Marvel Novels--Thanos Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Book One: Infinity

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Interlude One: The Sentence

  Book Two: Sacrosanct

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Interlude Two: The Passage

  Book Three: Hala

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Interlude Three: The Light

  Book Four: The Velt

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Epilogue One

  Epilogue Two

  About the Author

  Also Available from Titan Books

  Thanos: Death Sentence

  Print edition ISBN: 9781789092424

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781789092431

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First Titan edition: April 2019

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  © 2019 MARVEL

  Interior art: Simone Bianchi and Riccardo Pieruccini

  Cover art by Aleksi Briclot

  VP Production & Special Projects: Jeff Youngquist

  Assistant Editor: Caitlin O’Connell

  Associate Editor: Sarah Brunstad

  Director, Licensed Publishing: Sven Larsen

  SVP Print, Sales & Marketing: David Gabriel

  Editor in Chief: C. B. Cebulski

  Chief Creative Officer: Joe Quesada

  President: Dan Buckley

  Executive Producer: Alan Fine

  Special thanks to editor Joan Hilty

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  This one’s for Jim Starlin, Prince, and the two Cordwainers: Smith and Bird. Also for Mimi, who didn’t deserve this.

  BOOK ONE

  INFINITY

  He was quick-witted, sharp-eyed, and perpetually dissatisfied. He craved power and wisdom, but not for his own gratification. He was Kronos, first of the Titans, and he dreamed of a better world.

  Kronos built a city, a haven, a sanctuary called Olympus. A place of beauty, where the gods lived together in harmony. But Kronos’s dissatisfied nature proved his undoing. Bored with peaceful contemplation, he sought to bend the laws of nature. One day he probed too far into the bands of hyperspace, snapped the superstrings, and unleashed power beyond comprehension. The catastrophic explosion shattered Olympus, toppling it from its high peak.

  Thus died Paradise.

  One of Kronos’s sons, a good man named A’Lars, gathered his starlost siblings. He founded a new society on Titan, largest moon of a ringed world called Saturn. Mindful of his father’s mistakes, A’Lars ruled over Titan with a careful eye. He hoped to restore the values of peace and wisdom that had been lost in the fall of Olympus.

  And so it was for a time beyond mortal reckoning. Until the coming of A’Lars’s own son, his deadly seed…

  …the Mad Titan called THANOS.

  FROM THE BOOK OF TITAN

  (last known copy destroyed in the First Thanos Genocide)

  ONE

  THOR was the first to die. A blast of pure cosmic force struck him in the chest, lighting up his muscular form. The Thunder God tensed, arched his back, and tightened his grip on the hammer Mjolnir. Fire burned through him, searing his flesh and peeling away layers of muscle to reveal bones that had fought a thousand battles, endured for hundreds of years. His mouth gaped open in a silent scream.

  Thor flared bright against the stars, and was gone. Mjolnir spiraled away, an orphan in the sky, and vanished into the depths of space.

  At that moment, a shiver ran up Thanos’s spine. The universe shifted; the strings, the bands, the swirls of existence vibrated, sounding a chord of triumph. To Thanos, death was a song, an ode, a lyric poem. It was his art.

  He looked down. On his left fist gleamed the Infinity Gauntlet, power radiating from the six Gems studding its surface. The yellow stone—the Power Gem—still flared. A moment ago, it had loosed the bolt that ended Thor’s life.

  Thanos smiled. The Power Gem was the least of the six—and it had just claimed the life of Earth’s most powerful defender.

  Soon, all existence would bow to Thanos. If he felt merciful, he would grant it the greatest gift of all: nonexistence.

  When Thanos spoke, his voice was like granite plates. Shifting and rumbling, jangling the chords of hyperspace.

  “LET THE GAME BEGIN,” he said.

  Half a mile away, in free space, the next wave of Earth’s heroes shot forth to face him. Carol Danvers, the energy-powered Captain Marvel. The Silver Surfer, gleaming on his board. The Vision, an artificial being. The cosmic peace officer called Nova.

  And their leader, Captain America, grim and determined in a red-and-blue spacesuit flecked with white stars. He motioned to the others, gathering them to him and speaking in low, short tones over the radio in his helmet. The Captain had no special abilities, no invulnerable skin or energy-channeling powers. But Thanos could feel his thoughts in the ether, more focused and intense than any of the others.

  Thanos clenched his fist tighter, poured his will into the Gems. His diamond-hard, gray-skinned body began to grow in size, dwarfing his enemies. Already he was as tall as a skyscraper; soon he would be as large as a moon, then a planet. Eventually, all matter in the universe would be absorbed within his omnipotent form.

  As he grew, his awareness expanded. He could sense the bands of hyperspace, an ever-growing range of dimensions, each a glittering string to be plucked and played. Seven strings radiated out from each gem—42 in all, each a window into a unique reality. The strings spread like webs through the stars, wormholes linking all time and space. They could be picked, moved, tied, rewoven, or snapped at his will.

