Love can make people do extraordinary and terrible things, and when you're a godlike being enamored with the abstract entity that personifies Death in the Marvel Universe, well, the terrible things you're willing to do for love rise to a whole other level.

The Mad Titan known as Thanos has demonstrated this time and time again, launching countless schemes to murder and subjugate literally all life in the universe in hopes of catching favor with his beloved Death. Fortunately, the heroes of the Marvel U have been able to foil his schemes, but there will come a day when Thanos' relentless drive to conquer and murder proves too much, even for them.

RELATED: Thanos’ Cosmic Ghost Rider Is Revealed, And He’s Not Who You Think

In the current “Thanos Wins” arc, writer Donny Cates and artist Geoff Shaw are showing what a dark future where the title character reigns supreme over the universe would look like. It's a haunting world full of familiar Marvel characters transformed into powerful and tragic new identities like the Cosmic Ghost Rider and the Fallen one. It's also a reality that the present day Thanos, who was brought forward in time to aid his future self, finds detestable.

CBR spoke with Cates about the origin and true identity of the cosmic Ghost Rider, why “winning” is one of the worst things that can happen to Thanos, the twisted cosmic action that will come in future issues of this arc, and his plans for April's Thanos Annual #1.

CBR: In Thanos #15 you revealed that the cosmic powered Ghost Rider working for the future Thanos used to be Frank Castle. What inspired the creation of this character? And what made you decide on the Punisher for the person he used to be?

EXCLUSIVE: Art from Thanos #16 by Geoff Shaw and colorist Antonio Fabela

Donny Cates: The cosmic Ghost Rider was an idea that I came up with around seven years ago. I thought it was crazy that nobody had ever made Frank Castle into the Rider simply because, who loves vengeance more than Frank? The guy is primed to be the Ghost Rider. He's been all these other super rad things like a Frankenstein's monster, but never the Rider.

When I first started talking to Marvel, back before I had ever written anything for them and we were just kind of feeling the waters out, Mark Paniccia and I had an e-mail conversation where I mentioned it to him. This must have been around 2012 or 2013. I said, “I'd like to make Frank Castle the Rider. I think that would be really fun.” I remember Mark saying, “That's such a good idea, it makes me worry that it hasn't already been done.” I remember agreeing with Mark. I assumed someone might have done it, or by the time I ended up in position to do that securely surely someone would have gotten there before me. It turns out, nope! I was able to pull it off.

As for the cosmic of it all? I don't really know where that came from. I knew that a story that had two Thanoses was going to need some brevity. Those two dudes can be pretty severe. So I was going to need something to break it all up. The fact that Frank Castle is the comic relief is very telling of how dark this story is. [Laughs] And I just started thinking about the cosmic Ghost Rider.

Before Thanos ever happened I started building this title in my head. Every writer gets attached to an idea and starts building it out in their head even if it's never going to go anywhere. At the time I was going to pitch it as a book titled Ghost Rider: Herald of Galactus. The acronym for that was going to be GRHoG, which is dope. [Laughs]

I just thought it was really fun and absurd, and some stuff that no one had ever done, but it was also, “When will I get a chance to actually do this? Even if Marvel hires me, they're not going to let me create my own weird, solo title.” Then Jordan D White called and offered me Thanos. So as I was building out this story I got to this point in plotting out the first scripts where I needed someone to come back in time and grab Thanos. I basically needed a herald of this future Thanos.

cosmic-ghost-rider-header

So I started going through the Black Order -- Corvus Glaive and all those awesome characters that Jonathan Hickman created. I decided they didn't fit for what I was doing. Those characters were not going to buy me the insane real estate I needed. Then I went back to my notes and was like, “Oh, yeah! This weird space rider! That's who it's got to be.” So I built it out from there and things just kind of locked into place in a really weird way that doesn't always happen.

The Rider's story became a very important piece of this whole big tale. At first I was worried I was shoehorning in an idea because it was cool, but the more I built on it the more the story of Frank Castle's descent into what he's become became something that fit this story really well.

If Frank Castle has a super power it's his unbreakable resolve. This is a man who can not be corrupted. This is a man who, whether or not you agree with it, has a stand that he has cemented. He's not a dude whose opinion is going to sway. So to see him giving up on his own ideals because of Thanos is another display of just how terrible Thanos is. By just being around him he broke the most bull headed character of all time.

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Frank Castle isn't the only insanely stubborn character Thanos broke. In issue #15, you also show that the future Thanos keeps the Hulk in his basement and the Jade Giant is referred to as “The dog.”

Yes, in that scene where the Rider reveals his identity, we have a pained Hulk begging to be murdere,d and a Frank Castle who's gone insane and flipped sides. In a way, it's all very silly, but at the same time, if you scratch the surface it might be the saddest moment in that entire book; seeing what King Thanos has done to these two characters that can't be tamed or broken.

RELATED: Thanos #13 Preview Showcases the Mad Titan’s Murderous Tendencies

I keep hearing people say that Hulk is caged up and chained in Thanos' basement. If you look at that image, though, he's not chained up, and that's what makes it sadder. They don't even bother locking that door or chaining him in. He's just there. He's broken and unchained. To me, that's the same as what's happening to Frank. It's disgusting and horrible. So that's why those scenes are there.

EXCLUSIVE: Art from Thanos #16 by Geoff Shaw and colorist Antonio Fabela

If you don't believe that's Frank Castle because he's crazy and not as brooding as he used to be, look at the Hulk! The Hulk, having eaten all of his friends, is in there begging to die. These things happened because of Thanos.

