As regular readers of this blog may recall from our post on Warlock #10 back in September, that issue ended on a relatively quiet note, with the titular hero grimly preparing to enter his personal timestream for the express purpose of ending his own life — and, thereby, preventing his evil future self, the Magus, from ever coming into existence at all. Or at least that was what should happen, according to the theory espoused by Adam Warlock’s unexpected new ally, Thanos the Mad Titan — and it’s not like there were any better options for saving the universe on the table, so what was a onetime messiah to do?
But while the beginning of our latest object of discussion, Warlock #11, seems to be taking place a mere moment after the ending of issue #10, it’s clear from auteur Jim Starlin’s opening splash that things are no longer the least bit quiet, and probably won’t be again for some time:
We’ll pause at the credits box just long enough to note that with this final chapter of his Magus story arc, Starlin has moved away from doing full pencils, choosing instead to provide layouts for fellow artist Steve Leialoha to finish. (The highly dramatic cover, on the other hand, is the work of Starlin and Alan Weiss.) Meanwhile, the colorist’s credit has been inadvertently left out — although the Grand Comics Database’s guess that Starlin himself is the responsible party is likely on the money.
The book’s second page offers a verbal recap of recent events, while the visuals depict the Magus’ minions attempts to blast or otherwise take out not just Adam Warlock’s companions, but the hero himself. Such action is not part of the Magus’ plan, however, as he forcefully reminds his troops on page 3:
Just in case you’re not familiar with the word — I certainly wasn’t until I started doing the research for this post — the word “coprolite” means “fossilized dung”. (Hey, just because Jim Starlin is in the middle of depicting an extremely intense, whole-universe-at-stake action sequence, that doesn’t mean he can’t take a moment or two to try to slip one past the Comics Code Authority.)
The Magus’ words may or may not be getting to Adam: but Thanos, at least, is not buying his argument. “Fortunately, a true image like truth itself, is a subjective concept, one to be accepted or rejected depending on the viewer’s prejudices,” the Titan retorts, “so… Magus, I reject your truth!” And to give his argument a little extra flourish, he fires a force beam from his hand that blasts Maggy right off his feet.
Starlin’s visuals for “Warlock” have shown a clear debt to the “Doctor Strange” work of artist Steve Ditko in earlier installments — most prominently in Strange Tales # ‘s “1000 Clowns!”, which the writer/artist actually dedicated to Ditko — but the environment of Adam Warlock’s “own personal kismet trail” represents Starlin’s most sustained dive yet into what critic Douglas Wolk (writing in his 2008 book Reading Comics) calls “Ditkospace… [a] weightless realm of abstract geometries and free-floating bubbles and spires.”
And now, we interrupt the Magus in mid-sentence for a word or two about the influence of the writer Michael Moorcock on Starlin’s epic (“What? Again?” I can hear some of you say) — especially in relation to the theme of the forces of Chaos and Order. Because here Starlin actually diverges somewhat from Moorcock (as well as from most others who’ve written about the Chaos/Order dichotomy — a concept which, as we discussed in a recent post, wasn’t actually invented by Moorcock in the first place), in that while the famous British fantasist acknowledges within his fiction the importance of maintaining a “Cosmic Balance” between Order (aka Law) and Chaos, much of the action in those same stories involves the conflict between those principles, with his characters supporting one side or the other. But in Starlin’s fictional cosmology (at least as expressed in this series), the struggle between Chaos and Order is implied to be subordinate to, and even subsumed by, a much more important one between Life — whose cause both Order and Chaos support — and Death.
The dialogue here between Thanos and the Magus thereby clarifies the stakes of the current battle more clearly than anything that’s preceded it. As readers, we’re forced to confront the unsettling question: Is Adam Warlock actually in the right to try to avoid becoming the Magus? Or is the Magus, as objectively evil as he plainly is, necessary to prevent Death from utterly overwhelming the entire, living universe?
