There's Something About Gamora (Revisited)

[Nausiated]

Here I go again jumping into a dead thread, but I stumbled upon the issues with the Gamora (2017) and Thanos (2019) limited series and thought I'd chime in with my observation. So from the looks of things, there is some confusing continuity with Thanos, Gamora, and Nebula in these series.

The Current Chronologies

Thanos
---------
WLOCK 10 (15:8 - 16:6)-FB - Thanos goes into the not-too-distant-future and recruits Gamora. Per his account, he states that the Zen Whoberis were slaughtered by Magnus and his church.

WLOCK&TIW 11-FB - Not listed but should be here, since it shows the scene of Thanos saving Gamora.

A@ 7 (10:5 - 10:6)-FB - Thanos severs ties with Titan (I think this is actually page 9, as page 10 is flashback of Thanos' first defeat at the hands of the Avengers)

M/HOL 1992/6-FB - Thanos gives a young Gamora a doll as a gift. She uses it to prevent an assassination attempt.

GOI 6/2-FB - Thanos takes Gamora to Maveth. Calling it a holy place since the populace wiped themselves out in war.

A@ 7 (10:7 - 10:8)-FB - Thanos amasses an army begins searching for the Cosmic Cube (again, I think this is an error, it's actually page 9)

WLOCK&TIW 9-FB - While searching for the Cube, Thanos takes Gamora to Tartoonla #7. When Gamora is assaulted, Thanos finds her clinging to life and repairs her body replacing her skeleton with metallic alloy.

WLOCK 10 (16:7 - 16:8)-FB - Gamora, now an adult is allowed to kill her future executioners and is sent to eliminate the Magus.

Gamora
----------

WLOCK&TIW 11-FB
WLOCK 10 (15:8 - 16:6)-FB
M/HOL 1992/6-FB
GOI 6/2-FB
WLOCK&TIW 9-FB
WLOCK 10 (16:7 - 16:8)-FB
NO5 1-5 - Gamora and Rocket encounter Nova
{ST 180} - Gamora begins trailing Adam Warlock to see if he can defeat the Magus.

Nebula
---------

SS@ 5/3-FB - Nebula apparently had an abusive father who had a ridged chin like Thanos. She murders him in an act of self defense. It should be noted that this was revealed via a mind probe while Nebula was in prison and very much insane.

A 259-FB - Nebula becomes a mercenary for hire. Gets involved in the Skrull civil war.
{A 257}-260 Nebula steals Sanctuary II. Battles the Avengers claims that she is the granddaughter of Thanos.

Other stories of note
--------------------------

Silver Surfer (vol 3) #38 and Infinity Gauntlet #5-6: Thanos learns of Nebula's claims of being his granddaughter and considers it an insult. Punishes her by burning much of her body. she'll later appear with cybernetic implants thereafter. In Infinity Gauntlet #6, Nebula continues to defiantly refer to Thanos as her grandfather.

Nova (vol. 3) #1: Nebula (sans cybernetic implants) claims to be the daughter of Zorr, the guy who attacked Xandar leading to Richard Rider becoming Nova.

Annihilation: Ronan #2: Nebula once again claims to be related to Thanos by referring to herself as "scion of the Houses of Titan and Thanos"

Contentious Issues

Gamora #1-5: Shows Gamora getting revenge against the Badoon for slaughtering her people (which happened on Earth-616 as a result of the Universal Church being stopped from killing them in the future) This story also shows a cybernetic Nebula being raised by Thanos along with Gamora. The major contention here being Nebula's presence and appearance in this story.

Thanos (2019) #1-6: tells the story of Thanos adopting Gamora in more detail. In this story he takes her in because she was able to see Death like he does. This story also includes a scene where she gets her arm and leg cut off and replaced with cybernetics which she, much later, replaces with synthetic replacement limbs indistinguishable from the real thing. This story mostly focuses as Gamora as a young girl during the early days of her training under Thanos. The contentious issues here show that Thanos actually slaughtered some of the Zen Whorberis himself. Nebula is not present in this story.

Observations: Nebula

The thing about Nebula is that she has told conflicting accounts of her family relations. First claiming to be the daughter of Thanos in Avengers #260 and later the daughter of Zorr in Nova (vol. 2) #1. In Silver Surfer Annual #5, her father is depicted as a man with blue skin (Like Zorr) but with a ridged chin (like Thanos). It should also be pointed out that Nebula has had issues with her mental health over the years and in some stories is portrayed as being very insane, while other stories have her lucid.

The other thing is that some stories have flip flopped between her original appearance (Nova Vol 2 #1) and her cybernetic look (Annihilation/Annihilation: Ronan)

Silver Surfer (vol. 3) #38 is pretty clear here: Thanos punishes Nebula for claiming to be his granddaughter as well as trying to usurp his legacy vis-a-vie stealing Sanctuary II and so on. Nebula responds in shock and doesn't believe that this is the real Thanos because this was shortly after he was resurrected in Silver Surfer #34, and she was not aware of this fact.

Neither character acknowledges that they knew each other previously, but that lack of recognizance doesn't rule out the fact that they ever met before.

