The Classics - Warlock! #1

The character known as Adam Warlock has probably had one of the strangest careers of any super-hero around (except, perhaps, for Captain Mar-Vell).

He started his existence as an experiment in a lab (as seen in Fantastic Four #66 and 67) that resulted in Him, the golden-skinned, blond-haired Adonis with incredible powers. That led Him to an appearance in The Mighty Thor's comic (#165 and 166), where he managed to go toe-to-toe with an angry Thunder God.

After spending some time in comic book limbo, Him returned in 1972 in the first two issues of Marvel Premiere, where he met the High Evolutionary, who was in the process of creating a second Earth - this one located on the far side of the Sun from the "real" Earth.

When the wicked Man-Beast disrupted the experiment and introduced evil into the new world, H.E. threatened to destroy his experiment, but he was stopped by Him, who offered to go to the Counter-Earth and fight the Man-Beast.

H.E. gave Him a new name - Warlock (thank goodness, 'cause writing about Him is like a permanent case of pronoun trouble). H.E. also gave him the mysterious Soul Gem (which would play a more nefarious role in future adventures).

The response to the comic must have been strong, because the character was quickly spun off into his own comic (its cover date is August 1972).

It's easy to see why it was a promising title - it boasted two of the top creative talents working in comics at the time - writer Roy Thomas and artist Gil Kane.

Thomas was second only to Stan Lee in terms of colorful, florid writing, and he was well-suited to the adventures of Warlock, although he may have given in a bit too much to the urge to lay on the Biblical parallels (which reached its height when the Counter-Earth story was eventually wrapped up - crucifixion and all - in the Incredible Hulk).

Kane is one of the giants of comic book history - his characters seem to be carved out of marble, with every muscle depicted on their lean bodies. He was perfectly suited to this kind of conflict, with godlike characters smashing into each other with rock-crushing abandon.

Despite all that - and some excellent inking by Tom Sutton - I have to admit that, reading it again, this comic is really nothing exceptional.

It's not bad - it's just that the whole issue is merely setup, explaining the backstory, introducing the characters, including Warlock's disciples - er, followers.

But it doesn't really advance the story much at all, and the obvious cliffhanger doesn't do much to offset the fact that the rest of the issue is pretty tame.

The series didn't hang around long - eight issue in all - but thankfully the character was resurrected three years later by writer / artist Jim Starlin, who made Warlock into the most cosmic - and tragic - figure in Marvel's history.

This original series had its strong moments, but this first issue wasn't one of them. But considering the amazing work done by the creators (both before and after), I think we can cut them some slack here.

Grade: B-