While you’re mulling that over, we’ll let the Magus himself finally finish his sentence:
If it’s true that, as Douglas Wolk writes, “Starlin used Warlock as a vehicle for playing with various kinds of dichotomies and dialectics”, then the In-Betweener — “he who walks betwixt all concepts such as… Life and Death… Reality and Illusion… [etc]” — might be considered the series’ quintessential character. On the other hand, the fact that the I-B is himself a creation of Chaos and Order, who are themselves aligned with Life against Death, suggests that he may not be quite as neutral as he claims.
As previously noted in our Warlock #10 post, that issue’s cover had promised a “Thanos versus the Magus” battle that never actually materialized in the comic’s pages. But if any fans of 1975 had in fact been disappointed by the absence of such a throwdown in issue #10, they surely must have been mollified by what we find Starlin delivering here in #11…
Meanwhile, on the far end of Sanctuary I from where the respective Champions of Death and Life are tearing things up, Gamora decides that all this is way above her pay grade…
Evidently, among her many other attributes, the Deadliest Woman in the Galaxy is able to survive (and even maneuver) in the cold vacuum of space without any special gear. Good to know (although I’m not at all sure that this very useful capability was carried through to the character’s later appearances, at least not consistently).
This stunning seventeen-panel page is, to my mind, a grand example of Jim Starlin accomplishing narrative and visual effects that could only be achieved within the medium of comic books. To borrow one last phrase from Douglas Wolk, the sequence “works both as fine-tuned design and as a careening piece of storytelling.”
Reading this sequence for the first time in 1975, my younger self had no idea that we’d see the same events play out again from the perspective of the “other” Adam Warlock, less than two years later. Re-reading it today, I can’t help but wonder what might have occurred if Adam had chosen one of the other three “life’s paths” available to him at the crossroads, rather than going with the shortest option. (It’s possible that either Starlin or another Marvel writer has addressed this question in the fifty years since this story came out, but if so, I’m not aware of it.)
“Am I not the dark side?” Hmm, do you think that Starlin might here be lampshading the oft-noted resemblance Thanos bears to an equally stony-faced creation of one of the auteur’s primary influences, Jack Kirby? Yeah, I think so too.
The Matriarch, as seen in Guardians of the Galaxy (2008 series) #1 (Jul., 2008). Text by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning; art by Paul Pelletier and Rick Magyar.
Despite allowing facsimiles of both the Universal Church of Truth and its Matriarch to survive Warlock’s reset of the timeline, Jim Starlin seems to have considered himself done with both the religion and its leader, as, to the best of my knowledge, he never brought them back into play in his later work — not even when he resurrected the Magus for his 1992 miniseries, The Infinity War. That, however, didn’t stop writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning from bringing back both the UCT and the Matriarch as adversaries for the Guardians of the Galaxy in the first issue of their 2008 series… although there seems to be some disagreement amongst the good folks at Marvel as to whether it’s the same Matriarch, even in the “alternate timeline” sense, or another, completely different woman using the same title. An article on Marvel.com declares that they are the same — but that same article carries a disclaimer, noting that it is nothing more or less than “crowd-sourced content [that] has not yet been verified for accuracy” by the site’s editors; so I think we’ll have to take its information with a grain of salt. Meantime, the entry for the Universal Church of Truth in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z Update #5 (Feb., 2011) states flatly that the woman in GotG (2008 series) #1 is “a different Matriarch” from the one in Starlin’s Warlock… an assertion I’m personally inclined to take as authoritative, at least until someone addresses the issue in an actual comics story. In the end, it’s probably best to let your own headcanon be your guide.
But setting aside all these latter-day continuity conundrums, and returning to Warlock #11 itself, your humble blogger feels pretty comfortable in saying that this singe issue represents Jim Starlin’s highest achievement to date as of November, 1975… a claim that I’m sure my eighteen-year-old self would have readily agreed to way back then as well. Of course, at the time, the question that immediately came to one’s mind upon first closing this comic book was: What in the world was Starlin going to do for an encore? With the arrival of the Mad Titan back in issue #9, the auteur had essentially stitched his earlier Thanos-centered continuity (mostly, but not entirely, presented within the pages of Captain Marvel) to his current saga of Adam Warlock, seemingly transforming virtually every comic he’d done at Marvel up to this point into individual chapters in one great, ongoing, cosmic epic of Life against Death. But we’d just seen the major player on the side of “peace” and “tranquility” (as Thanos himself would put it) make his exit from the series… at least for now. Clearly, there was going to be a twelfth issue of Warlock — but that big question mark following the word “Next” at the bottom of #11’s final page suggested that even Jim Starlin himself might not know yet what its pages would contain. And that’s where we’ll have to leave things as well… at lest until a future post.
