Back in November, we looked at Warlock #11, in which artist-writer Jim Starlin wrapped up the “Magus” storyline he’d originally initiated with his first episode of Adam Warlock’s revived feature, one full year earlier. It was a conclusion that, among other things, had given us a glimpse of Adam’s future death by cosmic suicide, as well as setting up a future conflict between our hero and his unlikely ally against the Magus, i.e., Thanos the Mad Titan. As we asked at that time, what was the auteur going to do for an encore?
Starlin’s answer, when it finally arrived in January, 1976, was, evidently, not to try to match the cosmic scope and metaphysical depth of his just-concluded epic — at least, not right away. Rather, Warlock #12 found the creator taking a sharp left turn, delivering a done-in-one yarn in which the stakes were every bit as low as those in the preceding issues had been high — and one in which the series’ titular star showed up just long enough to keep this issue’s Starlin-drawn cover from being a complete bait-and-switch.
In brief — after spending a couple of pages brooding over his fate while propping up a bar, Adam ditches his drinking companion, Pip the Troll, and flies off for further, solitary contemplation among the stars. Pip proceeds to have an adventure of his own, mostly concerned with his amorous pursuit of a beautiful blue-skinned sex worker named Heater Delight. Though he’s successful in freeing Heater from her trafficker, Pro-Boscis the Procurer, Pip ultimately loses her to her one true love — Thanos’ better-looking brother, Eros of Titan.
About midway through this amusing, if inconsequential narrative — which if nothing else is at least extremely well drawn by Starlin (layouts) and his artistic collaborator, Steve Leialoha (finished art) — Adam Warlock shows up for another, quote, “token appearance”:
That little tease is the last we’ll see of Warlock in this issue, the remaining eight or so pages of which are devoted to wrapping up Pip’s escapade. But it’s enough to reassure us that, come Warlock #13, we should expect to see a return to threats of greater cosmic import than Pro-Boscis the Procurer.
And that’s just what we got, back in March, 1976 — though the storyline which began in issue #13 turned out to be not another grand epic, but a tidy two-parter that would wrap up a couple of months later in #14. We’ll be dealing with both chapters in this post… so let’s go ahead and get started by turning past another fine cover, both pencilled and inked by Starlin, to our story’s splash page, where we find Starlin and Leialoha continuing to divvy up the book’s interior artistic duties…
The page above gives us a tantalizing glimpse of the new possibilities for characterization offered by Adam Warlock’s “new normal” — which, while not quite the divided consciousness of his contemporary, Deathlok the Demolisher, is still a far more complex personality than those sported by most Marvel Comics protagonists of his era. Sadly, Starlin wouldn’t have much opportunity to explore the potential of this intriguing new direction before the series’ end.
“Vocson” is an unusual enough surname that your humble blogger felt obliged to investigate whether, like some of the names in Starlin’s earlier “1000 Clowns!”, it might be an anagram of some sort; however, I didn’t manage to come up with anything, either with “Tom” or without. For what it’s worth, Starlin is reported to have used the name “Tommy Vocson” again many years later, in his Cosmic Guard series for Dynamite Entertainment (which I haven’t read); so maybe it was just the name of a pal.
There is, of course, a major logical flaw in Barry Bauman’s plan to drive humanity into panic and despair by snuffing out every single star in the universe other than our own Sun… and it’s that all of those stars are so freakin’ far away that it would take several years for we Earthlings to be aware of even the closest stars to us going out, and millennia for the farthest ones. On the other hand, if we as readers are prepared to accept — if only for the sake of enjoying this story — that a human being can mentally generate the energy needed to accomplish such star-snuffing simply by benefit of not having access to his physical senses, then I guess we can go ahead and assume that he can also bend the laws of time and space, so that events that should take tens of thousands of years to play out instead happen all at once. Like they say, in for a penny, in for a pound…
“So I must fight you, Star Thief!” Adam concludes. “For I am life and must defend life!”
