Marvel Comics announced on Wednesday Thanos Rising, a new miniseries by Jason Aaron and Simone Bianchi that will offer what would appear to be an authoritative, modern origin of the cosmic villain who was introduced to millions of moviegoers in the closing moments of The Avengers. Beginning in April, the story of Thanos' rise to power -- which involves a birth on a Saturn moon and an infatuation with a physical embodiment of death -- would, in the words of Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso, "make Shakespeare shudder.""This is without a doubt one of the creepiest stories I've ever gotten to write for Marvel. It's the origin of an outer space serial killer, the story of the universe's weirdest romance and a grand cosmic tragedy, all wrapped up in one," explained writer Jason Aaron in a press release. "This is me taking five issues to really dig into the head of a space-faring world conqueror, mass murderer and hopeless romantic. I love writing stories with villains as the main character, and this book is about Thanos all the way."

Another Thanos origin story, Thanos: Son of Titan, was in production and announced last year, but plans changed before the first issue was released. Based on Aaron's remarks above and the similarly themed content of his current Thor: God of Thunder series, it's easy to imagine why things were switched around. Son of Titan writer Joe Keatinge and artist Richard Elson were reassigned to the recently debuted Morbius: The Living Vampire series, also part of the high profile Marvel NOW initiative.

Thanos Rising will be illustrated by Simone Bianchi, an artist who excels at drawing big scary guys, and whose recent work we profiled last year.

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