So some things to consider here:

1) Could Thanos have adopted Nebula at some point in the past?: I think it's possible, because in their first encounter together neither confirms or denies that they had met previously. In fact, Nebula can't believe it's the real Thanos because -- as far as she knew at the time -- Thanos was dead. Thanos also never confirms or denies ever meeting her previously. He simply comes to punish her for trying to claim she is family. When you consider that Thanos is all about the Death, his motivation for punishing her could be chalked up to the idea that the idea of reproducing went counter to his whole attitude at the time -- the total embrace of death. Someone going around telling everyone in the universe that Thanos was DTF would probably really piss him off.

2) The cybernetics issue: There are countless instances where we have characters with cybernetic implants removed or hidden. I don't think it's impossible to think that this could have happened to Nebula. As we've seen between Nova Vol. 2 and Annihilation, she has flip-flopped looks after she was horribly burned by Thanos in the Infinity Gauntlet. One thing to possibly consider is that maybe Nebula has always had cybernetics from the moment Thanos adopted her and her appearances from Avengers #257 onward she was just hiding it.

3) Conflicting tales of parentage: When you consider that Nebula has never been the most mentally stable character I think we can draw some conclusions here. Particularly when we consider the story in the Silver Surfer Annual that shows that she experienced a great deal of abuse from her father as a child. If we want to talk about victims of physical and sexual abuse, often times their memories of trauma can be different due to the coping mechanisms. Abused people often have fragmented or forgotten memories of their experiences. Often times the abuse survivor has complex emotions about their abuser and often loves them. With all that in mind, perhaps Nebula has a deep rooted guilt over murdering her father even though he abused her all through her childhood and that she has glommed her conflicting feelings about her father onto Thanos and Zorr in the past to try and find that father figure that was so absent from her life. Perhaps her persistence on the Thanos relation is due to the fact that he did adopt her in the past.

4) Adopting Nebula isn't that impossible an idea when you consider the circumstances in which Thanos adopted Gamora. Perhaps in a tale yet to be told we find out that Thanos found Nebula and had a similar experience where she was able to see Death (or at least thought she did) convincing Thanos to take her in. It's also not impossible to consider the idea that Nebula might have left Thanos sometime prior to Gamora's first encounter with Adam Warlock. The absence of stories showing this does not make the inclusion of the Gamora and Thanos stories to 616 continuity impossible. These are just gaps in the narrative that we can make reasonable assumptions until the matter has been settled.

Observations: Gamora

The only issue I really see with these stories outside of the Nebula problem is the 2019 Thanos series which shows Thanos murdering some of the Zen Whoberis himself. I think that the conflicting stories comes from who is telling the tale.

In Warlock #10, the stoy is told by Thanos while the 2019 Thanos series the story is being told by Gamora. The Warlock version of events was incredibly abridged taking up two panels. Given how abridged it is, I think we can safely assume that Thanos wasn't totally honest with his accounting of events particularly since -- at the time -- Gamora was still loyal to him when he was telling it. It stands to reason that Thanos may have kept the total truth a secret from her and maybe she found out about the truth later on, or knew the truth and chose to say nothing about it until Thanos later betrayed her in Avengers Annual #7 and left her for dead.

Conclusion:

To me, I think it is very possible to fit both the Gamora and the 2019 Thanos series into Earth-616 continuity. Yes, there are unanswered questions and missing details but these stories can be slotted in and still make some logical sense based on presumptions we already know about Marvel history in terms of plots and recurring themes.

I agree with Col_Fury's placement of the Gamora series as for the 2019 Thanos...

With that in mind, I'd say that these stories would fit as follows:

Thanos
---------

WLOCK 10 (15:8): Thanos travels to the not-to-distant future to find a recruit to kill the Magus.
THANOS3 1 (2-6): Thanos murders one of his crew on the way to the Zen Whoberis home world.
WLOCK10 (16:1-16:5)-FB - Thanos witnesses the genocide going on on the Zen Whoberis homeworld at the hands of Magus' church.
THANOS3 1 (7-29): Thanos goes to Zen Whoberis, does some slaughter of his own. Finds Gamora hiding in a hut. Spares her when she can see Death.
WLOCK&TIW 11-FB ~ WLOCK 10 (16:6) - Not listed but should be here, since it shows the scene of Thanos saving Gamora.
THANOS3 2
THANOS3 3
THANOS3 4
THANOS3 5
THANOS3 6
A@ 7 (10:5 - 10:6)
M/HOL 1992/6-FB
GOI 6/2-FB
A@ 7 (10:7 - 10:8)-FB
WLOCK&TIW 9-FB
WLOCK 10 (16:7 - 16:8)-FB

Gamora
----------
THANOS3 1
WLOCK&TIW 11-FB
THANOS3 2
THANOS3 3
THANOS3 4
THANOS3 5
THANOS3 6
WLOCK 10 (15:8 - 16:6)-FB
THANOS3 1 (7-29)
M/HOL 1992/6-FB
GOI 6/2-FB
WLOCK&TIW 9-FB
WLOCK 10 (16:7 - 16:8)-FB
NO5 1
NO5 2
NO5 3
NO5 4
NO5 5
{ST 180}
ST 181
WLOCK 9
WLOCK 10
WLOCK 11
WLOCK 15
GAMORA 1
GAMORA 2
GAMORA 3
GAMORA 4
GAMORA 5