  Thanos saw without seeing, perceived multiple planes of existence. Before him, Captain America and Captain Marvel argued strategy, casting urgent glances at Thanos. The word “diversion” fluttered past his awareness, and he laughed.

  “YOU SPEAK OF DIVERSIONS,” he boomed. “DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THAT I SEE EVERYTHING AT ONCE?”

  The Silver Surfer’s blank eyes went wide. He understands, Thanos realized. Alone among the heroes, the Surfer possessed cosmic awareness.

  A small vessel circled nearby, keeping a careful distance from Thanos’s ever-growing form. Its engines were strictly sublight, its hull patched together from alien ships and experimental human shuttles. Its pilot, a misshapen creature called Ben Grimm, barked out warnings to his passengers, then sent the ship on a wide-angled course fo
r the outer system.

  Thanos cast his awareness wider, surveying the totality of his surroundings. The Space Gem burned bright on his fist, feeding power back into its owner. Several miles off, in a small capsule, a third contingent of attackers waited. This was Captain America’s emergency team, a trio of extremely volatile entities. A green-skinned behemoth; a demon with a flaming skull. A man with cold metal pressed against a hideously scarred face.

  Thanos’s ship Sanctuary floated at the edge of his awareness, out beyond the orbit of Mars. Its crew of space pirates and degenerates was not strictly necessary to his purpose. But he knew: Even a god needs followers.

  Exactly one million miles sunward, the Earth floated helpless in space.

  “Thanos.”

  Thanos turned, startled. He’d almost forgotten Captain America. The muscular human floated with his comrades, addressing Thanos directly.

  “You have the Infinity Gems,” Captain America said. “That gives you power.”

  The voice was tinged with anger. Over the death of his friend, no doubt. Thanos grinned.

  “But power is a hollow thing,” the Captain continued.

  “YOU BELIEVE SO?”

  “I know it.” Captain America grimaced. “I’ve seen the abuse of power—time and time again. It always backfires.”

  Thanos tuned out the small voice. He was still growing, approaching planetary size. His atoms drew farther apart; he became a specter against the stars. Soon he would engulf this solar system, then the galaxy.

  No power—no force of nature or technology—would stand before him. The Space Gem could take him anywhere in the universe. The Soul Gem would break his enemies’ will. The Time Gem would grant him access to past and future; the Mind Gem would lay all secrets bare to him. The Power Gem would feed and energize the others.

  And if all five of those somehow failed, the Reality Gem alone could shape the universe into any form Thanos desired.

  He could feel the power suffusing his form. The universe would kneel before him. It would become him.

  And yet…

  Something nagged at him, casting a shadow over his impending triumph. Yes, the stars themselves had cried out at Thor’s death. The trumpets had sounded; the strings had been plucked. Thanos’s offering had been heard and accepted.

  But something was missing. Some absence tugged at Thanos’s stone heart. When the Thunder God perished, Thanos had still been alone. The voice in his heart, the one entity he loved more than any other, had not spoken.

  Mistress Death was silent.

  In all the universe, only one entity—one concept—owned Thanos’s loyalty: Death. Oblivion. All his life, throughout countless human lifetimes, he had worshiped her, adored her, sought to please her. She spoke to him in dreams, waking and sleeping, urging him on to slaughter and genocide. Her dark eyes glittered; her scarlet mouth promised peace and a final contentment.

  But it was never enough. No matter how many beings, how many worlds that Thanos reduced to cinders, Death had never fully accepted him. Her lips brushed his ear, whispered words of temptation and promise. And then, always, she was gone.

  The Infinity Gems glittered on his fist. They were his last chance, his final bid for Death’s love. The Gems’ power was so great, so universally feared, that they had long ago been scattered and placed in the care of a group of cosmic entities. To accumulate them, Thanos had tricked, trapped, and vanquished the Collector, the Gardener, the Grandmaster, and others he could barely even recall.

  Now the power was his. The power to control the universe—to rule it, or to raze it to dust. The greatest gift any being, throughout time and space, had ever granted to Death.

  And still she withheld her love.

  A burst of cosmic energy blasted against Thanos, disrupting his expanding atomic structure. For a moment, he felt…not pain, exactly. The ghostly memory of the sensation. A whisper of hurt, a flash of anger.

  He turned stone eyes to the source of the blast. The Silver Surfer stood astride his board, channeling unimaginable power through his outstretched hand. That power had been granted the Surfer by Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds. One of the few beings whose strength rivaled Thanos’s own.

  But the Surfer alone could not have pierced Thanos’s enhanced body. The Vision floated nearby, channeling a steady blast of solar energy through the jewel in his forehead. The young hero called Nova gritted his teeth, shooting forth pulses of gravimetric force through his outstretched hands. Captain Marvel thrust forward one fist after the other, sending radiant energy that flared in blinding bursts.

  Captain America floated behind them, directing the assault. Eyes wide with alarm.

  Again, Thanos smiled. You should be alarmed, Captain.

  He sent a thought-command to the Power Gem, and the assault simply ceased. The range of energies, of solar and cosmic and gravimetric power, stopped short of Thanos, as if a force field had been erected.

