In July, 1976, the comics fans who’d been following artist/writer Jim Starlin’s Warlock series could pick up some strong clues about the latest issue’s contents from the cover — specifically, from the the various figures (and heads) that Starlin had drawn symbolically surrounding his central image of the series’ titular hero. Because while three out of the total six characters thus portrayed were new and unfamiliar, the other three — i.e., Thanos, Gamora, and Pip — were folks we hadn’t seen since issue #11 (in the first two cases) and #12 (in the last). That strongly suggested that, after the past two issues’ standalone tale of Adam Warlock’s conflict with the Star Thief, Starlin was going to be giving his faithful readers what many of us had been waiting for — namely, the next chapter in the saga of Thanos’ quest to bring about universal stellar genocide. Or at least some movement in that area, if only in the form of a subplot.
As it turned out, that assessment was essentially correct. But what we fans didn’t know then — and still wouldn’t know, even after we finished reading the comic (up to and including the letters page, which ended with an editorial note encouraging us to come back next time “for one of the greatest surprise thrillers of all! See you in sixty!”) — was that this issue was also the last one of the series. So, whatever progress was going to made here in regards to Starlin’s overarching storyline was, in the end, going to amount to nothing more than a tantalizing tease… at least for the next twelve months.
Why did Marvel Comics cancel Warlock with its fifteenth issue? Probably for the same reason it had previously cancelled the title with its eighth issue, three years prior: the management did not believe that Warlock‘s ongoing sales provided the company with sufficient profit to justify its continued publication — even as a bimonthly. Or, in other words, for the same basic reason why virtually every other cancelled comic book has gotten the ax over the last nine or so decades.
That said, there is in fact a little bit more to the behind-the-scenes story of Warlock‘s demise, beginning with Jim Starlin’s reportedly having decided to quit the series even before the ax fell. But before we get into all of that background stuff, let’s go ahead and look at the actual story told within its pages.
As indicated by the opening splash page, we’re picking things up in the immediate aftermath of issue #14:
While the credits box states that Starlin has done “everything else” in this story besides the editing, lettering, and coloring — all the writing, pencilling, and inking, in other words — an interview that Steve Leialoha gave to Jon B. Cooke for Comic Book Artist #18 (Apr., 2002) indicates that wasn’t quite the case. Rather, Leialoha — who’d been involved with the series since issue #9, having started out by inking Starlin’s full pencils before moving on to providing finished art over the auteur’s layouts — contributed substantially to this issue’s artwork, despite going uncredited. As Leialoha explains in the interview:
The credits just say “Art by Jim Starlin” because, ahh, I figured why change it? But he [i.e., Starlin] did all of the first page and as you go through it, it gets less and less his artwork and more mine.
Adam Warlock’s brief, but very eventful, career as the “savior” of Counter-Earth was, of course, what his first go at a solo series had been all about; while Jim Starlin can’t be said to have completely ignored that phase of his hero’s journey, he hadn’t shown much inclination to revisit it, either. So this sequence is interesting on that level, suggesting that maybe Adam could be returning to Counter-Earth sometime in the not-so-distant future, even if his current “nebulous giant” status would seem to make that impossible — a notion that will receive further support later on in the issue.
On my most recent re-reading of this story in preparation for writing this post, I guessed that Marr Gar was a representative of the same race of “asparagus people” that had first been introduced in 1963 in Avengers #4, but would later become best-known for having had their planet wiped out by Dark Phoenix in X-Men #135, published some four years after our present yarn. But, no; according to Fandom’s Marvel Database wiki, the asparagus folks are called the D’bari, while Marr Gar’s people (whom I suppose do resemble another of your humble blogger’s least favorite vegetables, broccoli, more than they do asparagus) are known as the R’malk’i. You learn something new every day…
While he’s never named in this story, or even seen all that clearly, that’s definitely our old friend Drax the Destroyer — who was last seen making a beeline for Thanos’ alleged location in Captain Marvel #44, just a few months prior to this, — that just blew up Gamora’s spaceship real good. If, however, you figure that the Most Dangerous Woman in the Universe can’t be killed quite that easily, you’re correct. That said, neither in Gamora’s next appearance nor in Drax’s will we get any sort of explanation of what happened here following that big TA-BOOM! — and as far as I know, no later story has cleared the matter up, either. So, if you really need to know how Gamora gets from this tight spot to the even worse place in which we’ll find her about a year from now, in Avengers Annual #7, you’ll have to make up your own version of those events.
