Nebula Fact — November 6, 2026

Today's Fact

The Mad Titan was finally weakening. The crew assembled to finish him was family, royalty, and one very patient pirate.

NEBULA JOINED A HIT SQUAD TO KILL A DYING THANOS — ALONGSIDE HIS BROTHER STARFOX AND HIS OWN SON THANE!

The Featured FactIn Thanos Vol. 2 (2016–2017), written by Jeff Lemire, the most feared being in the galaxy is quietly rotting: a mysterious affliction is draining Thanos of his strength, and word travels. Nebula signs on with an assassination crew built entirely out of his own orbit — Starfox, the Titan’s own brother; Tryco Slatterius, the Champion of the Universe; and Thane, Thanos’s secret son, who convened the plot.

For Nebula the job was personal bookkeeping. This is the woman Thanos had burned, rebuilt and displayed as a trophy across her career; now the arithmetic had flipped, and she intended to be standing in the room when the balance came due. The squad tracked their quarry toward the God Quarry, the graveyard of dead gods at the edge of existence where Thanos hoped a cure — or a weapon — was waiting.

Then the organiser changed sides. Thane betrayed the crew, seized cosmic power for himself — eventually wielding the Phoenix Force — and the hit squad’s mission inverted overnight: the assassins had to break Thanos out and stand beside the man they had gathered to murder, because the son had become the larger apocalypse. Nebula’s clean shot at vengeance dissolved into an alliance with her worst memory.

Why It's Obscure

Assassination plots against Thanos are a genre of their own. This one is filed under family business: every single conspirator at the table was kin, in-law, or property.

2016

The opening — Thanos Vol. 2 #1 puts a dying Mad Titan on the board; a weakened god is the only invitation Nebula has ever needed.

THE CREW

Kin and creditors — a brother, a son, an Elder of the Universe, and the pirate Thanos once kept as a burnt trophy: nobody at that table was a stranger.

THE QUARRY

God Quarry — the hunt ends at a canyon of petrified dead gods, where the would-be cure for Thanos’s sickness waits among the corpses of older deities.

THE BETRAYAL

Thane turns — the son who hired the killers upgrades himself with stolen power, and the hit squad finishes the story guarding its own target.

Gallery

The hunter in her rebuilt body — and the Titan whose illness briefly made him prey.

Nebula comic art close-up showing cybernetic eye lens and rebuilt arm — **The eye that watched him weaken** — Nebula in Jen Bartel’s cover art: the cybernetic eye lens and machined skull she carries out of Thanos’s punishments, turned at last toward hunting him.

Nebula portrait comic art with blue skin and cybernetic implants — **The patient creditor** — Nebula portrait art: blue Luphomoid skin threaded with implants, the composed face of a woman who waited decades for her torturer to get sick.

Thanos comic art close-up in gold helmet with glowing eyes — **The dying god** — Thanos in close-up, helm lit and eyes burning: the target of the squad, still terrifying at half strength — which is precisely why the conspirators brought four killers.

Sources

Every fact on this page was checked against at least two independent sources before publication.

Bullpen Bulletins

Nebula In Comics — Marvel.com Official character history confirming Nebula joined forces with Starfox, Tryco and Thane to kill Thanos, and that the alliance flipped when Thane betrayed the group.
How ‘Nebula’ #1 Creates a Clean Slate — Marvel.com Official Marvel retrospective confirming Nebula joined forces with Champion, Starfox and Thane in THANOS (2016).
Nebula — Wikipedia Independent character history covering Nebula’s publication record, her history as Thanos’s victim and trophy, and her later antihero career.