George Perez Infinity Gauntlet #4 Splash Page 9 (Final Perez Page From Series) First Thanos Battle Page (Marvel, 1991)
For many of us proud owners of Infinity Gauntlet original art pages this speaks to the nostalgia of our childhood, perhaps our first moment of a saga or story arc that remains classic to this day. It simply doesn’t get much better than this.
This is the George Perez finale page to Infinity Gauntlet saga, a 6-part event series that has gone down in comic book history as one of the greatest Marvel stories ever told. It served, of course, as the basis for two of the biggest movies ever, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Infinity Gauntlet was a sequel of sorts to the "Thanos Saga" of the 1970s, written and illustrated by the master of cosmic sagas, Jim Starlin. This time Starlin served as the writer with the incredible George Perez drawing the first three issues and part of issue four, as seen here this being his final art page. Perez, having drawn DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths five years earlier, was the go-to “Rockstar” artist for huge events featuring dozens of characters. This momentous key page, which not only marks the first attack on Thanos (first true battle page in the saga), as mentioned above served as Perez’s last page.
It’s public knowledge Perez left the project due to time constraints on other projects with DC, and perhaps creative differences. Perez was also a storyteller, but we must remember this was Starlin and Lim’s show leading up to the saga. With that said, Marvel brought on Perez to be the lead, the rockstar artist if you will for such a grand project. With Perez’s departure midway through Issue 4, it makes us wonder why leave after this page? One can guess after a slower paced, content driven first 3 issues, issue 4 is the battle issue and he wanted to go out with a bang! It’s no coincidence this being the first Thanos battle page in the series and happens to be Perez’s last one, making this great page the only Perez Thanos battle page in the entire saga!
The cover says it all, “Let The Games Begin”. The subsequent 2 prior pages to this page has the second snap, essentially unfreezing the heroes in time to follow through with their attack, and Thanos says the classic line “Let the Battle Begin”, which leads us to this epic battle page. The top half splash is the heroes very first strike atempt at Thanos, it’s a clash of titans! You have both Hulk and Drax the Destroyer sneaking up and knocking the mad titan Thanos down. “Love and Godhood truly have befuddled his reason.” This is the first time what seems to be a full on successful assault on Thanos. Though in the ensuing lower panels we see Thanos is simply playing with them, as he blasts Drax with one devastating look. “They are but bothersome fleas to Thanos”.
Perez leaves his mark with a character-filled bottom panel with literally a dozen characters in total including Thanos, Hulk, Drax, Captain America, Iron Man, She-Hulk, Wolverine, Namor, Spider-Man, Nova, Quasar and even Mistress Death is there on the side watching on. One can only imagine after drawing this action filled battle page, he felt it was time to move on and pass the torch to Lim. Sure there are significant pages in the saga, but how about drawing the first Thanos battle page in the entire run and this being his final penciled page? If you want to see a Perez Gauntlet battle page with Thanos, well, look no further, as this is it! Not to mention Perez obviously loved the top splash panel so much he paid homage to the image again in 1993 for the acclaimed series Future Imperfect #2 double splash title page this time Hulk in Thanos' same pose being blasted by Maestro, his future self. Ink over graphite on Bristol board Large “Twice-Up” art 13x19, signed by both Perez & Rubinstein at bottom center. In Very Good condition.