No comments. No notes. The Magus/Unverisal Church of Truth arc in Warlock is, IMHO, as perfect a comic book story as we’ve ever gotten, and stands right up there with The Watchmen and a scant few others in that rarefied air. Every plot point comes home, every loophole tied up. And while I was never a fan of Pip as a sidekick, he’s not worth the quibble it would take to complain about him. Of course, the story doesn’t end here–far from it–but even as distance from this core arc dilutes the over-all story somewhat, it still remains a benchmark of the over-all excellence of comic book story-telling.
Excellent analysis, Alan. Thought-provoking and full of all the back-stage insights we expect. Great job!
I like the cover, particularly what Al Weiss brought to it in the inks. My comments on the interior are pretty much the same as on prior installments: strong page design, but Starlin’s character faces are too cartoony and simplified for me.
As for Pip, I prefer the one from Great Expectations. 😉
Going through my collection, I see that I didn’t buy any Marvel or DC comics cover dated February 1976. My older brothers bought some of DC’s war titles that month, and my younger brother purchased Amazing Spider-Man no. 153 and Marvel Tales no. 76 (reprinting ASM no. 95). I picked up Swamp Thing nos. 20 and 21 which were released before and after the Feb. ’76 cover date.
In the realm of magazines I bought Warren’s Creepy no. 77 that month with stories drawn by Wrightson, Toth, and Corben, and Eerie no. 72 with a Chaykin/Wrightson collaboration being the highlight. Mad nos. 180 and 181 were also published just before and after the Feb. ’76 cover date, but I do own them.
Here is a link to Creepy no. 77:
https://archive.org/details/warrencreepy-077/page/n2/mode/1up
Before there was Philip Pirrip, there was Pip the cabin boy aboard the Pequod in Herman Melville’s *Moby-Dick.*
Pip also had a servant whom he nicknamed “the Avenger.”
If you don’t remember him (he’s no Trabb’s Boy, that’s for sure), here’s what Shmoop says about him:
The Avenger is Pip’s servant boy who he hires to seem like a more legit gentleman. The problem is, beyond putting toast on the table and yelling people’s names when they walk through the door, the Avenger doesn’t really have much to do, and Pip spends a lot of energy trying to come up with tasks.
Where’s Jarvis when you need him? (Probably looking for mead for Thor.)
I think I have to read up on the later Warlock and Magus one of these days, attackfriends. Maybe I’ll learn how the Ramseys took the news of their son’s death in a hunting accident. (Does anyone know what they hunt in Westchester? Deer?)
And there is Conan Doyle’s tale, “The Case of the Five Orange Pips,” from 1891. 😉
To some degree, although it is a bit built up.
Gladys Knight had a small collection of them, too.
As Rick Jones may have put it, “Wow!” Even if Starlin only did “layouts”, Leialoha’s finishes look close enough to Starlin’s full art that I didn’t really notice a significant difference. I must admit, that one impression I had upon finishing reading this for the first time 50 years ago was what exactly happened during the intervening period between the “present” Warlock meeting his future self that had made that future self so resigned and even welcoming of his own death. As exquisite as those closing chapters of the Warlock/Thanos saga in the Avengers and Marvel Two-In-One annuals of 1977 were, they didn’t deliver an unrelenting sequence of horror in Warlock’s life that lived up to the expectations I had. Maybe if Starlin had been able to continue the series for another two years we may have gotten more of what he intended, but who knows?
