '90s, during the big event of DC vs. Marvel. That unprecedented event was also on my mind lately, recalled by the news of Avengers vs. X-Men, and those teams' history of conflict. I remember being ridiculously excited as a boy for the Marvel vs DC match-ups, though the subsequent Amalgam Comics that they released, with several titles focusing on the synthesized characters, was a little more difficult to get into.

Regardless, I had no memory of the Thanos/Darkseid amalgamation, but I found the idea appealing. Being generally a Marvel man, I prefer the stories I've read featuring Thanos, but I have to admit the substantial villainy of Darkseid despite hating such stories as Final Crisis.

So watching Rocket Raccoon's tail stiffen when faced with a berserker Thanos, I could only imagine his reaction when confronted with Thanoseid and his Anti-Life Nullifier (contradiction?)

Oh who am I kidding. Rocket would do what he always does when faced with a conflict. Grab a really big gun. (They should write a Rocket Raccoon/Cable crossover...I think they'd get along great.)