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Classic Comic Compendium: MARVEL UNIVERSE – THE END is another great Thanos story

And part of a grand trilogy.

01/19/2026 11:00 am

The overall saga with Thanos, Adam Warlock, Captain Marvel, Silver Surfer, and more that Jim Starlin has been telling over decades is immense. It started in a random issue of Iron Man and eventually became a cornerstone in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Influencing, shaping, and forming Marvel’s cosmic universe along the way.

It took a myriad of paths a prologue of sorts in Captain Marvel, Warlock, and Silver Surfer through the ’70s and ’80s. The core of the Infinity Gauntlet events in the early ’90s as well as the Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch series. A trilogy of sorts in the ’00s. And the more recent Infinity Saga from 2014-2019 that let Starlin do his own thing to close out the grander tale. For now at least.

But it’s part of that ’00s trilogy that I wanted to focus on here and Marvel Universe – The End.

“The rule is: adapt or perish.”

In the early Aughts, Marvel started publishing a series of mini-series and one-shots that focused on the end of various heroes. Fittingly under the banner of The End, they were usually set at indeterminate points in the future, unmoored from continuity, and usually ended in fairly predictably ways. Marvel Universe: The End by Jim Starlin, Al Milgrom, Christie Scheele, Heroic Age, Cory Petit, and Dave Sharpe wasn’t quite like that. This was a contemporaneous Marvel Universe story, playing with the characters as they existed in the present, that introduced an ancient real historical antagonist, transformed with ultimate cosmic power to bring order back to Earth. And only a villain like Thanos could stop him.

The story plays into many of Starlin’s running themes and storytelling tools. Shakespearean in a way. Most of the story framed as being told by Thanos some time after-the-fact. And that the regular Marvel heroes, even the gods and beyond, are woefully inadequate to stop the power of Akhenaten, the ancient pharaoh. It’s actually rather funny. Especially as it delves into the cyclical nature of life, death, and rebirth in a superhero universe and a spectacular left-field explanation for a flaw in the universe that will lead to its inevitable destruction. Again.

With solid artwork from Starlin, Al Milgrom, and Christie Scheele. It’s interesting to see the various ’00s designs for the X-Men and Avengers, then the more traditional approach to the Defenders that accompany Thanos through much of the first half of the story. And a kind of negative energy design for the cosmic powered Akhenaten. Scheele’s colours capturing the scope of those energies. Cory Petit and Dave Sharpe earning their due for Starlin’s usual dialogue and narration heavy scripts.

Marvel Universe - The End

“But destiny is a mean-spirited jester.”

Though ostensibly the second part of what became a trilogy, Marvel Universe: The End by Starlin, Milgrom, Scheele, Petit, and Sharpe can be enjoyed on its own without any other points of reference. It broadens the overall character arc of Thanos, pivots his philosophical outlook and reason for being, and prompts a new direction that will be picked up on in the third part, but you don’t need to have really known anything specific before picking this one up. It stands as something you can just grab to see the early ’00s superheroes die in quick fashion. Against a fun cosmic backdrop.

And an interesting turn towards ennui. And futility. Both in story and in a kind of meta fashion. As there’s a kind of meaningless repetition found in the cycle of the universe, and an attempt to make death meaningful again, but it was never really adhered to outside of Starlin’s own story. And that after the third part, in the ongoing Thanos series that came shortly after this mini, Marvel switched gears. Bringing in Keith Giffen and leading to going in the direction of Annihilation.