“A pity,” the Star Thief replies. “For I sense a kinship with you, golden one. Yet I realize I could never make you understand the demons that drive me, so…”
Warlock may have destroyed one of the rock giants (whose design is rather reminiscent of Steve Ditko’s Mindless Ones from “Doctor Strange”), but before he can get back on his feet, another one kicks him across the surface of the planetoid…
The Star Thief’s decision to indulge a whim by fighting Warlock under a set of self-imposed rules is an obvious plot contrivance that has little justification, other than to allow Starlin to continue with his narrative; if our villain hadn’t opted to have a little fun with his much less powerful foe, the story would be over right here. Still, if we want to keep reading, we’ll just have to roll with it.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, the sudden disappearances of hundreds of individual stars have been observed by astronomers. “Somehow,” a narrative caption rather wryly informs us, “news of this momentous event reaches the public before the government can suppress the story, and…”
We’ll take this opportunity to note that he whole “vanishing stars leading to panic in the streets” thing is rather reminiscent of the “Infinity” story arc in Thor #184–188, as had originally been presented by Stan Lee and John Buscema back in 1970-71. (Though it should also be noted that in that story, the time/distance problem we noted before was at least paid lip service to, with the tale’s astronomers theorizing that such an “unimaginably powerful” cosmic cataclysm could pierce “the veil of time and space!” Now, was that so hard?) (UPDATE, 3/28/26, 14:45 pm: As has been noted in the comments below, an earlier panel from this page that I neglected to scan states, “…hundreds of stars — and the light that has been journeying from them to Earth — are vanishing.” So I was incorrect in suggesting that our author hadn’t at least tried to address the paradox. My apologies to Mr. Starlin.)
Anyway, that’s it for this issue, save for one closing, dramatically silent full page splash…
The Grand Comics Database thinks it likely that Jim Starlin produced that pin-up worthy piece all on his lonesome, and your humble blogger is inclined to agree — especially when one compares it to the all-Starlin covers for Warlock #12, #13, and #14, as well as to the Starlin-Leialoha splash that opens the latter issue:
The next page recaps the previous issue. ending as Adam Warlock muses over Star Thief’s decision to “challenge” him…
Sigh. Yeah, sure, Jaws was a seismic pop-cultural event, breaking multiple box-office records following its June, 1975 release, and so on and so forth. By the following March, however, the relentless and seemingly ubiquitous references were getting pretty old.
After a page of fighting the shark fist-to-maw with little effect, Adam opts for putting a little distance between him and it while he tries to figure out a new strategy…
A blast from Adam’s Soul Gem barely fazes the fire-giant, who intones, “Your abduction of a portion of my soul caused me great pain, Warlock… now you shall share that suffering!” That’s right, Star Thief is speaking directly to our hero through his creation…
“…gone.”
Having momentarily given his adversary the slip, Adam Warlock determines to make the most of what he knows will be a brief reprieve by attempting a feat that “no living creature has ever accomplished!” Drawing upon the navigational skills of Autolycus (the spaceship captain whose soul Adam’s gem devoured back in Strange Tales #179) and the “dark knowledge” of his evil alter ego, the Magus, Adam hopes to travel through…
…and survive the experience.
Of course, Jim Starlin got the expanding universe theory wrong, by assuming that “expansion” meant that objects in space were getting bigger, rather than simply moving away from each other. My eighteen-year-old self didn’t know that fifty years ago, however (what can I say, I took Biology for my freshman science requirement rather than Physics), and so I accepted this development, mind-boggling as it was, at its face value. But while I can obviously no longer go along with the scientific justification for it, I still find Starlin and Leialoha’s full-page image of the massive, insubstantial Adam Warlock looming over the solar system to be an emotionally resonant one; if nothing else, it still works as a potent visual metaphor for alienation.
The rather abrupt resolution of the threat posed by Star Thief, delivered by someone other than our hero, is likely to seen anticlimactic to many readers, especially coming as it does after a sequence of arbitrary, narratively meaningless battles that now feel even more like filler (albeit very well drawn filler) than they did already. On the other hand, Adam Warlock was responsible for Barry Bauman’s defeat, if only indirectly, since it was only Bauman’s being distracted by Adam that allowed his mental control over Tom Vocson to slip in the first place… and Starlin has been scrupulously fair in planting the seeds for Vocson’s rebellion over the course of these two issues. Still, this conclusion lands as something of a dud for your humble blogger — or, rather, it would, if not for that single stunning image of the giant Warlock dwarfing his home planetary system. Never mind that the whole bit makes no sense scientifically, or that it will be reversed in such short order that it might as well never have happened… it remains one of the most indelible moments in Jim Starlin’s oeuvre, at least for this reader.