Nebula
---------

SS@ 5/3-FB
--- At some point gets adopted by Thanos----
GAMORA 1
GAMORA 2
GAMORA 3
GAMORA 4
GAMORA 5
---Later leaves Thanos and becomes a mercenary ---
A 259-FB
{A 257}

[MarvelBoy2002]

It should be noted that Marvel considers the Gamora miniseries as canon.
https://www.marvel.com/characters/nebula/in-comics

[Nausiated]

It should be noted that Marvel considers the Gamora miniseries as canon.
https://www.marvel.com/characters/nebula/in-comics

This conversation is less about if the Gamora mini-series is canon (I really hate that word by the way, this is fiction, not a religion) but how it could fit into existing continuity.

[DonCampbell]

I had high hopes that Gamora's history with Thanos would have been clarified in the 2019 Thanos miniseries but, in my opinion, it just muddied the waters even more. Aside from providing yet another version of how the Zen Whoberis died, the writer also added the Black Order into the back-story. Also, since the story was supposed to take place in the original Magus timeline, the fact that Thanos and Magus met in issue #1 was inconsistent with what happened in the original Magus Saga.

I had also hoped that last year's Nebula miniseries, in which an amnesiac Nebula slowly recovered her lost memories, would shed some light on her actual biological family and how she was really connected to both Thanos and to Gamora. Issue #4 was supposed to reveal the very first meeting between Nebula and Thanos. Sadly, the last three issues of that miniseries were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and have now been cancelled.

In my opinion, the best thing that could have resulted from the Nebula miniseries would have been that it clearly removed the Gamora miniseries (based as it was on the cinematic idea that Gamora and Nebula were raised together as sisters by Thanos) from Gamora's back-story. A distant second choice would have been that, as IMPOSSIBLE as I believe it to be, the writer would have somehow been able to integrate both origins into something that made sense.

Now, I guess we'll never know what the writer had planned.

[StrayLamb]

Split from viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14747, a 2 year old topic.

[Nausiated]

So I'm reviving this thread again because there has been some minor developments with the Thanos/Nebula relationship recently in the new Silver Surfer: Rebirth series. It's still on going, but I don't think there is going to be much more exploration on the issue so I thought I'd bring this up.

This story is set during the time of Ron Marz and Ron Lim's run on Silver Surfer in the 1990s. Although the series doesn't state exactly where it takes place in continuity (yet) the first issue features Genis-Vell as Legacy, so it is probably set sometime after his debut in Silver Surfer Annual #6.

The premise of the story is that the Realty Gem has been stolen by Tyrant who uses it to alter reality to his liking, so much of this story happens in an alternate universe. In issue #2 and 3, Thanos runs into an alternate reality version of Nebula. The part of this story that is relevant to this discussion is that Thanos and Nebula refer to each other as father and daughter respectively. While this is an alternate version of Nebula, this is Thanos-616 who is calling her his daughter.

This is putting it in line with later Gamora/Thanos stories that show Nebula as one of Thanos' adopted daughters back when Gamora was still a child.

My original theory on this was that the lack of reference to this in earlier stories doesn't negate the later Gamora/Thanos series published over the last 5 years. That Nebula was an adopted daughter of Thanos way back in the day not mentioned in past Nebula stories because nobody thought to bring it up. By putting it in a story that takes place during an earlier era of Marvel Continuity (the Marz/Lim run of Silver Surfer) it seems to support the idea that Nebula was adopted, just it was never brought up in previous stories.

When you go back and re-read Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos denies that Nebula is his biological granddaughter, however he doesn't make any statements that would suggest that they didn't have any kind of relation in the past. The evidence of absence is not absence of evidence is what I'm saying.

My thinking is that Thanos didn't go into the actual relationship between himself and Nebula is because he was in the middle of a massive cosmic conflict. Not exactly the time and the place to split hairs on minutia when you got Adam Warlock and Marvel's heavy hitters coming at you for the Infinity Gauntlet.

Which raises the question: Why would Nebula lie about her heritage? I think there are straight forward reasons. One, she's crazy. That's reason enough. However, one could also assume that she lied in order to gain followers. If you go back to her earliest published appearances she has a group of loyal followers who are helping her try and steal Sanctuary II (Avengers #260) and later, trying to steal the Infinity Union (Avengers #317). Tricking people into thinking she was a blood relative of Thanos was probably a power move she used to achieve her own goals.

As for the cyborg appearance flip-flopping between stories. This has been an issue dating back to the 90s. I think its safe to assume that she was always a cyborg and sometimes she just hid it. If Cable and Deathlok can do that, why not Nebula?

Anyway, Silver Surfer: Rebirth didn't give us a whole lot to work with, but it certainly seems to cement the idea that the Gamora series was set in 616.