“I’ve had everything a person could wish for,” muses Adam Warlock, “power, freedom, followers, excitement, even truth. Everything except purpose.” He goes on to reflect that when he acted as a protector for Earth and Counter-Earth, he had a reason for existing; lately, however, the only thing he’s needed to protect anyone from is his own self. “Perhaps I should find some cause to champion, except I’ve become too cynical of late to believe in anything. It’s difficult to stand up for apathy!”
Jim Starlin has done his usual fine job in his design of the blue alien Traveler/Thinker/Hermit/What-Have-You, but what really makes this sequence special for me is the added element of the blue guy’s little pink companion — who never speaks, and who thus might be his pet, or best friend, or even his spouse, for all we know. It’s an entirely gratuitous — but, for my money, still very welcome — extra bit of business.
“In little over a year…” Most of the blue alien’s prophecies will indeed come true within that span of time (though not, of course, in the pages of Warlock). One notable exception is the statement that Warlock will cause the death of the creator of Counter-Earth, aka the High Evolutionary; whatever Starlin might have had planned in that regard, he didn’t manage to work it in to the conclusion of the Adam Warlock saga he presented in the following summer’s Avengers and Marvel Two-in-One annuals.*
Yeah, that scene with Pip doesn’t advance any of Starlin’s plotlines one iota. Still, it’s always nice to check in with our favorite Troll.
In any case, we have just one event left in this issue’s series of same. And so we rejoin Adam Warlock one last time, as he descends to the surface of yet another alien planet — one he’s chosen because of its Earth-like atmosphere, which he hopes will provide him with the strength to do what he needs to do…
“I am one of the Six.” This is the first indication we’ve had in a story written by Jim Starlin that Warlock’s Soul Gem isn’t unique in the universe — though not the first such indication overall. As we’ve covered in a previous post, that information had already been shared with Marvel Comics readers by two of Starlin’s friends and sometime collaborators, Steve Englehart and Al Milgrom, in Captain Marvel #45 — which, for the record, had come out four months earlier than our present story, in April of ’76. So, who first had the idea of there being six “Soul Gems” — an idea which would of course have tremendous ramifications for Starlin’s future work at Marvel (not to mention providing a backbone for the first decade or so of the Marvel Cinematic Universe)? My own best guess is that Starlin came up with the notion, then shared it with his pals, who ran with it ahead of him (presumably with his permission). But that’s just speculation on my part.
And so we come to the end of Jim Starlin’s Warlock — the title, that is. As it turned out, Starlin wasn’t anywhere near done telling stories about Warlock, the character — even if he had no intention of ever returning when he completed his work on this issue.
I mentioned near the beginning of this post that whoever put together the final edition of the series’ letters column evidently didn’t know that there wouldn’t be a Warlock #16. But I’d wager that whoever saw this last completed story page through production did, given the lack of any “Next Issue” blurb, and that rather definite “FIN”. Also worth noting is a message written in the stars above that word — “Bye, Jim” — which, according to the Comic Book Artist interview I quoted earlier, was one of Steve Leialoha’s uncredited artistic contributions to this issue.
Of course, “Bye, Jim” doesn’t necessarily mean the book has been cancelled; it could just mean that Leialoha was exiting the book… or, that Starlin himself was. And, according to accounts Starlin has given in multiple venues over the years, the latter was indeed the case.
Here’s the version that’s presented in Starlin’s autobiography/art book, The Art of Jim Starlin: A Life in Words and Pictures (IDW Publishing, 2018):
After some problems with editorial changes on the Warlock series early on, I’d come to an arrangement with both editors [Len] Wein and [Marv] Wolfman that any post-production alterations they might feel needed would be discussed before implementation. This worked out well until suddenly Gerry Conway became editor and all previous agreements were then apparently null and void.
Warlock #14 had a number of art changes done at the editorial office without consultation.
When Steve [Leialoha] and I received the coloring stats and saw what had been done, I called the office to complain and was informed all editorial changes were now final and no longer open to debate. It didn’t matter what had been agreed upon before. This was the way it was going to be now that Gerry Conway was in charge. If I didn’t like it, I could always quit.