In the end, however, regardless of what a reader made of this two-parter way back then (or makes of it now), they were probably ready to see what was going on with the rest of this book’s supporting cast — not just Pip the Troll, but also “the most dangerous woman in the galaxy”, Gamora, and even the Mad Titan Thanos himself. And the next issue would find Starlin dutifully delivering on all three… just in time for Warlock to be cancelled. Naturally, that’s a topic we’ll need to leave for discussion in a future post… though we’re still not quite done for today, as there’s a bit more to be said in relation to Barry Bauman, the Star Thief.
Because while Jim Starlin himself would never bring the Star Thief back as an adversary, either for Adam Warlock or for anyone else (that particular resuscitation would fall to other creators, a few decades down the line), he did produce a sequel of sorts to this storyline, some three years later… although the work in question might better be termed a companion piece — or even a crossover, given that it not only involved a completely different lead character, but came out from a different publisher, besides.
Opening splash page from the first “Darklon the Mystic” story, published in Eerie #76 (Aug., 1976).
That lead character, Darklon the Mystic, would actually make his debut while Warlock was still a going concern (if barely). Released in June, 1976 — one month after Warlock #14, and one prior to Warlock #15 — Warren Publishing’s Eerie #76 offered the first 8-page installment of a new space-fantasy serial, written and illustrated by Starlin, concerning the adventures of a renegade prince and sorcerer who, having previously sold his soul to a demon called the Nameless One, now found himself on the run from his father, the ruler of an interstellar empire.
Cover to Eerie #100 (Apr., 1979). Art by Jordi Penalva.
Like virtually all the series that ran in Eerie, “Darklon the Mystic” appeared only intermittently; your humble blogger, who wasn’t a regular buyer of Eerie but was picking up Starlin’s work whenever he saw it, did his best to keep up. But while my younger self managed to catch the next three episodes as they dribbled out over the next year — specifically, in issues #79, #80, and #84 — I somehow managed to miss the story arc’s 13-page conclusion in Eerie #100 (which, in my defense, appeared a full 23 months after the previous chapter… and right in the middle of my final semester as an undergraduate, besides, so I probably had other things on my mind). Thus it would be years later before I finally learned how things ended up with ol’ Darklon and his dad… let alone that the final showdown between the two royal antagonists was also a bizarre tie-in to Warlock #13 and #14, published three years before.
According to this blog’s self-imposed rules, I really shouldn’t share any more about Eerie #100’s “Duel” here, since I didn’t buy it new off the stands… but what the hell, I’m going to anyway. That’s partly because I suspect a fair number of this blog’s readers have never seen it before — but mostly just because, well, I want to, and who’s going to stop me, right? So, without further preamble…
Yes, we’ve returned to Wildwood Hospital — and while we only see these two physicians in silhouette, there can be no question that they are same Drs. Bell and Hoffsteader we met on the first two pages of Warlock #13. And while the year given here is 1979, this scene seems to be taking place immediately after the opening scene of “…Here Dwells the Star Thief!”, with the good doctors having just now strolled past Room 18-A, the way we saw them do in the earlier story, prior to arriving at their present location. (What Eerie readers of the time who were unfamiliar with Warlock made of the script’s references to “the Bauman case” and “young Barry”, I have no idea.)
Back on Nebularia, Kavar Darkhold explains to his offspring that, despite Darklon having renounced his claim to the throne, the law of succession won’t permit him to choose another heir while his blood offspring remains alive…
As Kavar and Darklon engage with each other on the psychic plane, back on “Tellus”, their counterparts both go into convulsions…
In earlier episodes, readers had learned how, in order to gain the mystical power necessary to save Nebularia from the immediate threat of a would-be usurper named Tarus Blacklore, Darklon had sold not only his soul to the Nameless One, but his birthright — meaning that if he ever did take the throne, it would be claimed by that demonic entity. Naturally, that’s what happens now,
But Darklon has one last card left to play. While the Nameless One gloats over how he plans to subject the population of Nebularia to unimaginable torment, the former prince surreptitiously flips a switch on a control panel built into the arm of his father’s throne. Darklon then leaves the palace, floating into the sky in a magical bubble, even as a canister released by his last action falls into the planet’s depths, ultimately landing in a huge chemical vat situated at Nebularia’s core, where it initiates a cataclysmic reaction…
Yeah, it’s just another day at Wildwood Hospital — where, presumably, the hard-working staff will presently become aware of all that crazy business with the stars in the sky blinking out, soon after which they’ll be forced to deal with the rather more immediate problem of the violent murder of a patient by his private nurse. Hey, if it ain’t one thing, it’s another.
