Thanos: Titan Consumed - A Book Report (VIDEO SCRIPT)

Book Information

Thanos: Titan Consumed is a work of fiction steeped in the genre of Science Fiction. Y’know, different planets, space battles, Nova Corps being EVER so useful as always

It was written by young adult author Barry Lyga, who’s actually known for writing a Dexter-like Young Adult serial killer series called “I Hunt Killers.” So the fact that he’s writing the story of one of Marvel’s most well-known sociopaths makes a hell of a lot more sense

Summary

As you would’ve guessed, this story is about Thanos. But not just any version of Thanos, mind you. This is the story of Marvel Cinematic Universe Thanos, which I assure you did NOT make reading this any easier for me. It takes place throughout the MCU as we currently know it, chronicles his origin, his initial attempt to save Titan, how he became a warlord, and how he first found out about the Infinity Stones.

All through Thanos’s point of view (close-up of me dying)

Characters

So, to be fair, I feel that I have to talk about more characters in this story outside of the ones that I actually liked. Because if I ONLY talked about the ones that I actually like, this is gonna be a short-ass portion of this video.

So outside of Thanos, the major players to me are A’Lars his father, Sintaa his childhood best friend, and Cha who TRIES to be his conscious during his early genocidal escapades? It doesn’t really work out.

And ironically enough, the only two characters out of the three I listed are Sintaa and Cha. Which means, like all good things in Thanos’s life, they’re going to end up dead.

A’Lars is like Jor-El, if Jor-El was a self-absorbed arrogant piece of shit. Because A’Lars is a self-absorbed arrogant piece of shit

Given the knowledge we have of MCU Thanos, and the fact that this book is technically canon in the MCU, you can see that there’s an attempt to make us believe that a lot of the reasons why Thanos in the MCU is the way that he is because of his father

And while the book goes into detail that not EVERYTHING is a “sins of the father” storyline regarding how we got to how Thanos is currently in the MCU - at least until Gamora and Nebula are introduced - the actions of A’Lars during the final days of Titan help paint a picture of where some - if not most - of his sociopathic behavior came from.

Sintaa was a saving grace, real talk. Like, I knew that it was gonna be short-lived, because Thanos is still Thanos at the end of the day, and I mean everyone on Titan eventually dies, but god damn it did I appreciate the fuck out of his presence in the first act of his story

Especially since despite his efforts earlier on because he genuinely cared for the fucker, all it took was for him to ask him one question to realize that Thanos was beyond saving and let him go

Oh, and trust me; this is not me saying that Thanos deserves sympathy in the slightest. If anyone deserves ANY sympathy, even if it’s just a little bit, it’s Cha

Cha TRIED to be that for Adult Thanos, but failed in a way that kinda reminds me of how some people accidentally get caught up in right-wing politics

You either have your initial moral codes and ethics or are still semi-impressionable. You’re then introduced to an individual that shows to have a radical way of thinking that doesn’t line up with yours and could potentially be dangerous. But because you believe everyone deserves to be heard despite what you think of their opinions, you don’t OPPOSE to letting them gain a platform and hear them out. Next thing you know, you’re guilty by association by by getting caught up and promoting their foolishness, and you don’t find out you’re dancing with the devil until it’s too fucking late.

That’s Cha. And there’re a lot of Cha’s in this world.

Opinions

Look, I knew exactly what I was getting into with this story the minute that I decided to read it for this month’s Book Report.

I knew I was gonna hate Thanos, because I fucking hate Thanos. And I knew that there was gonna be a possibility that the author was gonna try and make me see him as a sympathetic figure, which I refused to do.

But just because the book focused on a character I despised, didn’t mean that I immediately thought it was trash.

Thanks to this story, I now have a better understanding of the changes that have been made to Thanos in order for him to fit in the MCU regarding his initial plan to eradicate half the universe

Personal bias of the character aside, everything was coherent and the story for the most part was pretty self-contained, considering that it took place over the course of multiple years in the timeline of the current MCU despite Thanos being the main character. That was initially my main reason for reading this book.

And because it was through Thanos’s point of view - not first person, but still through his point of view - seeing how he thought and operated was pretty consistent throughout the story, and definitely matched what we saw in his appearances in the MCU thus far

Critiques

So, when I initially got the book in the mail, I kinda put off reading it. Not because it was a Thanos-based story, mind you, but because of how thick it was.

Then I opened the book, saw the margins and the size of the font, and immediately tried to figure out why human beings love wasting paper.

There wasn’t a paperback edition of the book when I ordered it on Amazon; I could only get the hardcover if I wanted a physical copy. And for a book that was this thick, I was surprised that the story was only THIS thick

And I know that was out of Barry Lyga’s jurisdiction and had everything to do with Little & Brown.

The one thing that WAS in Barry Lyga’s jurisdiction however, where the 45 chapters the book consisted of, and the 3 to 5 chapters that were only between 1 to 4 paragraphs long. It was weird, I-it...it was very weird.

I don’t know if there are OTHER contemporary authors who do the same thing, but I’m just gonna be honest with you; I don’t care for it.

Conclusion

Thanos: Titan Consumed was my attempt at stepping out of my comfort zone in regards to reading an interpretation of a character that I absolutely hate.

Not to get a better understanding of said character or hope that the author would give me something to like about the motherfucker

But to understand how the character both regarding personality and motivation has been reworked to fit the narrative of the MCU, considering that this is the closest thing we’re going to get to official canon unless Marvel Studios decides to make a full-fledged origin movie

Which I doubt and do not want. Especially now that I’ve read this book; it got the job done well enough.

So if you either like Thanos as a character, want to know how they changed stuff around for him to fit in the MCU without the crush on Death and everything, or both, you’ll probably find this MCU tie-in useful, if not enjoyable

For me, I only found it useful. Because I still hate Thanos. And I’ll explain why, next week.

_____

So with that Readers, your homework assignment for the day: Write in the comment section below what you thought of the novel Thanos: Titan Consumed if you’ve read it

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But until then, this is Readus 101. Class dismissed.