Thanos (2024 series) #1

In Fresno, California, Roberta Marshall drives to work at the Good Medicine pharmacy where she deals with a dead rat and then cleans up. On the way home she drives past an old woman's place where she glances in but doesn't stop. Instead she goes to a cemetery to visit the grave of Marie Collins (2000-2021). During this long sequence there is a voiceover which describes an episode of a TV dating show where a man opens up to a woman about seeing his grandfather die when he was 3. This does not go down well. When Roberta gets home she catches the end of the show on TV as the woman rejects the man. Roberta falls asleep on the couch.

Then we see the image of a black hole with someone screaming. And Roberta wakes in shock.

Then the title page reminds of some of Thanos' past. The Mad Titanian Eternal tried to please his love Death by using the Infinity Gauntlet to erase half the population of the universe (in the IG event of course). Long after he stopped trying, the Guardians Of The Galaxy (in their (2019) #6) dropped him in a black hole. But now he's out ...

We now see Thanos' Sanctuary spacecraft approaching Earth where Roberta is back at work on the cash desk. The old woman comes to buy something but then thinks Roberta is her Marie. Roberta denies it but the woman asks "Did *she* send you back?". However just then the Thanos ship fires a blast which rips along a street and through some buildings until it reaches the pharmacy, while shooting down some jet fighters that try to stop it. Roberta urgently hustles the woman out of the shop and to the woman's pickup where she tells her to get to safety. And admits that she knows her name is Christine.

Then Roberta dashes back into the pharmacy to help a co-worker who's trapped under a fallen cabinet. But then that person runs off leaving her to face more devastation. Meanwhile Christine tries to get out of town but has to stop because the town centre has been grabbed by a tractor beam and is being dragged to the spacecraft. The voiceover returns but this time we know it's Roberta bemoaning the fact that she's going to die alone.

Then Thanos rides his chair/throne transport into the force bubble keeping Fresno's air in place. He announces that he's seeking 1 particular female, and he'll kill others until he finds her.

Roberta rises to see a group of 5 superheroes who want to talk to her. They don't expect her to recognise them all but she does:- Iron Man, Mr Fantastic, Blue Marvel, Dr Strange and Emma Frost, but she doesn't know why she knows that last name. Emma comments to the others that most of the psychic block is still intact. They explain that someone very bad is after Roberta. She doesn't understand why, nor why the Avengers are interested. They further explain that they are *not* the Avengers (well currently apart from Iron Man), they are a more secret organisation and they ask her not to tell anyone she saw them together.

But then Thanos attacks them.