As for Darklon the Mystic, while he’d make a couple more appearances in Eerie after this, they’d be produced by other hands than Jim Starlin’s. However, Starlin himself would soon return to the theme of a “hero” who’s forced to choose genocide as the lesser of two evils… though in the next iteration, said genocide would occur not just on a planetary level, but a galactic one. Yeah, I’m talking about “Metamorphosis Odyssey” — though of course any further musings on that subject will have to wait for yet another future post. That one will (hopefully) be coming your way around four years from now… so don’t go anywhere, OK?
First off I want to say as I should every time thank you Alan for this wonderful forum you provide every week. It’s magnificent, a lot of work and I can’t tell you how much it’s appreciated. My own copies of this two-parter have long since vanished so it’s such a joy just to behold Starlin’s work again in all it’s glory. One thing that caught my eye upon first reading this years ago was the similarity to Jim Shooter’s epic in Adventure #352-353 in which my beloved Legion of Super Heroes took on the Sun-Eater. The entity who, as the name would imply was going around eating stars, making them vanish just like the Star Thief. A great story with ramifications for the Legion that would resonate for years. All produced by Shooter at the ripe old age of 14? 15? Wow. Whether or not Starlin read that missive, who knows. One thing that struck me in your commentary that
“stars are so freakin’ far away that it would take several years for we Earthlings to be aware of even the closest stars to us going out, and millennia for the farthest ones.”
I seem to remember Starlin covering this somehow with the line “and the light traveling from them”, such that Star Thief miraculously could take that light away as well. I may be hallucinating or possibly I’m confusing my two star stealing stories. Anyway it’s a great story and the artwork is just awesome, especially that last page of the first issue with Warlock heading earthward at dizzying speed, which ended up on my bedroom wall. As for the end when Adam has expanded like a billion times his normal size, yeah I knew even then that’s not how physics works at all but what the hell it sure looked cool!
“I seem to remember Starlin covering this somehow with the line “and the light traveling from them”, such that Star Thief miraculously could take that light away as well. I may be hallucinating or possibly I’m confusing my two star stealing stories.”
You’re not hallucinating, Joe, nor have you confused the two stories. As also noted by Colin Stuart below, that line was in a panel I didn’t include in the scans, and I forgot all about it. Corrected now!
There’s a 1953 Arthur C Clarke story called The Nine Billion Names of God , which has two monks compiling such names with the help of a computer. The completion of which , is predicted to cause the end of the universe – As the computer programmers leave with the machine finishing its job, they look at the night sky and the stars start going out one by one. As pointed out, due to the light travelling, that wouldn’t coincide with the completion of the task. The highly scientifically educated ACC missed that one too.
Even as a kid, I was a bit of a science nerd, although I found understanding physics a rather difficult. Still, even at 13 years old, reading Starlin’s Star Thief yarn for the first time, I strongly suspected his take on the expanding universe was somehow off. But, hey, Starlin’s main claim to fame has been way out cosmic fantasy and this certainly fit the bill, even if it could hardly compare well to the Magus epic. And, yeah, the shark bit was certainly rather silly, although it sort of counted for Star Thief to throw a threat from water at Warlock, although I think it was a stretch to have a creature that swims in the sea as well as flying demons to stand in or either water or air – a shark is no more “water” than a bird or bat is “air”. He might’ve had a giant worm represent “earth”! I suspect Starlin was being a bit whimsical with this tale. I also wonder if Starlin had any distinct plans for what he would put Warlock through over the two years he had before his “strange death”. Or would have if Starlin hadn’t felt compelled to leave Marvel and the series cancelled. Yeah, he came back to wrap things up, but that always struck me as a very abbreviated version of what he had hinted at in Warlock #11. More volumes in Lucien’s library of imagined-but-never-written stories.
As always, enjoyed your tour of these past stories that were told, Alan!
Sometimes “cosmic” does not really overlap with “rational” or “plausible.”
