The Enigma of Adam Warlock
Characters undergoing wild transformations in comics aren’t unheard of; in fact it’s more or less business as usual at this point. The landscape of modern comics—the super hero genre especially—is littered with figures who bear little resemblance to their original incarnations. Still, Adam Warlock’s four decade-long journey from artificial man to mystical space hero with a significant detour to cosmic messiah and fairly unveiled Christ allegory along the way is pretty unique.
Continuing the unmatched Lee/Kirby FANTASTIC FOUR run, this volume kicks off with the return of the infamous Sandman and the debut of Blastaar, the Living Bomb Burst. Then, Mr. Fantastic finds himself lost in the Negative Zone - and only Triton, the Inhuman, can save him! Next, it's the debuts of Ronan the Accuser, Kree Sentry 456 and the Supreme Intelligence. If that wasn't enough, the utopian scientists of the Enclave unleash the golden being known as "Him" (a.k.a. Adam Warlock) upon the world. And to take us out on a soaring note of nail-biting drama just after the FF come together under the announcement of Sue Richards' pregnancy, the ever-lovin', blue-eyed Thing tells his teammates to take a powder - leaving them to face the Mad Thinker and his awesome android on their own! Collecting FANTASTIC FOUR (1961) #61-71 and ANNUAL #5.
The character that would become Adam Warlock debuted in 1967’s Fantastic Four #66 as Him, an artificial man created by the Enclave to be the peak of humanity. He was more a handsome gold-skinned Frankenstein than anything resembling what he would become, but relevant to this examination, he was a character firmly rooted in science—the Enclave were criminal scientists—and thus right at home in the sci-fi adventures of the FF. Him would resurface a few more times—and Her would be introduced—but he never caught on the way many other Lee/Kirby creations did.Problem is Her started out as Him,Mark II-otherwise known as Paragon-a pointless rehash of the Him tale,that little sense.Him Two became Her,unlike Adam Warlock,who didn't change sexes,each her went into his cocoon.Thank the High Evolutionary for that.
In 1972, Roy Thomas and Gil Kane got a hold of Him and reinvented him as Adam Warlock, introducing what would become his familiar visual cues of a yellow thunderbolt emblem with red and gold gladiator flourishes as a costume. According to an old issue of Back Issue—via Wikipedia—Thomas fully intended to do a super hero version of Jesus Christ, having recently become a fan of Jesus Chris Superstar; Him had some pedigree but little baggage or history, so he made as much sense as existing character.I'm sure unstated was a bit inspiration from another Christ based popular play called Godspell,influenced the New look of Adam Warlock.It wouldn't a brain surgeon to figure out Roy Thomas and Gil Kane simply looked Superman for imspiration-saw the big red ''S'' and wanted to give of the Newest Superman at Marvel something of a Superman symbol. Marvel Superman/Original Captain Marvel types being Thor,-the Asgardian Superman living on Earth,had already Supermans red cape-minus any symbol upon its back.Captain Mar-Vell -the space born Superman had bits of both Superman and the Original Captain Marvel origin.And so good old Adam Warlock would gain Original Captain Marvels thunderbolt,in he could never gain a big red ''S'' like the Godspell Christ figure,wore on his t-shirt.Obvious the ''S'' stold for Savior and not Superman,even it was the Man of Steels logo,he wore.
Thomas had the High Evolutionary stand in for a higher power and evolve Adam to godhood, then dropped him on the newly-created Counter-Earth where he served as savior to its people, protecting them from the Man-Beast—a rogue High Evolutionary creation serving as the Lucifer figure—and eventually their creator—the Evolutionary again—who toyed with wiping them out.The High Evolutionary gave the name Warlock in Marvel Premiere No1 and Marvel Premiere No2 gained the first name Adam.
Warlock began waxing philosophical not unlike his cosmic contemporary The Silver Surfer, but not about his plight in being trapped on Earth, rather the pressures placed on him by his power and the expectations of those he protected.Adam Warlock,had contend the Ise of Doctor Moreau inspired New Men on the Journey to the Far Side of the Sun inspired Counter Earth.Both ideas were never explored properly,since was beyond the creators ability to develiver,when Marvel only saw The Power of Warlock,not as epic space age Christ Tale,but just superhero vs bad guy comic.Adam Warlock could been a great comic take on Michael Valintine Smith fighting evil beast men on an alternate Earth,but the narritive got muddled because nobody payed attention to the overall epic-just the issue to issue comic.