So I did.
Then Gerry quit as editor two weeks later, and Archie Goodwin’s name was put on the issues that Conway had gotten me to leave the series over. By then I was already committed to other work.
As it turned out, there was a serious paper shortage around this time and several Marvel books had to be cancelled (whether they were selling well enough or not) because there just wasn’t anything to print them on. Warlock was among this group that also included Killraven and Luke Cage, Powerman, if I recall right. So no one followed me on Adam Warlock.
As it happens, Starlin recalled incorrectly in regards to Power Man, which kept going for a while yet (all the way up until 1986, in fact, if you count the issues published after Danny Rand joined Luke Cage as a co-star, and the book’s title became Power Man and Iron Fist). But he was right about the “Killraven” feature, whose home base, Amazing Adventures, shipped its last issue in August, 1976, just a month after Warlock had done the same. And, germane to his overall point, a couple of other titles bit the dust in August as well: Jungle Action (featuring the Black Panther) and Skull the Sayer. However, it’s not as though Marvel didn’t almost immediately replace these cancelled titles on their publishing schedule, launching both 2001: A Space Odyssey and Spectacular Spider-Man in September, and Black Panther, Logan’s Run, and Ms. Marvel just one month after that. So while it’s entirely possible that paper shortages (and, presumably, the higher printing costs incurred as a consequence) did constrain just how many books Marvel was willing to send to the presses in mid-to-late 1976, it’s also almost certainly an overstatement — if, perhaps, an unintentional one — to claim that “there just wasn’t anything to print” Warlock and the other discontinued titles on.
What might a post-Starlin Warlock have read and looked like, had Marvel had indeed opted to keep the title going following its writer/artist’s departure? We’ll likely never know — but there had been another issue of Warlock in the works prior to the fall of the ax, although it’s not entirely clear whether it would have appeared as #16 or been slotted in later; in any event, it had been initiated before Starlin’s decision to quit the book.
Pencil art for what would have been the splash page of Jim Starlin and Alan Weiss’ unfinished Warlock story.
According to a joint interview with Starlin, Allen Milgrom, and Alan Weiss that was published in the same 2002 issue of Comic Book Artist as Steve Leialoha’s, the plan was to produce an inventory story that could have been dropped into the publishing schedule as needed; Starlin was to have written the story, while Alan Weiss (who’d inked Starlin’s pencils on several of Warlock’s covers) would have provided the art:
Alan: Well, Jim and I always wanted to do more work together, and since during those years I’d do inventory issues, we decided to set up this Warlock filler. I don’t know if we knew what issue it would be at the time. We sat down one afternoon, and — in the ideal way to work — I asked, “What do you want to write?” and he asked, “What do you want to draw?” Exactly like Englehart and I had done on Captain America. I said, “I’d like to get a crack at doing some Hobbit-like creatures.” So that turned into these Hobbit-like miners on a planet who worked for these cosmic entrepreneurs who looked like stalks of asparagus.
Jim: Oh, asparagus? I thought they were supposed to look like broccoli! Excuse me! [laughter] Don’t you know broccoli when you see it?
Alan: Well, not when it’s wearing a cape! [laughs] …
CBA: What happened to Warlock #16?
Alan: Well, I had the pencils with me when I came back to New York from my hegira in California,… I flew into New York from Detroit, and I had a bunch of stuff in a portfolio that didn’t get taken out of the cab. So I lost those original pencils.
Thankfully, someone (probably letterer Tom Orzechowski) had already made photocopies of the pencilled art, so the work wasn’t completely lost. Several pages were reproduced in CBA #18 as a complement to the interview quoted above; more recently, in 2009, all sixteen extant pages (some featuring little more than rough breakdowns), accompanied by explanatory notes from Alan Weiss, were presented as supplementary material in Marvel Masterworks — Warlock, Vol. 2.
But, of course, back in 1976, most comics fans had no inkling of any of this; indeed, unless they were really plugged in to organized fandom via conventions, zines, and the like, they didn’t even know that Warlock had been cancelled — although when September came and went without the next bimonthly issue turning up in the spinner racks, most of us could figure it out.
That, of course, left us with the questions — whither now Adam Warlock? And what about Thanos? Surely neither of those characters would be left in limbo forever.
