Thanos, who (spoiler alert if you haven’t read Civil War II yet) was ambushed and defeated by the Avengers in the early stages of Civil War II (though not before mortally wounding War Machine and severely injuring She-Hulk), will be returning to the Marvel Universe in a big way with the launch of Thanos #1, a new ongoing series written by Jeff Lemire with art by Mike Deodato and a cover by Jeff Dekal.  Created by Jim Starlin, Thanos debuted in Iron Man #55 in 1973.  The cosmic villain has battled the Avengers numerous times, and recently got his own origin miniseries (see "'Thanos Rising' in April") as well as a third OGN from creator Jim Starlin (see "Starlin Finishes Off His 'Thanos' OGN Trilogy").

Thanos, who appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Guardians of the Galaxy and in a credits sequence in Avengers: Age of Ultron, will be center stage for the upcoming two-part Avengers: Infinity War.  Since his newfound cinematic fame, Thanos has been making more frequent appearances in Marvel’s print comics as well, and in the new Thanos comic Lemire hopes to establish Thanos as the "alpha villain" of the Marvel Universe (talk about your highly competitive positions, that’s got to be one very "uneasy throne"), and the Eisner Award-winning writer is taking Kieron Gillen’s Darth Vader comic as a model of providing fascinating stories told from the villain’s point of view.  Lemire appears particularly keen on explaining the elements of Thanos’ past that make him so interesting and illuminate both his motivations and his goals.

Marvel has not released a definite date for the debut of Thanos #1, saying only that it is “coming soon,” but the publisher did release Jeff Dekal’s cover for issue #1 that features an extreme close-up of the Mad Titan that hints strongly at the presence of the Phoenix Force.