The Roy Thomas-had written Warlock saga for the first few issues and handed it over to others,who lost interest in only ran eight issues,until it got cancelled.The Counter Earth Adam Warlock Saga was wrapped up in a very too short issues of the Hulk and Warlock left for outerspace,hoping continue his Messiatic Career among the Stars inspired by Ray Bradberrys poem ''The Light of Other Worlds''. But so far this is not so.
Jim Starlin would pick up the character not long after, writing and drawing a new story that took his messianic routine to the stars.Jim Starlin was inspired by Michael Moorcock Elric of Melnibone books and incorporated much into Marvel Comics Counter Earth Jesus Christ like Superman.The Soul Gem,originally a hippie Soul Deus Ex Machina Jewell became similar to Elrics Demon Soul drinking sword.
Jim Starlin pumped up the cosmic soap opera by introducing The Magus, Warlock’s evil alternate from a possible future, and weaving in dimension jumping and time travel as well as the established Thanos, but also continued to explore the character as more than just another super-powered bruiser, asking questions about destiny, the corruptive nature of power and what role even a supposed savior had in shaping who he would become. With Magus, Starlin also was not afraid to posit that this might not be the typical “evil twin” scenario comics fans knew well and that instead Adam Warlock may indeed by mentally ill and possessing multiple personalities. The Starlin Warlock is—from what I’ve heard—trippy, expansive, of the era and possibly the most well-regarded material that has been produced featuring the character.Jim Starlin ened the Adam Warlock/Magus Saga too early and filled the books a very stupid cosmic tale of the Star Theif,where the tale concludes with Warlock being a huge cosmic giant,with Earth being the size of basketball compared a normal human.
This era of Adam Warlock concluded in 1977 with a three-part crossover through Marvel Team-Up, Avengers and Marvel Two-In-One that saw the character give his life to thwart a scheme by Thanos.
Adam Warlock would return 14 years later as part of the crossover event The Infinity Gauntlet, and it was around this time some would be first introduced to the character. In a story written by Starlin, Thanos, recently resurrected himself, gets a hold of the combined Infinity Gems, which grants him near omnipotence, and Warlock along with his allies Pip and Gamora are brought back from a limbo-type existence within the Soul Gem to thwart him.Bad was Gamora gets lost half way and replaced by the She-Hulk.Thanos clobbers things with planets and the story goes kookoo for a bit. The good guys win and Adam actually gets the Infinity Gems himself for a moment, but they are ultimately split up amongst his chosen Infinity Watch, and they go off into their own ongoing series.
Each of the next two summers—1992 and 1993—would feature another “Infinity” event penned by Starlin, in which Warlock and Thanos would be major players and nearly every Marvel title and character would become involved. In Infinity War, the forgotten Magus gains his own existence out of Warlock’s passing wish to excise himself of all good and evil during his brief time holding the Gauntlet, and creates an army of evil twins of Marvel heroes—fun fact: this is where the Spider-Man character Doppelganger, featured in Maximum Carnage and more recently the Carnage mini by Zeb Wells and Clayton Crain, originated—so that he can try and assemble the Gems. The next year, in Infinity Crusade, Warlock’s “good” side, the Goddess, takes advantage of various heroes’ faith to brainwash them and create a super hero civil war over a decade early while trying to “cleanse” the universe by destroying it.
I vividly recall reading Infinity Crusade with my brother Carl being much way stupid
; when I spotted a few issues of Infinity War not long after, I snatched those up as well. It would be a while yet before I found Infinity Gauntlet in trade and got the full saga (and of course years later I’d pick up Infinity Abyss and Marvel Universe: The End, but those may be stories for another time). I was a kid, so the slam dunk concepts of bad guy duplicates and hero vs hero grabbed me pretty easily—they still would/do—but I always found myself a bit mystified at what exactly was the deal with Adam Warlock. I mean, these were huge Marvel stories that touched every single comic and featured more or less every single character available, but guys like Spider-Man, Wolverine, Iron Man and Captain America were more or less supporting characters—if that—while this orange-skinned dude with a shiny green thing on his forehead was front and center. Surely he was the most important character in the Marvel Universe, right? So why had I never heard of him?
