In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, see how close Thanos came to becoming a regular Iron Man villain

Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and fifty-fifth installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false. As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends.

NOTE: If my Twitter page hits 5,000 followers, I'll do a bonus edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed that week. Great deal, right? So go follow my Twitter page, Brian_Cronin!

COMIC LEGEND:

Jim Starlin originally planned on Thanos being a regular Iron Man villain when he was introduced.

STATUS:

I'm Going With True

There are certain legends that intrigue me because they involve things that I KNOW that I know, but it’s only when looking at them from a different angle that I realize that I didn't really know it the way that I thought that I did. These legends are sort of my "Both Sides Now" types of legends, "I've seen Thanos' origins from both sides now. It's Thanos' illusions that I recall, I really don't know Thanos at all."

Many years ago, I did one of my more popular legends, which was to note the fascinating origins of Thanos, and how the character came about from Jim Starlin taking a psychology class, and that class caused him to create the character who became Thanos. As Starlin explained to Daniel Best:

Well I had him from a psyche class that I took. I went to college between the service and getting work in comics, and there was a psyche class and I came up with Thanos… and Drax the Destroyer, but I’m not sure how he fit into it, just anger management probably. So I came up to Marvel and Roy (Thomas) asked if I wanted to do a issue of Iron Man. I felt that this may be my only chance ever to do a character, not having the confidence that my career was going to last anything longer than a few weeks. So they got jammed into it. Thanos was a much thinner character and Roy suggested beefing him up, so he’s beefed up quite a bit from his original sketches from Iron Man, and later on I liked beefing him up so much that he continued to grow in size.

The interesting thing to me, besides a clever bit that I featured the following week back then (about how Roy Thomas got Starlin to change the artist's original conception of Thanos), was that it perfectly explained why Thanos made his debut in what amounted to a fill-in issue of Iron Man (with Mike Friedrich scripting the issue for Starlin, as Starlin was not yet ready to handle his own dialogue). As I noted in that legend, "Isn't that a fascinating explanation for why Thanos was introduced in such an odd place? Starlin didn't think he would ever get the chance to write another comic, so he went "all in" with his first work!"

Thanos debuts in Iron Man #55

RELATED: Pete Wisdom's Origins Began at a Whole Other Company Than Marvel

That's definitely a cool part of it all, that Starlin figured, "Hey, let me shoot my shot when I can," but you see, I also happened to know that Starlin co-plotted and drew the NEXT issue of Iron Man, as well.

iron-man-56-0

In fact, I think I have a note written somewhere to myself about doing a piece about Iron Man #56 (unless I already did, and I forgot I did it?), and how it was received poorly by Stan Lee, which is why it was Starlin's LAST issue of Iron Man (it's legit not a bad comic book, Starlin did it with Steve Gerber. But it is definitely a WILD comic book, and certainly unusual for the era. If I haven't written about it yet, I promise I will in the future).

But that's the thing - I KNEW that Starlin did the following issue, but I guess I always just thought of it as a second fill-in issue, which is normal enough. And then he ended up on Captain Marvel, where he took the chance to bring back the Thanos character. However, what I never realized was that Starlin was planning on staying on the book full-time at the time, and if he had, Thanos was coming with him!

RELATED: Pete Wisdom's Origins Began at a Whole Other Company Than Marvel

In an excellent piece by Karen Walker in TwoMorrows' Back Issue #93, Starlin explained, "I started off doing an issue of Iron Man, with Mike Friedrich, in which case we introduced Thanos and Drax, and started that whole Captain Marvel storyline, but that wasn't the intention at that point. I thought I was gonna be on Iron Man." Starlin hadn't had the whole storyline planned out at the time, but it would have involved Thanos, and it would have continued in Iron Man. However, he was fired, and then Roy Thomas explained to Walker why it happened in Captain Marvel instead:

I just felt Starlin was an exciting artist and he had these characters and Captain Marvel was Kree, and after the Kree-Skrull War it made sense to have all that cosmic stuff in it that Starlin likes to do, so why not? It wasn't like Gil and I [Thomas and Gil Kane had revived Captain Marvel a few years earlier with a brand-new costume and a new status quo where Mar-Vell swapped placed with Rick Jones, in a clever reference to Billy Batson and the original Captain Marvel] had any great direction we were going in that just called out to be pursued, and neither did anybody else that had handled it since us, so if Starlin had this idea, we may as well give it a try. And it did pretty well, actually. If you put Starlin on the book, there's no sense trying to push him too much into a path that he doesn't want to go. You put Starlin on there to let Starlin be Starlin."

captain-marvel-33

So yes, I, and everybody else, always knew that Starlin had introduced Thanos in the pages of Iron Man, but I never realized how close we came to Thanos actually becoming a character in that series.

Thanks to Karen Walker, Jim Starlin and Roy Thomas for the information!

SOME OTHER ENTERTAINMENT LEGENDS!

Check out some entertainment legends from Legends Revealed:

1. Did Heath Ledger’s Tragic Death Ruin Plans for the Joker to Appear in The Dark Knight Rises?

2. Did Axl Rose Having Sex With a Bandmate’s Girlfriend Make It on to the Song, “Rocket Queen”?

3. How Did Crispin Glover and Back to the Future II Change Actors’ Rights Forever?

4. Does Disney Give Free Tickets for Life to Any Baby Born in a Disney Theme Park?

PART TWO SOON!

Check back soon for part 2 of this installment's legends!

Feel free to send suggestions for future comic legends to me at either cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com