And, of course, those who guessed that were absolutely right — though I doubt that few predicted that Adam would next resurface, not in a comic written and/or drawn by Jim Starlin, but in an issue of Marvel Team-Up written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by John Byrne… though that’s a story we’ll need to save for this December. I hope to see you then.
*Unlike the Gamora/Drax episode, this loose end would eventually be cleaned up, courtesy of writer Mark Gruenwald, who revealed in Marvel Two-in-One #62 [Apr., 1980] that, sometime prior to the events of Starlin’s annuals, Adam was tricked into believing that the High Evolutionary had destroyed Counter-Earth; he then attacked his former mentor/ father figure and, afterwards, believed he’d killed him, not realizing that H.E. had survived in a disembodied state. Which doesn’t quite square with Mr. Blue’s prophecy that Adam would cause the High Evolutionary’s actual, for-reals death — but, close enough, I guess.
Well I am mildly amused that the old boy has the right shaped space helmet to accommodate his beard. I suppose in some far flung future , it’s no different to getting a hat fitted.
You have to wonder if history vilified Jim Shooter due to the number of fan-favourite creators who left Marvel around this time, when it looks like a fair part of it was down to Gerry Conway in his two-week tenure as editor? As you noted recently, Steve Englehart quit the Avengers after falling out with Conway (although there was no denying his own failings regarding deadlines), and now you tell us that Starlin quit Warlock due to Conway’s editorial interference. Didn’t Conway also cancel Killraven / Amazing Adventures out from under Don McGregor? Maybe because Gerry Conway was in and gone in the gap between monthly issues, he escaped the disapproval that ended up being directed at the incoming new guy, Jim Shooter. I’m not whitewashing Shooter, but maybe a good part of the hostility towards him was undeserved?
I wonder if Starlin’s buddy Al Milgrom had money worries in real life that he merited the cameo as prospector Lamilm Gor? Makes me wonder who Marr Gar is supposed to represent in the real world.
If this series had continued, this would have been a very nice set-up for future developments. The artwork is gorgeous as usual, however much of it is Starlin or Leialoha. I never noticed that “Bye, Jim” before.
Marr Gar is likely a reference to George R.R. Martin who had been involved in comics fandom since the 1960s, long before his professional writing career took off.
And I’ve just googled around and seen that Jim Starlin and George R R Martin apparently worked together on Dr Weird from 1970, so that fits nicely. Thanks for the tip!
Well, no one in comics from that era has ever needed reality to get in the way of vilifying Jim Shooter. Even for stuff that’s demonstrably false, people cling to it. I think most of the stuff that’s thrown at him from his early tenure is pretty absurd and often based on a game of telephone; the stuff at the end (while often due to corporate nonsense) is more based in reality.
The accusation that he “drove talent away” is mostly crap: things like the writer/editor contracts handed to former E-i-C’s (limiting the number of opportunities) or DC simply offering more money/better opportunities is far more likely the culprit. (Shooter, for all his faults, just wasn’t someone to mess with someone’s livelihood.)
The cover art shows how bad the printing was becoming in that era. Starlin’s inks look blobby and the linework is closing up.
These interior pages, all nice and digital, are a far cry from what the actual printed comic looked like in 1976.
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Did the “Unleashed At Last” , refer to Warlock or Starlin , after he quit?
I can’t remember what I thought when Warlock disappeared from the stands. Certainly would have been disappointed. Interested to learn the background conflicts — as Mike says, Conway’s tenure seems to have been something of a wrecking ball.
Maybe it’s just me but Gamora and Thanos are a lot more fun to watch on the page here. Thanos isn’t as pompous as he’d be post-resurrection when Starlin had to make it clear how much cooler and smarter he was than anyone else at Marvel (I think he failed).
Gerry Conway was only 23 which is remarkably young for an editor, especially in those days. Too soon, if you ask me.
Reminds me of Ramona Fradon saying she found all of Marvel’s editors too young (“I prefer editors who sit behind desks, not on them.”).
🤣
Real possibility that Conway got burned a little by the changing role of the job: under Stan and Roy it was much more akin to a Head Writer/Creative Director type of job, but increasingly needed to be more of a editor/publisher role. Beyond the fact that he was too young and inexperienced for the role, which he admitted over the years.
