Passion of The Warlock

Jim Starlin had a story to tell and it only took eighteen years to do it.

In 1973, in Iron Man #55, Jim Starlin debuted Thanos & Drax the Destroyer, two characters he thought up in psychology class. What started as a throwaway story blossomed into one of the longest running sagas in Marvel history. A lover of Death incarnate, Thanos was in search of power, enough to wipe out all life in the universe as a gift to his one true love. He would come into conflict with many of Marvel cosmic heroes including his father and brother, Mentor and Starfox; the guardian of the universe, Captain Mar-vell; Drax, who was created by Mentor with the body of Moondragon's father to kill Thanos; the Avengers, the Thing and even Spider-Man.

But it was the Jack Kirby created, Roy Thomas revamped Adam Warlock who would become Thanos' greatest threat. A genetically created "perfect man", Warlock spent so time defending Counter-Earth before journeying out to the stars in Starlin's "The Magus Saga" which ran through Strange Tales #178-181(1975) and in Warlock #9-15(1975-6). While Magus, an evil, future version of Adam Warlock, was the main villain of that storyline, Thanos gets involved to help Warlock defeat Magus, who Thanos believes is a bigger threat to his own plans.

With Magus defeated, Thanos sets his own plan into motion, assembling the Soul Gems to use their combined power to control the universe. He wrests the Gems from the Elders and is able to take the Soul Gem from Adam Warlock's corpse, a death he engineered to get rid of the Magus. Thanos is almost successful, until Spider-Man frees the spirit of Adam Warlock from the Soul Gem, who imprisons Thanos in stone, as told in Avengers Annual #7 and Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2(1977).

Not content with the story so far, Starlin 'resurrected' Thanos in Silver Surfer vol. 3 #34(1990) and sent him again in search of the Infinity Gems in Thanos Quest #1-2. He succeeds, places the Gems onto his left gauntlet and brings us to Infinity Gauntlet, the 1991 Marvel-wide crossover that gave us the definitive story of Thanos and his mad quest, which saw the resurrection of Adam Warlock and his friends, Gamorra and Pip the Troll, the death of half the universe, and the last stand of Captain America(makes more sense when you read it).

Say what you will about Jim Starlin and his work(and I have), but the man has passion and the drive to get a story in print.

Twenty Years

That's how long I've been reading comics, more or less.

No real reason for this post. I just thought of this and realized comics are pretty much the only thing I still like from when I was five. Comics, and girls.

McKeever Needs A New Playbook

Sean McKeever, you come onto Teen Titans after Geoff Johns' Titans East storyline, follow it up with Titans Tomorrow Today and now present us with the Terror Titans. Did it occur to you that all these evil Titans teams might become tedious after, say, the second group? How much reader interest do you think there is in the Clock King?

Please try a different tack? I'll ready to drop this series from my pull list, and I'm the guy waiting for a new Sentinel mini-series.

Maybe I'm Being Too Harsh

As Easter has come and gone, I had a chance to reflect. In this moment of introspection, I wondered if maybe I was a little too harsh about the work of Bruce Jones. I mean, I only read his Incredible Hulk and Nightwing runs and the OMAC mini series, so maybe there was a series out there that was actually good that I missed.

Was I wrong? Is there good material out there? Apparently, a story he wrote in '74 was made into one of those Masters of Horror films, so maybe it's just his superhero work that is dreck.

You tell me.

I Had A Weird Thought

In last week's Thunderbolts, there was a moment that caused me to think something I never thought I would. The moment was this:

Upon seeing this, I thought,"Man, it would be awesome if Speedball came back." Then, I thought, "I think it would be awesome if Speedball came back." It threw me because I was not a Speedball fan at anytime from his debut up to his near-death experience in Civil War and his full-emo experience in Civil War: Frontline. He was just a goofball character Steve Ditko made before bowing out.

It took lead-handed Paul Jenkins to make me care about Speedball. If I didn't so greatly hate every aspect of Penance, I wouldn't get excited for the return of Speedball. Well, Warren Ellis deserves the credit, since Jenkins would more than likely keep Robbie Baldwin as Penance forever, which would suck.

Oh, and read Thunderbolts. It's excellent.

To DC Comics,

You suck.

For, but not limited to, the reasons listed here, DC Comics has been found guilty of publishing utter shite and taking the company-wide crossover into over-bloated insanity.

• For saddling Will Pfieffer and Dwayne McDuffie with lame tie-ins while they are a perfect fit for the books they're writing. No one cares about Salvation Run, we want Catwoman running the East End and a good Justice League story.
• For giving Bruce Jones work.
• For Countdown. Garbage.
• For Infinity Man being the New God Killer. I'm sorry if that spoils it for you, but since they made it so damn easy to figure it out, you shouldn't be surprised. I mean, really, frickin' Infinity Man? Who didn't guess that and think, "It can't be Infinity Man. That's too easy." Fuck you, Stalin.
• For replacing Greg Rucka with Bruce Jones on Checkmate.
• For Trials of Shazam! and the fact that a twelve issue mini-series hasn't ended fifteen months later. And the hack job Winick did on Captain Marvel, Billy Batson & Freddie Freeman. Save your magic scripts for Juniper Lee and give us the superhero Captain Marvel is supposed to be.
• For bringing back The War That Time Forgot and having it written by Bruce Jones.
• For Gotham Underground being a prelude to Salvation Run but coming out at the same time.
• For The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul. What's the point if Ra's gets drugged and locked in Arkham the very next month?
• For A.J. Curry-Aquaman talking down to Superman & Batman. That was just crap.
• For the Forerunner back-up in Countdown to Adventure. Ugh.
• For the Eclipso back-up in Countdown to Mystery. What the hell is that, some filed away crap you just decided to throw on the back of Dr. Fate?
  

Geoff Johns:King of the Multitaskers

While picking up the many loose threads left by Brad Meltzer from the hideous Lightning Saga, Geoff Johns still has the time to give a shout out to Brian Azzarello.