Were the two docs supposed to be Drs. Casey and Zorba?
I remember these two issues fondly. Like you, Alan, I was blown away by that full page image of the attenuated Adam towering over the solar system, even though its impact was slightly diminished by the fact that I had already read #15, in which his expanded state was hand waved away. Due to the vagaries of distribution in the UK, or my corner of it anyway, I missed every issue from Strange Tales #179 to Warlock #14 when they came out, so was left laboriously piecing the run together for the next few years. It was a great moment when I was finally able to sit down and read them all in order for the first time.
Starlin did actually address the time/distance problem you mentioned on page 30 of #13, where he helpfully explained that the Star Thief hadn’t just taken the stars, but also the light travelling from them to Earth, giving observers the impression that they had been instantaneously snuffed out.
The Darklon tie-in was new to me, and I’m not quite sure what the point of it was – had Darklon and his father somehow connected across space-time with the two comatose patients, or was the whole series a figment of the younger patient’s mind? Still a nice little Easter egg, though!
Thanks for catching my error regarding that line about the light traveling from the stars, Colin — I’ve corrected the post accordingly.
The “Good Lord! >choke<" in the hospital room at the end of Warlock no. 14 was a nod to an often used exclamation in E.C.'s 1950s horror comics Haunt of Fear, Tales from the Crypt, and Vault of Horror. Vocson is apparently an anagram of convos (conversations) which there are a lot of on a "cosmic" level in this material.
Starlin has many repeating themes and concepts in his work not only for Marvel and DC, and for Warren (I was buying Creepy and Eerie at the time, so I read Darklon the Mystic when it was new), and later Epic Illustrated (you cited Metamorphosis Odyssey), but also Star*Reach. In those first few issues in 1974-5 Starlin explored many of these same themes, including portraying himself at the end of one story, taking LSD as he pushes a button to go upwards in an elevator.
Some of his faces are still weakly drawn, but there are many better ones in Warlock no. 14 than in 13.
so much of the Big Two’s output, and Starlin’s work is an excellent example, requires suspending disbelief so the Star Thief stealing all the suns’ output as well as the suns themselves is just something to accept like the soul gem or Adam not dying traveling unaided through space. Who were the two patients in Bauman’s old room anyways? I didn’t catch that. Also, fifty years later the name Heater Delight has never left me. I knew she appeared at least once subsequent bt Google tells me she appeared quite a bit more than that!
If you mean the two patients in the “Darklon” story, Steve, they’re never given names.
Let’s play a game of “What If…?” Instead of Warlock’s #13-14 rolling out as they did, “What If” both issues had been a fill-in with same exact story, but Don Heck doing the art? (This isn’t to pick on Don Heck as much as reference an artist who’s work at that time was literally light years away from Starlin’s.) What would be our collective response to this story? I’m guessing at least a tad harsher than what I’m reading in the comments. And rest assured that my feelings on these issues echo pretty much what I’m reading in the comments.
It speaks to Jim Starlin’s incredible talents as an artist that a story as absurd as this comes across in a favorable manner. Alan’s impressive assessment captures examples of gorgeous, eye-grabbing panels that easily put aside questions of both science and practicality.
Allow me to also echo frednotfaith2’s wonderings about the future of Warlock had the title continued with Jim Starlin at the helm. Clearly his later work on both the Avengers and Two-In-One annuals were classics. And I suspect there were stories to fill the gaps between Warlock #15 and that final bout with Thanos.
Lastly, I had no idea about any of his work with Darklon, but kudos to Starlin for returning to Wildwood Hospital. All of which prompts another round of applause to Alan for what amounted to a delightful cherry atop this thoroughly satisfying “Ice Cream Sundae” of a Saturday morning review.
Jim Starlin’s page layouts were far more dynamic than Don Heck’s at the time, but Heck’s figure drawing and faces were much better than Starlin’s. For a “best of all worlds” scenario, if these issues had Starlin layouts, Heck pencils, and Steve Leialoha inks they would only be that much stronger visually.
Well, about 6 years before this, Heck pinch hit for Neal Adams on the X-Men story that introduced Sunfire with few complaints (and perhaps a lot of help from Tom Palmer).
Heck was a pro, who did what was needed.