Certainly by the point that Roy stepped down, Marvel had expanded too much for someone of very limited or really no experience of management or even editing other people’s work, particularly on his own while also writing multiple titles himself. I think even when Stan took on the job at age 19 in 1941, Timely was still a relatively small operation, albeit part of a growing publishing empire of Martin Goodman.
I didn’t buy this issue at the time, but I did purchase DC’s Ragman no. 2 (Kubert/Redondo studio) and Eerie magazine no. 79, cover dated November 1976, which has a chapter of Jim Starlin’s Darklon the Mystic in it:
https://archive.org/details/eerie_magazine_079/
So, Thanos had Gamora off kilter in the timeline to escape the Magus’ attention, so when it reset with the Magus’ first termination, I’ve always felt like there should be a Gamora out there who grew up raised by her parents. (I didn’t have a comment but want to get notifications on others commenting so I went with a real but random longtime thought)
A rather fascinatingly strange issue, sort of giving a statement of where things stood and hints of things to come, some of which came to pass and others left hanging. And was that blue man meant to be real or some sort of unconscious conjuring by Warlock himself, a construct with whom to argue and to express his fears as to what his limited future might have in store. I have no idea what Starlin’s intentions were with that, but given what the eventual conclusion of this iteration of Warlock, I think it more likely the blue man only existed in Warlock’s mind and maybe their discussion could be taken as a dream sequence which Warlock took as real. Certainly, there was nothing in Avengers Annual #7 or Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2 that showed Warlock had become “the most hated person ever to travel the spaceways and the only thing people would ever value of your own doing would be your death!” On the other hand, it could be taken that Warlock feared that would be the case and he was anxious to find some good cause to support, to give his existence meaning, to feel his life had been worthwhile before the ever more imminent moment when he would meet his past self and die.
Speaking of death, it certainly looked like Starlin intended for Gamora to have met her demise at the hands of Drax, but Starlin himself just hand-waved that depiction away without explanation when she showed up next, on the verge of death not due to Drax but to the not so tender mercies of Thanos.
Pip’s little vignette was inconsequential but at least a mildly amusing brief diversion from the otherwise mostly dire events.
I hadn’t previously been aware that the old codger’s name was an anagram of Al Milgrom, although Starlin had a penchant for doing that sort of thing. At least in that instance, Warlock was able to save him from the peril of his hounders, unlike the poor woman introduced at the beginning of the Magus epic in Strange Tales #178 — that event seems it may have been a purposeful echo of the earlier one, or maybe just pure coincidence.
And back in 1976, I hadn’t noticed the “bye, Jim” constellation among the stars on that last panel. Glad it wasn’t “bye” for good on Starlin’s chronicles of Warlock, but it was sad that the series came to an end as it did. Starlin’s run was among my favorites of the era and the Magus story one of the best ever, IMO.
As always, enjoyed reading your observations on this “series of events” from a half century ago, Alan!
I wish he’d said goodbye after Warlock’s death in a year or so. His return to the characters in the 1990s with all the Infinity Crap had none of the magic his Bronze Age work had.
With all due respect, as much as I also enjoyed Starlin’s 70’s work, I also liked a good portion of his 90’s return to Marvel. I thought the initial Infinity Gauntlet was excellent – also finding the Infinity Quest a wonderful read. I do agree that each subsequent Infinity crossover had lesser appeal. If nothing else, it seemed that no one outside of Jim Starlin had the right “grasp” of Warlock, Gamora, Pip and certainly Thanos. (I also grant myself absolution for anything post 2015 that proves my statement wrong as I haven’t collected comics since then.)
Oh, I know lots of people loved the Infinity events; you’re not an outlier.
Gauntlet seemed like an endless string of “I, Thanos, control all reality and am invincible!” “We’re going to fight you!” Opponents lose. Rinse, recycle.
I also think there’s some truth to whoever described 1990s Thanos as a nerdy loner who just knows he’s smarter than everyone else and someday they’ll all be sorry.
You bring up some good points. If nothing else, nothing makes a nerdy loner even worse than being head over heels with a woman who wants nothing to do with him.
Ain’t that the truth.
I got the first couple of Infinity epics but then, when Warlock and the gang got their own series, something about Starlin’s writing began to turn me off, and I particularly didn’t like Drax’s transformation into a variant of the dumb Hulk. I bailed out after about 10 issues.