Still, this issue remains a tour de force and a source of philosophical quandary. Life is messy, ofttimes painful, but also joyful, ugly and beautiful, depending one’s circumstances and perspectives. In Starlin’s mythos, Warlock and Magus represent different aspects of life, the good and the bad, while Thanos represents the effort to permanently end the struggle, for the ultimate tranquility of death or nothingness. But even if such cosmic genocide was possible in reality, it may be a futile quest as it may be impossible for the universe to be reduced to a permanent state of nothingness and as long as something exists, ultimately it will result in some form of life. And even in Starlin’s mythos, the Magus eventually came back as well, albeit with a new hairstyle! As an “agent of life”, the Magus was rather curious as he was also responsible for tremendous death, which was why Warlock could not accept that it was better to let that potential version of himself survive rather than to “kill” him before he came into existence. A very strange tale indeed! Thanos “won” this round, but the struggle continues ever on into eternity, as best as we can tell.
A lot to take in, both in 1975 and in 2025. Thanks for another excellent overview, Alan!
Terrific write-up on one of my all-time favorite stories.
Sadly, I missed out on the Magus/Thanos saga in real time back in ‘75. But, appropriately enough, I came to it in a chronologically-twisted manner — starting with Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2 in ‘77. At the time, I was primarily a DC guy, but the cover of MTO was impossible to resist: Spider-man! The Thing! The Avengers! Big purple guy! Enjoyed the story, loved the art, but disappointed that I had missed part one. As kismet would have it, I came across Avengers Annual #7 on my next visit to the newsstand.
Combined, the two annuals told a fantastic story, but clearly I had missed something grand. I immediately began a search for back issues. In due course, I picked up the key segments of the Thanos/Captain Marvel/cosmic cube epic. Great story, but that still left a Magus-sized itch that would take years to be scratched — in the form of a Warlock reprint series published in the late 80s.
I finally read the story from Warlock #11 and my brain exploded when I realized that the cryptic scene between the two Warlocks in the MTO Annual was the pay-off to a seed planted years before. Incredible. Amazing. Uncanny.
To this day, I’m unsure if the story told across the two annuals was more or less what Starlin had planned all along or something improvised when given the opportunity to bring closure (Lord Chaos chuckles) to the the Warlock/Thanos saga.
Note to Alan from my future self (who apparently is still a decent guy): Your write-up on Avengers Annual #7 knocked it out of the park.
Whew! Good to know!
Thank you Alan, a great write-up on the climax to possibly the greatest comics series of the 1970s.
You suggested that Pip’s use of the word “coprolite” was an attempt by Starlin to put one over on the Comics Code Authority. This made me wonder about the “Holy Goosh!” on the first page so I looked it up.
Not gonna tell you what I found 😳 but by my reckoning, Pip’s little ejaculation (I use the word advisedly) makes the score Starlin 2, CCA 0.
I missed that one completely, Colin, so thanks!
I’d forgotten about Pip’s exclamation. I have a collection of coprolites decorating the shelves where I keep my collected editions.
The fact that Jim Starlin slipped a couple of obscurely risqué expressions past the Comics Code seems rather trivial compared to the fact that the Code appeared not to notice that the title character in a mainstream super-hero comic (what other genre fits?) just committed suicide. Flat-out killed himself reminiscent of the SF cliché: would you kill Hitler when he was an innocent child to prevent his future evil? Even more striking, what if it’s yourself who will be responsible for that future evil? Could you or would you make the choice that Adam Warlock makes?
Maybe Gene Roddenberry was onto something years earlier, that if you dress up some serious social commentary or challenging story in weird, outlandish SF trappings, the censors are too busy worrying about relatively lightweight everyday details to notice (or possibly even understand) the big picture.
Not sure that I’d agree that this was perfect (maybe a few too many sequels, ad infinity-itum, have soured my opinion), but it was about as good as it got back in the day.
The creators of the 1980s Twilight Zone revival said that no longer worked as well as it did for Rod Serling — all the suits grew up with the Twilight Zone so they’re on guard for social messages slipped into the story.
It seems I must eat my words. I’d previously wondered that a fairly major character (though obviously not so major as Thanos) like the Matriarch never reappeared after the original series. But if that’s not really her in Guardians I’m safe.