Thanos' most significant interactions in issue #15 are of course with his future self. This future Thanos is more haunted and vulnerable. So it seems to me that one of the worst things that could happen to the character is his “winning.” Do you think Thanos is a character who is all about the struggle? Is he a sort of shark like being who always has to be on the move?

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Absolutely. When I was developing this series I looked at the recap pages of one of the first Thanos issues and there's this text above his name that reads, “Consumed with an all powerful desire to conquer. . .” What's sad about that is he's doing it for a reason, right?

He thinks that he is just in doing this because he's going to get what he wants out of it in the end. So I imagined the worst thing to happen to King Thanos as, “I've done it, and now there's nothing. I've literally given her everything.” His power has always been that he's the one being able to go the distance and give Death what she wants. Now he's done it and there's nothing there. He reached the top of the mountain and when he got there he was alone. That's the worst thing that could ever happen to Thanos. There's nothing left to prove to her or give her, and he's still found wanting.

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That's haunting and terrible, and it's haunting for young Thanos to see that. That's why he hates King Thanos so much. It's because he sees the end results of how he's chosen to live his entire life. It would be like the me from 10 years ago flashing forward to this moment right now and seeing that I'm not working in comics; that I'm not writing these awesome books, and I'm still at Best Buy or something. It's crushing!

EXCLUSIVE: Art from Thanos #16 by Geoff Shaw and colorist Antonio Fabela

It hurts, and that was a big challenge in writing Thanos. How do you make people root for this monster? How do you make this character sympathetic? That was built into the pitch. So when I wrote this story it came down to, “Let's put young Thanos up against something that he would be afraid of.” And Thanos is afraid of nothing, but Thanos. So in that way you can relate to him to some degree.

You feel for him, even though I'm trying to remind you that he's a bad guy throughout this entire book with things like that cut away to the Hulk and Frank that we talked about. Every time we veer down a path where it's like, “Oh I care about this character and he's so sad” I try to remind you that, no, he's a mass murderer. He's the worst thing that's ever lived. Let's not like this guy too much because relating to and liking are two different things.

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Let's chat about another character we caught a glimpse of at the end of Thanos #15: the Fallen One. In the reveal we got at the end of the issue the Fallen One is clearly Norrin Radd, and the bug like beings following in his wake suggests that he is now connected to the Negative Zone.

Yes, that is the Annihilation Wave, and that is indeed Norrin Radd, albeit a darker version of him. I mean that literally too. He's like jet black. The panel description in the script was, “He should look like gasoline on water.” Sort of shimmery, dark, and gross.

Norrin Radd is pretty pissed off. [Laughs] He's gone through great lengths to get to where he is now, and he will continue to go through them in order to bring the Mad, and now Twin Titans down.

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If people thought issue #15 was crazy, issue #16 might be the craziest thing I've ever written in my life. When I was trying to convince Geoff Shaw to come and draw this book I called him and I described what was going to happen. Issue #16 is when he signed on. I told him what was going to happen in that issue and he was like, “That's crazy! If they're going to let you do that, then yeah, I'll draw it.”

So if you thought a jet black Silver Surfer named the Fallen One coming out of a portal with an Annihilus horde at his back was severe? Just wait! [Laughs] It gets brutal.

EXCLUSIVE: Art from Thanos #16 by Geoff Shaw and colorist Antonio Fabela

What's it been like seeing Geoff's designs and depictions of characters like the Fallen One and the cosmic Ghost Rider come in? His work on this title, especially his character designs, have blown me away.

Yeah! Geoff is a master. Sometimes I work with artists that I haven't worked with in the past and their art comes in and it just blows me away, but with Geoff I've worked with him for so long that, at this point, when I'm writing a page I get giddy. Because I know he's going to make it amazing.

I know how to write for him. I know what his sensibilities are and he knows what mine are. We work together real well, and we both have very similar story aesthetics. We both dig the same kinds of stories, and when I wrote in the script, “Let's give the Silver Surfer the grandest reveal with him riding through a portal and the Annihilus horde at his back.” I just knew that Geoff was going to crush that. Then when the page came in, it was like I didn't know anything because it was way better than even I thought it would be.

It's the same thing with the Rider. I don't want to give too much away because I don't want to paint a depiction of him for people's minds, but his movements and speech patterns are based on a comedian that Geoff and I really love. During a research trip for God Country Geoff and I both drove out to west Texas. We took pictures, hung out, and kind of broke the story down. And when we were driving around he put this comedian on and we were both just dying laughing at this guy. So when I started writing him I based him almost completely on this comedian.

Finally it sounds like upcoming issues of Thanos will feature some tragic and horrific revelations about certain characters along with some epic, cosmic scale fights.

Oh my God, yeah! Like I said, issue #16 is the craziest thing I've ever written in my life. Issue #17 has a moment in it where it's the first time in the entire book where we had to send it up to legal to make sure we could do it. [Laughs] I've been shocked at the things Marvel has allowed me to do on this book in terms of upping the violence and horror, but this was the first moment in the entire book where Jordan, my editor, went, “Woah . . . I don't know about that one.” But guess what? It made it in! [Laughs] Issue #17 is probably not for kids.

After that we've got a lot more planned. There's this crazy Thanos Annual that comes out in April. In Thanos #15 we saw him undergo Ghost Rider's Penance Stare. So our Annual is a Tales From the Crypt style story where the Rider takes the reader aside and is like, “Hey! Do you want to see some of this wild stuff I just saw? Let me show you the worst things that Thanos has ever done.” So this is Thanos' greatest and darkest hits.

We have an incredible line up of writers and artists working on it: Kieron Gillen, Al Ewing, Ryan North, Christopher Hastings, Katie Cook. It's insane! It's a literal murderer's row.