Thanocide

The Infinity Gauntlet (1991/ Collected 2000): written by Jim Starlin; illustrated by George Perez, Ron Lim, Josef Rubinstein, Tom Christopher, and Bruce Solotoff: An enjoyable Marvel-cosmos-smashing tale written by Jim Starlin, whose super-villain Thanos will be assaying some similar plan in the Marvel Cinematic Universe some day soon. There's a lot of super-hero battles here. A lot. 

Possessed of the universe-controlling Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos can do pretty much everything and anything he wants. Thankfully, old (and seemingly deceased) nemesis Adam Warlock assembles a variety of Marvel heroes, villains, and cosmic entities to defeat Thanos. But can they?

The great George Perez pencils the first three-and-a-half issues of what was originally a six-issue miniseries. And those chapters are swell. Ron Lim takes over to finish, and while he's a more-than-competent superhero artist, he lacks the often insane detail of Perez, especially when it comes to the differentiation of characters. 

Along the way, Perez's art makes one long for a Perez Dr. Strange or Silver Surfer story: his work on these characters he's rarely drawn is superb and suggestive of great things that have never happened.

Starlin's cosmic tale hangs on a hook that's clever but articulated too soon in the narrative. But it lends Thanos a level of poignance that's refreshing in a super-villain. Starlin portrayed cosmic battles against Thanos back in the 1970's with Marvel's original Captain Marvel and Warlock as Thanos' chief opponents (and Starlin drawing everything). Both those sagas, much more quirky and personal than this Big Box Superhero Crossover Epic, were superior to this one and perhaps should be read before tackling this. Recommended.

The Sorrows of Young Warlock

Jim Starlin's Warlock: The Complete Collection (1975-77/ Collected here 2014): written by Jim Starlin; illustrated by Jim Starlin, Steve Leialoha, Josef Rubinstein, Alan Weiss, and Al Milgrom: The 1970's were a quirky age of growth for mainstream American comic books, with much of that growth occurring at the margins in a way we just don't see any more. Some of the greatest writers and artists mainstream comics have ever produced worked away on series that were mostly far from the big hitters like Spider-man and Superman. 

Names to conjure with included Bernie Wrightson, Howard Chaykin, Walt Simonson, Don McGregor, Steve Gerber and many others. And the great series of mainstream comics at DC and Marvel were either limited-run back-up strips (Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson's brilliant, beautiful Manhunter at DC) or strange, genre-bending series located safely away from the normal mainstream universe (Don McGregor, P. Craig Russell and company's sprawling, poetic Killraven). 

And then there's Jim Starlin, a writer-artist who staked out his own peculiar corner of cosmic adventure. The only thing all that similar to Starlin's early 1970's Marvel work on Captain Marvel and Warlock was writer-artist Jack Kirby's gigantic, unfinished Fourth World saga over at DC. But where Kirby was ultimately obsessed with life (really, LIFE), Starlin was obsessed with death (DEATH). 

Having cut his cosmic teeth on Marvel's Captain Marvel in the early 1970's, Starlin would return to fringe heroes and outer-space sturm-und-drang in 1975 when he revived the Adam Warlock character. Warlock made his debut as a naive, genetically engineered superman known only as 'Him' in the pages of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee's Fantastic Four in 1967. Over the next few years, he'd gain the name Adam Warlock, have adventures on Counter-Earth, and fulfill his superheroic Jesus Christ arc by getting himself crucified and resurrected.

HIM! In his cocoon.

Returned to Marvel publication after a few years off (hey, everyone has to take time to recover from a crucifixion!), Warlock was now being written and penciled by Starlin, who never met a case of cosmic angst he didn't like. And Warlock would soon be the angstiest cosmic hero of all, easily surpassing the Silver Surfer for the number and rate of existential crises suffered during barrages of energy bolts and exploding stars. 

But it's fun. And very heavy metal (though not really Heavy Metal) in its adolescent mixture of self-loathing and super-powered punching. Starlin would bring the cosmically villainous Thanos over from his run on Captain Marvel, first as an unlikely ally for Warlock and then as a more likely antagonist. Nay, nemesis! For while Captain Marvel was a problem for Thanos, Warlock is his full-blown opposite: the Life Equation to Thanos' Anti-Life Equation, in terms of Jack Kirby's Fourth World comics for DC.

People talk a lot in Warlock. Boy, do they talk a lot. Starlin has learned to lighten things up a bit by giving Warlock a comic sidekick -- Pip the Troll -- and a female sounding board -- Gamora, played by Zoe Saldana in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Starlin's fascination with the Church (and specifically the Roman Catholic Church) as an institutional Evil shows up here, to later be expanded upon in his Dreadstar series. And he gives Warlock one of the most fascinatingly twisted enemies to ever appear in an ostensibly mainstream superhero comic: The Magus, about which no more said.

But it's the battle against Thanos that dominates much of this volume, as it should. It's probably good that Warlock got cancelled when it did, thus forcing Starlin to end the Thanos saga in post-cancellation Avengers and Marvel Two-in-One annuals. Otherwise, Warlock's suffering might have gone on forever. Instead, Warlock rallies the Avengers, Spider-man, and the Thing to his crusade against Thanos. It's a smaller scale version of what would happen 15 years later in Marvel's Infinity Gauntlet miniseries: everyone versus Thanos. And Starlin throws in some lovely twists along the way. It's good, clean, angsty cosmic fun in the Mighty Starlin Manner. Highly recommended.

