Love Changes A Person

I want to talk about something from Annihilation. In Annihiliation #6, Nova has finished off Annihilus, and is passing out from his wounds. Before he does he sees Death and Thanos standing before him, and says 'Better luck next time.' First, was he telling them "too bad, I'm not dying, you'll have to get me some other day", or does he think that Death was looking forward to the success of Annihilus' plan, and thus Richard has thwarted her desires? I'm figuring the former, but whatever. Just throwing that out there.

The main thing I want to discuss is Death's appearance. She appears as an adult woman, ghostly white, pupilless and bald. This is in stark contrast to how she looked the other two or three times she popped up over the entirety of Annihilation. Those times, she was in that Goth child form, with hair, and pupils. So why was she different this time?

One explanation could be that her appearance varies depending on who sees her. So how Nova regards Death is different from how Thanos does. I'm not sure what that says about Thanos, if he saw Death as a child. It could represent that his love for Death is more of a protective, nurturing style, than a "Man loves a woman style". Doesn't seem to fit though. Nova seeing her as a bald adult? Uh, I've got nothing. I'd expect him to see her as the skeleton she was so often portrayed as in the past.

My other theory is that Death looks how she feels like looking, to hell with your perceptions. In that scenario, her transformation to an adult could signify her final acceptance of Thanos, in the manner that he's been striving for so long. All this time, Thanos has been trying to woo her with big, impressive gifts, like planetary conquest, and killing half the people in the universe, and she's appearing before him as a child. Because he still doesn't get it. He thinks he knows what she wants, but he doesn't. He's the child, playing at love.

But by dying, and accepting the finality of that (until someone decides to bring him back), he's progressed, he finally gets it. I suppose it's a sign of maturity to accept that your end will come. Death didn't care that he killed a bunch of people, because all those suckers are going to die eventually anyway. It was about Thanos accepting his own mortality.

Just a thought.

One last comment for the road. Thanos, I'm happy you're finally with Death, but man you've got to ditch the matching outfit. The "shroud with plunging neckline" look is just creepy. You are not a character in an Anita Blake story, get an undershirt!