Yes, the shark was silly, but honestly, to my 18-yr old self back in 1976, I doubt it had any affect on my enjoyment of the story at all. By this point, I was pretty much of the opinion that Starlin could do no wrong and took whatever came out of his brilliant brain in stride. I will say that here, fifty years later, issues #12 and #13 seemed to be a case of Starlin taking a mental breather while he got ready for his next big epic. It’s a shame it took us four years to get it, but these two issues are fun, all the same.
As to the “light of the stars” and Starlin’s misunderstanding of the Expanding Universe Theory, I got nothing. I’ve always been a “fan” of science, especially as it pertained to science fiction, but I’ve never claimed to understand it, so if Starlin needs to be forgiven for not having the correct understanding of said science or for sweeping such science off the table in service of story, then forgiveness is granted.
Somehow, never having been a fan of Warren’s B&W books, I’ve read the Darklon stuff. In fact, I distinctly remember “Duel,” though I doubt I ever made the connection to Warlock #13. Was the Darklon stuff ever printed elsewhere? In its own collection, perhaps? Can’t imagine where I’d have seen it, if not, and I defintely have seen it. Hmmm.
All in all, brilliant artwork, brilliant story (if not all that scientifically accurate) and a brilliant way to kick of a Saturday morning at the end of a long week. Thanks, Alan!
Back in 1983 Pacific Comics published Darklon the Mystic as a one-shot, reprinting all of Starlin’s stories from Eerie magazine. Since Warren had ceased publishing that same year, Pacific also reprinted Wrightson’s short stories for Creepy and Eerie in several issues of Berni Wrightson: Master of the Macabre. Since these were printed at comic book, not magazine size, and color was added to stories that originally had a lot of ink washes or other types of half-tones, the art turned to mud. It was disappointing, to say the least. I suspect the same thing happened with Darklon the Mystic.
Yes, the shark was silly…”
But Jaws was still hot in early ’76 and everyone jumped on the bandwagon. Orca, Tentacles, Piranha, and other “ocean monster” movies followed, and comics were no exception. One of the better riffs on Jaws in comics was “In Deep,” written by Bruce Jones and drawn by Richard Corben in Creepy no. 83, cover dated October 1976. Having a great Frazetta reprint cover, a Wrightson frontispiece, and great Bruce Jones scripts on stories drawn by Russ Heath and Carmine Infantino (with inks by Wrightson) only sweetened the pot. Classic issue!
https://archive.org/details/warrencreepy-083/mode/1up
and Al Williamson had a story in there, too. What a lineup!
Thanks for another excellent review Alan. This was a very enjoyable 2 part story with beautiful artwork from Jim and Steve. It is amazing how much story was crammed into these 2 issues. Today the same story might have been dragged out for 6-8 issues. Fascinating information about Darklon. I never read Creepy or Eerie at that time so was completely unaware of this connection, but have a vague memory that I may have heard about this character many years later.
It is interesting that Adam is lamenting being unable to return to the world of his birth at the end of this story and on the first page of Warlock 15, since he has almost no relationship with the “world of his birth.” He was only seen there in the very last panels of FF 67, then left and returned to Earth very briefly and fought Thor in Thor 165-166 and left Earth again. It is Counter Earth where he spent a long period of time. But of course Adam would have the same problem if he tried to return to Counter Earth. Obviously the powers that be realized that having Warlock in this state was untenable and corrected this very quickly by the end of 1976 in Marvel Team-Up 55. I don’t think Jim Starlin even referenced any of this when he brought back Warlock in Avengers Annual 7.
By the way, I didn’t remember the shark being used to menace Warlock, but what folks today may not realize is that movies 50 years ago stayed in the theatres for a long time and Jaws the movie was omnipresent in peoples’ minds for quite awhile….just as in 1977 Star Wars would take over popular culture for quite awhile.
Like other commenters, I have often wondered where Starlin would have taken this series if he had not left. I look forward to reading your final post on this series.
With all due to respect to the various creators and their devotees, not all writer-artists are created equal. Dave Sim, to my mind, is a writer who happens to draw, to cite one example.
I always felt that Starlin was an artist who happened to write. The visuals and the concepts behind them came first. This is why I wish he and Steve Englehart had done more together, because Steve (who to me really WAS Stainless) could find ways to craft a script that made even outrageous things plausible.