  Now, Thanos decided, casting his thoughts forth to Mistress Death. Now the slaughter begins.

  The Power Gem flared—and then died down again at his command. Why just kill them all? he thought. Much better to show them the full power of the Gems first. A display, a demonstration to the assembled universe of what was to come.

  He turned first to Captain Marvel. She bore a trace of Kree power within her, the legacy of the most fearsome warrior race in the galaxy. Yet she herself was human, mortal. A fragile speck in a large, hostile universe.

  The Space Gem pulsed. With the slightest twitch of a cosmic string, Thanos shifted space around Captain Marvel. A moment of disorientation, and she found herself alone and helpless, far from her world, her teammates, her ship. Far from the raging battle.

  Somewhere near the orbit of Pluto.

  Billions of miles away, Thanos reveled in her panic. She would die in the depths of space, far from Earth, as hunger and thirst inevitably destroyed her human form.

  “Close ranks!” Captain America called.

  The Surfer, Nova, and the Vision moved closer together, renewing their assault. They couldn’t keep this up forever, Thanos knew. It would be easy enough to wait them out, to allow them to exhaust themselves.

  But where was the fun in that?

  With a quick pulse of the Mind Gem, Thanos swooped inside the Surfer’s thoughts. In a millisecond, the Titan witnessed the tortured creature’s entire history: his childhood as Norrin Radd on the peaceful planet Zenn-La, his enlistment by the Devourer as herald, and the triumphant moment when he had turned on his master, refusing to scout worlds for Galactus to consume.

  Thanos’s fingers, each the size of a moon now, twitched. The Mind Gem subsided; the Soul Gem flared. Cruelly, surgically, Thanos reached into the Surfer’s mind and altered his essence.

  The Surfer stiffened. He looked around at his comrades, as if seeing them for the first time. Then he turned and flew off into the void, ignoring Captain America’s protests.

  Thanos smiled. The Soul Gem had returned Norrin Radd to a cold, emotionless state, as he had been when Galactus recruited him. This Silver Surfer cared nothing for humans, for love or friendship, for the survival of worlds. His inside matched his exterior: hard, gleaming, allowing no light to penetrate his soul.

  The Vision launched himself toward Thanos, his solar jewel blazing bright. Thanos cocked his head, studying the tiny android. Then he raised the Gauntlet and aimed the Reality Gem.

  All around the Vision, space went mad. Planets careened and crashed, moons and comets appearing out of nowhere. Captain America’s voice in the Vision’s ear became a deafening shout, then a gibbering squeak. All directions became one; the Vision scrabbled and flailed in the void, unable to find his way.

  The android’s strength, Thanos knew, came from the rigid order of his artificial brain. Without that, the Vision was helpless. Trapped in a private hell.

  Thanos became aware of a voice breaking his concentration. A faint sound, almost too quiet to make out. Despite himself, his heart surged with hope.
Was this Mistress Death? Had she arrived, at last, to share in his glory?

  “Uh, guys? Not to complain, but I’m kind of drowning in lizards here.”

  Anger surged through Thanos. This was not Death’s voice. It was a tiny human, a chittering insect he’d faced before. A mote, a speck of dirt.

  Spider-Man.

  Thanos frowned, seeking the source, then raised an enormous stone eyebrow in surprise. While he’d been occupied with Captain America’s assault, Ben Grimm had successfully boarded Thanos’s starship, Sanctuary. Spider-Man was among Grimm’s team.

  I’m not yet used to operating on multiple planes at once, Thanos realized. I must learn to divide my attention, to live in all time and space simultaneously. I have been a Titan all my life, but I must learn what it means to be a god.

  He swept his fist wide, sending a trail of Gem-power flaring across the orbit of Mars. Captain America and Nova winked out of existence. There was no burst of power, no meeting of weapons in battle. They were there, and then they were gone.

  Voices cried out, chattering over suit radios. Thanos folded the bands of space and turned his attention to Sanctuary. He thrust his awareness inside, through the gleaming hull, and searched the two wings of the ship until he reached Main Mission, in the thick central section.

  A fierce battle raged under the glaring lights and floor-to-ceiling viewports of Main Mission. The Black Panther leapt out, stunning Thanos’s officers with his charged gauntlets. The alien crew members fell back, firing lasers. Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, soared overhead, raining fireballs down on the crew.

  Captain Styx, a salmon-colored humanoid with white eyes, stepped cautiously into the room. He swept his hand forward, and a horde of enlisted men—most of them recruited from lizard races—swarmed in after him. Spider-Man launched himself into their midst, punching and spraying webbing from both hands.

  “This looks kind of…what’s that thing that isn’t good?” Spider-Man webbed an armed lizard in the face. “Bad.”

  A hatch clanged open, propelled inward by the force of a rocky orange fist. Ben Grimm, the Thing, charged into Main Mission, followed by the muscular She-Hulk. A slim figure followed, soaring gracefully through the air. He wore a space helmet, but unlike those worn by Captain America’s team, his wasn’t filled with air.