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.  Read More