Talking Heads in Space

 Jim Starlin's Warlock: written by Jim Starlin with Bill Mantlo; illustrated by Jim Starlin, Al Milgrom, Steve Leialoha, Josef Rubenstein, and others (1974-1983; reprinted 1992): Writer-artist Jim Starlin's relatively brief run on Warlock represents one of a handful of the weirdest mainstream superhero comics of the 1970's, in an era when virtually all superhero comics were mainstream -- they were all sold on the newsstands, and all held to sales standards of more than 150,000 copies sold a month, at least.

By sales standards, Starlin's Warlock was a dud -- his entire run spanned about two years, with intermittent later appearances in other titles finishing the initial Warlock saga. But what a weird, ambitious, purple-prosed epic this was. DC and Marvel were a lot more inclined to allow for weird projects in their mainstream universes back then. It's impossible to imagine a story and a hero this odd crossing over with Spider-man, the Thing, and the Avengers today.

Adam Warlock's curious origins began in Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four in the 1960's, as a genetically engineered superman who ultimately destroys his power-hungry creators and takes to the stars. Back then, he was known only as Him. Guest shots in Thor led to his own book, written by Roy Thomas, in which Warlock became a Christic figure, trying to save Counter-Earth (oh, look it up) from the Satanic machinations of the malevolent Man-Beast. That book was soon cancelled, with the Man-Beast saga wrapping up in the Hulk's book.

Then along came Starlin, fresh off an odd and abortive run on Marvel's Captain Marvel title, to resurrect Warlock in the pages of Strange Tales. The resurrection would lead to another resurrection, of Warlock's own book. That lasted another 6 issues. It would take seven years for what seemed to be the final stages of Warlock's story to be told in other superhero comics, culminating in a battle alongside the Avengers against the mad space-god Thanos and his plot to extinguish all the stars in the universe. As Thanos is now the lurking villain in The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy movies, I'd guess Warlock won't be far behind. His iconic cocoon has already showed up in Guardians of the Galaxy and one of the Thor movies.

Starlin's Warlock is a cosmically subterranean work, obsessed with death and the self-doubt of a somewhat pompous, cosmic man-child who wants to save the universe but isn't entirely sure how. Warlock is also compromised by the Soul Gem embedded in his forehead, a stone of strange power which can suck the souls out of people. Fun times!

Various cosmic shenanigans occur, along with more hand-wringing and soul-searching than you can shake the saddest Spider-man in the world at. There are points at which Starlin seems to be going for My Dinner with Warlock, as talking heads and lengthy conversations dominate the proceedings. Warlock's consciousness seems to be constantly under attack, as is his sense of self. The comic-relief companion Pip the Troll lightens things up for awhile, but this is Jim Starlin's world: Death is the only constant. Well, and resurrection. Possibly followed quickly by more death, more resurrection, and possibly some lengthy conversations about death and resurrection.

Starlin's writing can be painfully clunky and overblown at times, but he's still the best person to write his own stuff. The art, with all its tics, nonetheless strives for, and sometimes achieves, a weird grandeur not often found in superhero comics of any era. Introduced herein is Gamora, Zoe Saldana's green-skinned warrior in Guardians of the Galaxy. Can Warlock and Pip be far behind? And how boring will Marvel Studios make them? I'm guessing we're not getting a Warlock movie in which the characters talk, to themselves and others, for 2 1/2 hours. More's the pity. Recommended.

Nihilists, Dude!

Talk to the hand!

The Infinity Gauntlet: written by Jim Starlin; illustrated by George Perez, Ron Lim, and Josef Rubenstein (1991; collected 2000): The good thing about this epic Marvel miniseries from the early 1990's is George Perez's art on the first 3 1/2 issues, especially those sections depicting Marvel's Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Strange. What those pages suggest is that, with the right writer, a Perez-illustrated Dr. Strange series would have been fantastic -- the mystical nature of the few Strange-centric pages herein really seem to free Perez to do things with layout that he doesn't generally do.

Otherwise, though, this almost reads like a parody of a massive superhero crossover event. The Infinity Gauntlet is basically half roll call, half fight scene. And as the fight scenes mostly involve hopeless battle against an omnipotent being, they quickly become distractingly depressing.

The death count is high, meaning that a reset button looms at the end of things, an end that takes forever to get to. But those heroes will suffer and be humiliated and get killed in the meantime. Boy, will they suffer and be humiliated and get killed. Among the sadists of the superhero-writing world of the 1980's and 1990's, only Chris Claremont seemed to revel more than Starlin at doing terrible and grotesque things to Marvel's heroes.

Jim Starlin, the destitute man's Jack Kirby, has been death-obsessed as a writer since his beginnings in the early 1970's. Herein, he has his death-obsessed super-god Thanos ("He's a nihilist!" one character breathlessly informs us) kill off half the non-vegetable, non-bacterial living beings in the universe in the opening pages as a love offering to Death. Literally. In Starlin's version of the Marvel universe, Death is a silent woman in a purple, hooded robe. And Thanos loves her. But she doesn't love Thanos. And he never learns. And she never says anything.

But with the Infinity Gauntlet -- essentially a remote control for the universe -- Thanos can now cause havoc for everybody. Leading the forces of good is dour cosmic crusader Adam Warlock, Starlin's go-to character for cosmic angst along with Marvel's original Captain Marvel. Much fighting and yelling and sophomoric philosophical musing ensues, and once Perez leaves and is replaced by the capable but somewhat bland Ron Lim as penciller, the series thuds and stumbles to its conclusion. Not recommended.