Long way of saying that I agree with everyone knocked out by the page of Warlock looming over the solar system. Starlin WANTED people to be knocked out by it, scientific or story logic be damned.
By this time, I was losing enthusiasm for this book, though I appreciated what Starlin was trying to do.
I didn’t know about Darklon until the Pacific reprint. Thanks for bring it up to speed – and for doing this at all, Alan! Cheers, everyone!
Here’s a link to what I’m sure is a reprint of Darklon the Mystic #1 from Pacific Comics for only $5.99. Doesn’t look like any other issues are available.
https://www.amazon.com/Darklon-Mystic-Pacific-comic-book/dp/B07661Q36S
There were only a handful of stories, enough for a one-shot.. Not sure if Starlin was going to do any new ones at the time. He had the Dreadstar series debuting in Marvel’s Epic line the following year.
Did not know that. Speaking of Dreadstar, you can also get the first collection of his stories on Amazon for $32 and change. FYI, and all that.
It all feels a little bit ‘meh!’, to be honest. As good as Starlin was, and with all the craft he brought to the story, it still feels a bit post-epic ‘not really sure what to do next’. Sure, it’s way ahead of the pack and he gets in his trademark musings on the nature of consciousness and life and death and all that, but it still feels like this somehow lacks real commitment?
Why did Starlin decide that a warlock was characterized by being ‘one with the four elements’? I know he’d used this before in his second Warlock/Strange Tales issue for an impressive multi-panel page, but has it been used anywhere else to define warlocks? Without that, we might have been spared the padding of his battles with the three manifested elements and the commercial tie-in to the then-current blockbuster.
I seem to recall that the ‘Star Thief hadn’t just taken the stars, but also the light travelling from them to Earth’ was raised in the letter pages at the time?
Confession of a comic-book geek committing an act of desecration: I cut the last full-page panel of #13 out of the comic and it was on my bedroom wall for a number of years.
Sort of like a giant size Marvel value stamp, eh? 😉
No, while some RPGs went with that, warlock in those days usually meant “male witch.”
Plus Adam isn’t any sort of warlock, it’s a name counter-Earth hung on him.
Having just read this story for the first time, I guessed that Tom was going to kill Barry… but I had expected he was going to smuther him with a pillow. A gun was needlessly violent, in my book.
I readily accepted the little ‘diversion’ that issues 12 & 13 provided and they are among my favourite issues in the star studded Strange Tales/Warlock run. The opening splash pages in both were just glorious.
This feel disability-stereotypical (the disabed are bitter and MEAN, don’cha know?). I did enjoy it back then, and last time I reread them. I imagine the Jaws thing would bother a Gen Z reader a lot less as the shark just looks like one random piece of weirdness.
Everyone was riffing on Jaws at the time. 😉
https://youtu.be/p_NS2H55dxI?si=vsajNA7FPpr9nQHG
Oh, I know, I was there. My point was that the riff was obvious then — I doubt it is to anyone who isn’t old enough to remember that.
Thanks for reminding me of Darklon’s stories and pointing out this crossover of sorts.
Counter-Earth will be briefly if passionately mentioned in Warlock #15.
Warlock’s bizarre disability here would be revisited as well and, in a way, reversed twice in perhaps contradictory ways. Most obviously, there are a few panels in Marvel Team-Up #55 late in 1976, opening the way for a couple of very significant Warlock appearances in the 1977 Annuals. Then there is Marvel Two-in-One #62 in early 1980 where Sphinxor gives the first real explanation.
Starlin apparently really, really likes building cross-company references and a peculiarly connected multiverse, and this may be one of the early indications. Darklon’s tale would be followed up in a couple of ways. Most obviously, with a couple of guest appearances alongside Dreadstar, Wyrd and others in “Breed III” around 2010-2011. But also in the meantime (1993-1994) by having the name of Darklon’s grandfather reused in a character that became Adam Warlock’s ally, Darklore, who is very clearly an expy of Darklon.
Jim Starlin may have been inspired by the unofficial crossovers in Marvel and DC comics from 1972 featuring the Rutland Halloween parade and some cameos of comics creators as well as sendups of rival company’s characters. Alan has covered these in this blog.
My mistake; the story begins in #61 and continues into #62, but it is Marvel Two-in-One #63 that has an actual claim about Warlock’s odd growth.