As much as I enjoyed this comic when it came out, it wasn’t until I read Avengers Annual #7 which prompted me to reread this entire story that I fully appreciated the true scope of this epic storyline. Not simply the nifty time travel, but the pain and weariness etched upon the “future Warlock” was both gripping and fully warranted based on all that occurred in that Avengers’ story. This issue also put to rest my puzzlement about Thanos appearing on ally when I knew full well he had his own plans in place.
There’s also a great deal to unpack with this issue and kudos to Alan for doing so in an informative, straightforward manner. Another great start to my Saturday!
This was just a great finale to this storyline. But in a way it was a little sad because it was similar to Starlin’s Captain Marvel. The Starlin stories were the high point of each character. Where do you go when you already were at the peak? Other posts in the comments referenced Avengers annual 7. I knew nothing of that issue until maybe 15 years later while going through the discount boxes at the comic shop. “What the heck is this?” I was quite happy it was in pristine condition.
The composition of the Starlin/Weiss cover is not far removed from that of Neal Adams’ tour-de-force on Batman no. 244, published in 1972:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/marvel_dc/images/6/6a/Batman_244.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20160902162604
It was such a shock to see Warlock begging for death. A bigger shock a couple of years later when it happened — and yes, I think seeing everyone he cares for die qualifies as grim enough (though I don’t doubt you’re right Alan and added hells would have awaited him had the series kept going).
Fred’s comments make me reflect that it is indeed odd how eeevil the champion of life is — it’s not like he needs a fanatical church worshipping him to stop Thanos mano a mano, after all. And why would he gloat about Adam’s horrible fate rather than “You’re going to hate it but at the end you will understand!”
Perhaps it’s Starlin’s fondness for Thanos? Or the duality thing — he can’t make life unambiguously nicer than death, both sides do it, or something like that. Which reminds me of a commenter elsewhere online who argued that’s why Starlin should never write Kirby characters — Kirby thinks characters who embody extremes can be good, Starlin thinks they’re messed up.
It’s a shame Starlin never did anything that made it worth resurrecting these guys. I hated the Infinity events with a passion — but then I don’t recall liking anything much that Starlin wrote post-Death of Captain Marvel.
Don’t worry; one day someone will have the brilliant idea of bringing back Warlock and Mar-Vell, only to have them kill *each other.* 😉
An unwritten law in comics: it’s okay to play with what’s ‘”canon” so long as you bring it back to square one when you’re done.
I wonder. Mar-Vell seems to be close to Uncle Ben levels of dead — partly because his ending was good (and so personal to Starlin) and partly because he’s been thoroughly legacy heroed. I wouldn’t rule it out (momma didn’t raise no fools) but he’s been gone so long I’m not sure anyone cares.
There was a Secret Invasion: Captain Marvel’s graphic novel in 2009, written by Brian Reed and drawn by Lee Weeks, which demonstrates my point (without spoilers).
Or worse, we could one day soon see Marvel trot out . . . Gwen-Lock! She could even alternate between being a Warlock and/or Deathlock mashup (talk about a were-woman). 😀
So yes to echo most of the comments here, this is just great all around story telling. An absolute high point in Comics. Your take was wonderfully put together, Alan. Hit all the unanswered questions and explained them well, thank you! And yes, I did read Avengers Annual #7 too, which closed out this whole story arc. I also have the added benefit of purposely never reading any resurrections or continuations featuring Adam Warlock or the Magus. For me this was and remains the whole story and I am at peace with it.
I had the misfortune of reading Michael Moorcock ‘Fix-up” novel, Stormbringer 1965), which made me see this as somewhat derivative.
Although, I read the Marvel Two in One Annual that wrapped up the story (at that point). I did not follow Warlock after this.
I liked both Stalker and Claw, since I saw the Moorcock influences as a jumping off point rather than an end in itself, But Moorcock loomed large with a lot of comics pros back in 1975-’76.
I later read the Runestaff books (and liked them), but I have not read more of his stuff in decades.
Excellent write up, Alan. I remember this story very clearly. It was a truly a classic and I really was impressed with it at the time. What I don’t recall is what I thought of Adam’s “death.” I certainly didn’t realize we were seeing a scene that would play out less than 2 years later (in 1977). I probably thought it would happen at some point much farther in the future.