Good morning, everyone! I just returned from a parallel universe where Gerry Conway did not become an editor at Marvel in 1976. As a result, Jim Starlin stayed on Warlock! I have to say that his “Most Hated Man in the Galaxy” storyline in this series damn near surpasses the Magus saga! Who would have imagined how he ended up killing the High Evoluntary? And Gamora’s survival from Drax’s attack had them become one of the few allies our golden hero had remaining before Thanos acquired all those soul gems. Of course this set the stage for his final demise with the Avengers guest-starring. But I don’t want to give everything away. Well, I can add that Steve Englehart also remained on the Avengers and Dr. Strange. He crafts amazing stories on both – although we still have too many reprints on the former and you’ll never guess who Clea sleeps with on the latter.
Silliness aside, Fred called it in saying that Warlock #15 was “a rather fascinatingly strange issue.” I didn’t know the series was cancelled, but wasn’t overly shocked not to see #16 a couple months later. The Star Thief issues seemed a bit like Nitro in Captain Marvel – a so-so story following an epic. (And let’s be honest, that expanding universe notion was bat sh*t crazy!) If his heart wasn’t into Warlock, then it did make sense to bring closure to the series.
The other more somber aspect of this issue is that it caused me to learn the meaning of the word “genocide.” With that knowledge, Thanos went from a cool, spooky villain to a truly frightening one.
Let close in saying that the reason I returned from that other universe is that they did not have Alan writing these amazing reviews.
Just like many other 1960s and 1970s stories, I only read this one quite a few years after original publication (as Brazil’s Abril published a Brazilian Portuguese version of same). That happened in such an environment that I had no doubt that this was the final issue, but also that the storyline would continue in short order as the two Annuals were published in a special edition.
Still, even without external clues this issue has many hints of an approaching end. When you come down to it, most of it is Warlock feeling real bad about how he seems fated to die soon and alone. Objectively, that is to a considerable degree a situation of his own making; Warlock is just not used to taking steps to avoid being alone.
Starlin’s stories are often somewhat heavy, but this time period had some of his most depressing tales ever. Not just in Warlock, but also in Eerie’s Darklon stories. If you hasten to extrapolate from what those stories show, it is difficult to avoid concluding that Jim used to think quite a lot about difficult father figures at this time. So I don’t doubt that regardless of any tensions with editorial he was just about ready to conclude this run anyway.
When all is said and done, his most recent material (the new Dreadstar stories) is considerably lighter in tone.
Returning for a moment to the matter of Marvel Editorial, I think that it is fair to point out that not all the blame comes from specific people. This time period is infamous for giving the role of Editor in Chief to a fast succession of different professionals until Jim Shooter came along. That alone can’t have helped in giving creators a stable and reliable environment, regardless of the actual people involved. It is to be expected that many understandings were made and let go of during that time, imposing a toll on creators on both sides of the table. I suspect but do not know for a fact that there was also a need to establish more of a businesslike relationship with Cadence Industries, Marvel’s owners at the time. There ought to be decisions being made about such matters as how to deal with the diminishing market for black and white magazines and the rising prices and the rising costs of ink, energy and paper. I expect that his general situation made the relationships between editorial and creations more tense and difficult than it was ten years prior.
Also… I feel the need to point out that when Drax next appears, it will be in a June 1977 cover date comic that is _not_ one of the usual suspects, in a story by Scott Edelman and Mike Zeck that does not lead to the resolution of the Warlock/Thanos conflict except very peripherally. I feel that this fact illustrates how this could be an “interesting” time for Marvel comics. People just were not very certain of what was possible or not.
I remember that back-up in an issue of Logan’s Run. I was very surprised, when reading that issue, to come across that five- pager as it was MU material in a licensed title. Seemed oddly random.
That it did. And there wasn’t even any indication of its existence on the cover. For all I know Marvel was not even allowed to include any.
There’s a Ka-Zar reprint series from the early 1970s that packs in a couple of stories — one Hercules, one the Angel — without any hint on the cover. https://atomicjunkshop.com/dying-is-easy-research-is-hard/
Dr. Strange was holding back up in Strange Tales or several issues, maybe a year, before there was any reference to him on the cover. And even then, the first time he got a cover to himself happened to be for the issue featuring Ditko’s last Dr. Strange story.