Thor: Blood and Thunder, there were in fact two Warlock series—Warlock & the Infinity Watch and The Warlock Chronicles—running concurrently in the mid-90’s.I really enjoyed Blood & Thunder, which was basically just a big action punch ‘em up with Thor getting progressively more powerful and crazy and fighting everybody he comes across as they keep recruiting more and more powerful cavalries—it goes from Beta Ray Bill to the Surfer to Warlock to the whole Watch to Doctor Strange to Thanos and finally to Odin. The Warlock Chronicles chapters in particular are a treat as you’ve got early Tom Raney art and he absolutely kills it drawing nutso Thor plus hordes of trolls and monsters.
The heroes and Thanos find ways to slow Thor down even after he gets a hold of Drax’s Power Gem, but he always breaks free and absolutely crushes them until he storms Asgard ready to raise Hel. As I mentioned, Odin finally has to step in and invades his son’s mental landscape where he frees Thor from the shackles of “warrior’s madness” and they team up against a giant-sized and super-empowered Valkyrie.
After that, Thor was sane again, but went through a bunch of changes to his familiar costume during which I somewhat lost track of and interest in him (though I have since gone back and read the William Messner-Loebs and Warren Ellis stuff I missed, which was actually pretty cool).
I knew Adam Warlock from mostly the Jim Starlin Era,the Fantastic Four and Thor appearences,but didn't care the Infinity Watch other than a few issues but at the same time, he was starring in more books than Daredevil or The Hulk. Looking back now, it’s interesting and a bit bizarre to think that Warlock, who was such a quirky, boundary-pushing figure in the 70’s would morph into the central figure of some of the most prominent projects on Marvel’s radar 20 years later—and they were written by the same guy!
Adam Warlock had gone from being on the fringe of the Marvel Universe, relegated to Counter-Earth or deep space so Thomas and Starlin could dig into the idea of Jesus as a super hero without attracting too much attention, to being right in the thick of things, living on Monster Island, showing up in prominent books and ordering the A-list heroes around in the center of crossovers. If you give the Infinity trilogy and early issues of Infinity Watch a solid read,Jim Starlin is certainly still delving into larger issues of duality, religion and the heart of what makes good and what makes evil, but he’s also writing very commercial comic books, something I can’t imagine he ever thought he’d be doing with Adam Warlock when he plucked him out of limbo decades earlier.
Adam Warlock’s 90’s glory days crashed around the same time the rest of the comic industry’s did. His books were cancelled, he was shipped over to the Ultraverse for a quick crossover/reimagining, then slipped into limbo by the end of the decade. He’d be gone a good six years or so before popping back up in the aforementioned Infinity Abyss and Marvel Universe: The End minis, both written as well as drawn by Jim Starlin, where his primary role is to play counterpoint to Thanos, who has once again gained ultimate power and is waffling on whether or not to embrace his nihilistic tendencies or not.Boy when Starlin beats a dead horse,he beats in every other decade or so.
The most recent Adam Warlock resurrection came about in 2007 with Annihilation: Conquest, and I was actually at Marvel for this one. This time, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning brought the character back—Bill Rosemann told me at the time that he was “one of the last missing pieces of the cosmic puzzle”—bringing things somewhat full circle—if you discount the Him years—with the High Evolutionary being involved and Warlock again being touted as a universal savior whose form is sought by Ultron as a host body. DnA made Adam part of their Guardians of the Galaxy series where he served as one of the team’s many wildcards, in part due to the schizophrenic nature that had long been a part of the character’s makeup and also because he had new mystic-based powers that moved him closer to fitting the Warlock name. This incarnation lasted a couple years before Adam fulfilled his seeming long ago destiny, finally becoming The Magus and getting taken down by his old teammates and later by an evil alternate version of Captain Marvel.
Well,thats a while ago and heroes never stay dead for long-especially,if your Adam Warlock.
Going back to the beginning, I’m very much looking forward to the next volume of Marvel Masterworks: Fantastic Four—coming this November—to see the genesis of a character who would be Frankenstein, Jesus, a cosmic explorer, the center of the 90’s Marvel Universe, Thanos’ confidante and an outer space magic man; even for comic that’s a pretty wild resume and I’d like to read it all the way through.
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