Cosmic Ghost Rider #1 (2023)

Flash back six years. Its the fall of 2017. Audiences flock to Daddy's Home 2 and flock to avoid Roman J. Isreal, Esq. The temperature outside is a cool 31 degrees, but heating up inside comic stores as the 13th issue of Marvel's underperforming Thanos series has just been released. In the grand tradition of Neal Adams time on X-Men, sales are low enough to let young upstart Donald J. Cates Esq write a bat guano crazy tale of Thanos, Galactus, and Death, and their new pal Cosmic Ghost Rider. He was once a herald of Galactus, now more of a Thanos servant. By the time we find out that CGR is actually Frank Castle, yes the Punisher Frank Castle, the idea that the skull has simply migrated up off his shirt in place of his head makes all the sense it has to for readers to buy into all this nonsense. Long story long, Thanos Wins is 100% a graphic novel you should purchase.


Cates followed up this series with a standalone Cosmic Ghost Rider tale in which Frank sets out to raise Thanos from infancy to avoid any Titan-esque tendencies in the excellent (but not quite as good as 'Thanos Wins') Baby Thanos Must Die!. Highly recommended for those of you who are already chuckling at that title.


Then Marvel put out a series that wasn't by Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw.


THEN Marvel put out THIS series that isn't by Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw. It features clean artwork by Juann Cabal that could be seen as skimping on backgrounds, and a story by Stephanie Phillips that is so far minuscule in scale and may not actually be happening. It has a nice back up story that will cost you an extra dollar to read.


Again, 'Thanos Wins' and 'Baby Thanos Must Die!' should be available at most Graham Crackers locations.