Yeah, good luck putting together a complete set of Logan’s Run on the cheap. All the other issues can be found for pretty low prices of just a few dollars, but that issue #6, because of the Thanos back-up story, goes for twenty bucks and up.
Coincidentally, today in my Facebook Memories, this item on my timeline from two years ago popped up:
“My most recent reading was Warlock by Jim Starlin: The Complete Collection from Marvel Comics. Jim Starlin truly was on the cutting edge of mainstream comic books in the 1970s with his cosmic storytelling and dynamic artwork. I’ve wanted to read these stories for quite some time, so I’m glad I finally picked up this collected edition. This is one of those cases where the material truly does live up to the hype. Highly recommended.”
So, now that Alan has finished his retrospectives of Jim Starlin’s Warlock stories from the 1970s, except of course for those two annuals, perhaps I should re-read The Complete Collection.
Looking at the other comments here, I do agree with the opinion that, having seemingly wrapped up Adam Warlock and Thanos’ stories with that pair of annuals, Starlin should have just left them well enough alone. I agree to a certain extent. Let me explain.
For a brief time in the 1980s at Marvel Comics, it appeared that several characters were permanently dead & buried, their stories concluded. Jean Grey, Norman Osborn, Elektra, Bucky Barnes, Nighthawk, Dracula, and, yes, Adam Warlock, Thanos, Drax, Gamora and Pip… all of them were absolutely positively never to be seen again, with no exceptions. Except, of course, one by one they all started to come back, because at Marvel (as well as DC Comics) no one really stays dead forever.
Starlin obviously had a very proprietary interest in all of the characters from his Captain Marvel and Warlock runs from the 1970s, particularly Thanos. He may well have said to himself “Hey, Marvel is going to bring back all of these character with or without me, so I might as well be the one to write them.” So, we got Infinity Gauntlet, which was decent, if predictable. And then we got Infinity war and Infinity Crusade, neither of which I would consider even halfway good. And then you got a bunch of further Thanos stories by Starlin that basically rehashed the same themes over and over.
So, you can again argue that Starlin should have stayed away from Thanos and Co after the 1970s. but the thing is, we also got a bunch of Thanos stories by other writers, and those were even more underwhelming than the work Starlin did in the 1990s and beyond, with most of them treating the Mad Titan like a generic heavy. We’ve especially gotten a deluge of these sorts of tales ever since Thanos made his debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
I honestly feel, like a lot of readers, that Thanos was a character who had two or three really good stories in him, and they were all told by Starlin in the 1970s. Unfortunately, Thanos is a corporate-owned character, and Marvel is never going to let him lie fallow for long. So, yeah, it felt like Starlin was running on fumes pretty much right from the start after Thanos was brought back in the 1990s, but his work was still better than nearly every other use of the character.
Now, if only we could have gotten some new Adam Warlock stories by Starlin that did *not* involve Thanos!
*AHEM!* My apologies for the looooong comment!
Marvel also destroyed the Serpent Crown and the Cosmic Cube in the 1980s.
Over at DC the legacy heroes took up the legacy: Ollie was dead, Kara Zor-El was dead, Barry Allen was dead, Don Hall was dead. New GA, new Supergirl, new Flash, new Dove. That didn’t last either.
In the cartoons at least, Chef appears to have truly, forever and ever, truly met his demise. In comics, however, few prominent characters, whether heroes, villains or supporting cast, truly ever die and stay dead. And even those who have been in the dead zone for decades, may yet be brought back to life. I think the original Tumbler, whose death launched the long-bubbling Secret Empire story to the forefront in Captain America, is among those destined to remain dead. Kirby essentially created him as a throwaway character in the midst of the Them (aka A.I.M.)/Adaptoid storyline and Englehart brought him back for the sole purpose of killing him off and for Cap to be blamed for doing the deed. Not the sort of baddie fans are clamoring to bring back.
People who’ve stayed surprisingly dead:
1)Linda Holland.
2)Daniel Rand’s parents. Dad fell off a mountain, Mom was torn apart by wolves, no body in either case.
Alas, poor Warlock. We hardly knew ye… It’s easy to say so in retrospect, but so ends one of the best series Marvel ever produced in the Bronze Age. I enjoyed Starlin’s subsequent work on Warlock in the 90’s, as well as Dreadstar, etc, but he was never better than he was right here.