The Thanos Quest + "Astral Travelling"

Saturday night for the last several months I have made it a habit to stream a recently-released-to-DVD Hollywood big-budget picture. The idea being that it is wise to keep abreast of what is one of America's top exports to the rest of the world as well as make an evaluation of the product that is being extruded by the "dream machine." Then come Sunday morning I post a brief recapitulation of my viewing experience.

The problem is that the last two Saturdays there has been nothing newly released on Amazon that justifies the expense. I debated watching the latest installment of the Die Hard franchise, A Good Day to Die Hard. But at $4.99 for a 24-hour rental, I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Instead I read The Thanos Quest, a 2012 Marvel one-shot reprint of the Jim Starlin and Ron Lim two-part comic from 1990. The story describes how Thanos collects the six Infinity Gems; it directly precedes The Infinity Gauntlet, Infinity War and Infinity Crusade. Marvel is most likely reprinting The Thanos Quest, as well as publishing the new title Thanos Rising, in preparation for the forthcoming blockbuster The Avengers (2012)  film sequel. As I read, I listened to Pharoah Sanders' "Astral Travelling" off Thembi (1971). A good combination:

Jim Starlin is an important figure, albeit unrecognized, in anti-establishment cultural trends in the United States. First, in crafting the cosmic consciousness story arc of a reborn Captain Mar-Vell and introducing Thanos in nine bi-monthly issues from March 1973 to January 1974 (the heyday of Watergate), he brought the Human Potential Movement to grade-school boys like me. Then in the early 1990s, coinciding with the brief youth counterculture recrudescence of Grunge, he treated an America burned out on Reagan-Bush Republicanism to the ambitious cosmic Infinity narratives.

Below are two scans from The Thanos Quest. Thanos has just bested the Grandmaster in a lethal game for the final Infinity Gem and he's feeling his oats.