
In the early 2000s, Marvel published several stories imagining the end of everything, starting with the excellent Hulk: The End. The next was Marvel: The End in 2003, which tapped into fans’ love for the 1990s Infinity Gauntlet storyline. This six-part series, created by Marvel veteran Jim Starlin, featured Thanos fighting Akhnetan, a supremely powerful entity intent on total destruction. While Marvel: The End isn’t considered one of Marvel’s greatest events, it shared the ambition of later stories, attempting a significant, though ultimately temporary, change to the Marvel Universe.