Thanos Fact — October 22, 2026

Today's Fact

Verified against five independent sources. Issue cited below.

THANOS ONCE HUNTED A COSMIC CUBE IN A BRIGHT YELLOW HELICOPTER WITH HIS NAME ON IT!

The Featured Fact

The Mad Titan has a helicopter. Not a starship, not the Sanctuary, not one of his floating Space Thrones — a small, bright yellow, one-person helicopter with the word THANOS painted on its tail. It appears in Spidey Super Stories #39 (1979), in the story "The Cat and the Cosmic Cube," by Nick Sullivan, Michael Siporin and Jim Salicrup, drawn by Win Mortimer. Thanos is after a Cosmic Cube held by Hellcat — and to chase her down, the cosmic tyrant who would one day snap away half of all life climbs into a helicopter the size of a clown car.

Spidey Super Stories was Marvel's comic for beginning readers, spun off from Spider-Man's appearances on PBS's The Electric Company — short, simple, easy-to-read adventures. Which is how Thanos, a Jim Starlin creation built for grim cosmic philosophy about Death, ended up in a children's reading comic, squeezed into the Thanos-Copter for a total of about three panels, with no explanation ever given for why a being who commands armadas needed — or branded — a helicopter. Spider-Man and Hellcat foil the Cube grab, and the most powerful villain in the universe's master plan ends in a kids' comic, in a vehicle with his own name on it.

The Copter refused to die. It returned in Deadpool Vol. 5 #45 (2015), when Thanos hired Deadpool to steal a Cosmic Cube and picked him up in it — a backup story that ends with the Copter blown up. And in 2021, its wreck turned up as an Easter egg in the Void in Loki Episode 5, "Journey Into Mystery" — pruned by the TVA like every other embarrassing timeline. Thanos's creator Jim Starlin wants it on the record that the Copter was not his idea: he has said it was created for the kids' books, that Thanos "running around robbing banks with the name Thanos written on the side of his copter" always struck him as strange — and that he will never forgive Avengers: Endgame for modelling Thanos's double-bladed sword on its rotor.

Why It's Obscure

Everyone knows Thanos the philosopher-king of death. The obscure part is that for three panels in 1979, Marvel's most feared cosmic villain commuted to his Cosmic Cube heist in a tiny yellow helicopter with his name painted on the tail — and his own creator has spent decades trying to disown it.

1979

Spidey Super Stories #39 — a comic designed to teach children to read, tied to The Electric Company. Thanos's quarry: a Cosmic Cube, held by Hellcat. His vehicle: a helicopter. Reading level: easy. Reputational damage: permanent.

3 PANELS

That is the whole appearance. GameSpot's history counts the Copter's debut at roughly three panels, unexplained. It took longer to read this caption box than Thanos spent flying it.

2015

Deadpool Vol. 5 #45 — Thanos hires Deadpool to steal (again) a Cosmic Cube, collects him in the Thanos-Copter, and the backup story blows the Copter up. Even Marvel could only bring it back in order to destroy it.

2021

Loki, Episode 5 — the wrecked Thanos-Copter sits in the Void at the end of time, pruned by the TVA. The MCU's verdict on the vehicle: a timeline error.

Trivia

Starlin disowns it. Thanos's creator Jim Starlin says the Copter came from the Spidey Super Stories team, not from him — and blames its rotor for inspiring Thanos's double-bladed sword in Avengers: Endgame, a debt he says he will never forgive. The Copter's revenge: it got into the biggest film ever made.

Gallery

Art from the actual books — no AI imagery, nothing mislabeled.

Comic art from Spidey Super Stories #39 (1979): Thanos piloting his small bright yellow Thanos-Copter helicopter — **The Thanos-Copter**The vehicle itself, from Spidey Super Stories #39 (1979): Thanos at the controls of the bright yellow helicopter with his name on the tail, hunting Hellcat's Cosmic Cube.

Comic panel art of Thanos flying his yellow branded helicopter, the Thanos-Copter — **Vanity Branding**No stealth, no subtlety: the would-be god of death labelled his getaway vehicle with his own name, in large letters, on the tail.

Comic art of the Thanos-Copter chase from Spidey Super Stories, Thanos pursuing the Cosmic Cube — **The Cube Chase**The chase itself — a cosmic tyrant, a reality-warping Cube, a cat-themed heroine, and one very small helicopter, in a comic written to teach six-year-olds to read.

Sources

Every claim above is verified against at least two of these independent sources.

Bullpen Bulletins

Thanos-Copter — Marvel DatabaseThe Thanos-Copter was briefly used by Thanos to attack Hellcat while trying to obtain the Cosmic Cube she held; in Earth-616, Thanos later picked up Deadpool in it after hiring him to steal a Cosmic Cube; a wrecked version was pruned to the Void.
The Thanos Copter Makes Its Debut in Loki Episode 5 — GameSpotThe Copter debuted in Spidey Super Stories #39 in 1979, on a mission to collect a Cosmic Cube in Hellcat's possession, appearing in a total of three panels; it returned in Deadpool #45 and as a wreck in Loki Episode 5.
Revealed! The Secret History of Marvel's Thanos Copter — Comics BeatOriginal writer Jim Salicrup's own account: he is credited with writing the Spidey Super Stories #39 story (1979, with Nick Sullivan, Michael Siporin and Win Mortimer) in which the Thanos Copter debuted, as Thanos's vehicle for stealing the Cosmic Cube.
The Thanos Copter & 9 Other Strange Vehicles — ScreenRantCorroborates: the gyro-copter was Thanos's transport in Spidey Super Stories #39 (1979), chasing a Cosmic Cube against Spider-Man and Hellcat in New York — and the comic never explains why he wrote his name on the tail.