What’s interesting to consider is that this entire 7 part story in Strange Tales 178-181 and Warlock 9-11 represented complete creative freedom for Jim Starlin. This was completely his story and he appeared to have total carte blanche here to write the story he wanted to write, and the art looked great too. Len and Marv may have been his editors on this entire story but they don’t seem to have restricted much here, especially if you look at ST 181. Unfortunately things would soon change in 1976. It’s not clear exactly what happened by the time we got to Warlock 15 and cancellation. I guess you’ll get into that eventually. It’s also not clear exactly what kind of plans Starlin would have had for Warlock. Starlin reached a kind of pinnacle with this issue. Warlock 12 was a bit of diversion focusing on Pip. The Star Thief story in 13-14 was entertaining but was Starlin planning the next big storyline to be about Thanos? Warlock 15 hints at that but I guess we’ll never know. I wonder, as other commenters have, if the story that we saw in Avenger Annual 7 and Marvel Two In One Annual 2, was part of Starlin’s original plans for Warlock, or if he made the best of a difficult situation and came up with a final way to deal with Warlock and Thanos. I wonder…
It is also interesting to note that this month you have been discussing three writers who were at this time three of the preeminent writers at Marvel (and in all comics), Jim Starlin, Steve Gerber, and Steve Englehart. Sadly just a year later, Warlock would be cancelled and Englehart and Gerber would no longer be writing the Avengers and Defenders.
Considering how often this particular Magus storyline has been reprinted, it’s still hard for me to believe sales were low enough that Warlock had to be cancelled. At least Starlin was given the opportunity to give Warlock a proper sendoff in 1977.
Thanks Alan!
There is a fair amount of material from the 1970s that initially did not sell as well as either Marvel or DC would have liked and were cancelled, only to subsequently find an audience and then get endlessly reprinted. The two examples that immediately come to mind are Jack Kirby’s Fourth World and Denny O’Neil & Neal Adams’ Green Lantern / Green Arrow. Jim Starlin’s Adam Warlock saga certainly belongs in that category, as well.
A Brian Cronin column says that GL/GA sold much better than the sales figures indicated, due to various individuals diverting some of the returned issues and selling them off-the-books to people who’d missed them. The same may be true of the Fourth World.
That seems fairly plausible.
GL/GA was somewhat erratic so I could see sales falling off between #76 and the Drug issues and then climbing steadily . . . .
Things I have read, here and elsewhere, imply that Adams deadline problems on the last few Avengers issues at the end of the Kree-Skrull War story and on GL/GA#88 were why Adams got less work from Marvel and DC in ’72 and later . . . .
Kirby’s Fourth World was a masterpiece, but would have benefited from a more focused presentation Starting it is Jimmy Olson was clever, Maybe if it had kept things in the New Gods and then done Forever People and Mister Miracle as specials might have made it sell more.
Both “epic” and “sprawling” are proper adjectives.
Maybe. Then again it gained so much and had a bigger canvas with all the books combined.
As you know, Neal Adams became increasingly busy with Continuity Associates. I have a very good collection of his 1960s-70s comics and magazine work, and by 1974 he was earning far more money outside of mainstream comics that he seldom came back at any length in the ’70s, with the exception of Superman vs. Muhammad Ali.
He did some work for the Marvel B&W Books (I assume at a higher rate0, Atlas (covers and B&W work,) then he did a LOT of covers for DC and the Superman & Mohammad Ali special. He also did a lot of odd stuff. redrawing a Robin story in Detective by some South American artist he had advocated for, doing substantial inking on a Giordano Wonder Woman story, substantial inking on a Rogers & Austin Hawkman in Detective, etc.
One of the greatest comic work ever.
A superbly constructed Cosmic epic.
Although to me this is the weakest artwork of the series so far, as it’s the final episode of this story arc it’s a shame Starlin couldn’t have contributed his tighter detailed full pencils artwork, as it’s leaves a lot for Steve Leialoha inking to do, and it shows in comparison to previous issues.
But even saying that, what we have is wonderful!