The Flop House - FH Mini #42 - Elliott Explains Adam Warlock

Episode Date: November 13, 2021

Elliott ACTUALLY explains Adam Warlock.

Hey everybody, welcome to the flop house. It's a mini week on the flop house. That means it's time when we don't just watch a bad movie and then talk about it. In fact, we don't not just, we don't do it at all. It's not that we use the auditions of that, it's that we just don't do it. So we do whatever we want to do. Now, regular listeners of the flop house will know that about two weeks ago, I really wanted to talk about my man-man, Adam Warlock, my second favorite Marvel character, after Spider-Man, of course, everyone's favorite Marvel character because he's the greatest character in fiction. And I got interrupted, unfortunately, by that dune blowhard Tom Brokot. So I'm here to tell you tonight's the night, dim the lights, maybe light some candles, pour some wine for yourself,

maybe run a hot bath, we're talking about Adam Warlock tonight, and no one, but no one is gonna interrupt me. Dan, rather wants to come in and talk about Ring World? I don't think so, no thank you. You're, I'm having, you're like, you're tempting slides to look at. Yeah, you're lying on the door.

You're winding this up so much that even though I know that you sent us a document about with photos of Adam Warlock. Not photos, but pictures. No, he's a fictional character in a comedy. Drawings of Adam Warlock. Drawings of Adam Warlock. Even though I know that that happened, I'm still scared that this is another fake. Just because you're putting so much energy into saying that it's not one.

Not at all. I want people to know that this is the, not wait there's somebody at the door. Hold on a second. Oh God. Up, it's actually the ghost of Peter Jennings. He's saying he loves Adam Warlock. He wants us to talk about Adam Warlock. So we'll do that tonight. Okay, Peter. Before I do that, my name's Ellie Kaelin. Allow my co-host to introduce themselves. Yeah. Hi, I'm Dan McCoy. Hey, yeah, it's me, Stewart Wellington. Now now that we're talking about ghosts, yeah. What ghost would have been when that ghost was a living man would have been a, when that

ghost was a living man would have made a great Adam Warlock. Dean fucking stock well. Oh, okay. Yeah. Dean stock well. He's got the, I don't even know. I know. And he's got amazing eyebrows.

And he's got a flare for dramatic fashion. Dean stock. No. I win. I just won the game. Okay. I don't think you did. Take him on Nintendo home. I'm leaving the power cord for you. Just so I have it. It's used to come back to see you. Okay. Well, now that's to where it's gone, took his controller home. His is his Timothy Chalamet. Modified. Modified controller. Let's talk about Adam

Warlock. Shall we? I apologize. I should have let my Co-host introduced themselves earlier, but I'm just so excited about finally talking Adam Warlock with no interruptions What so ever again? This is very worrying So the reason we're talking about Adam Warlock other than the fact that he's amazing and there's no reason not to is the Recent not as recent as it was thanks Tom broke off, but the recent casting news that in Guardians of the Galaxy number three, that's the third in the Guardians of the Galaxy series, he's going to be played officially by Will Polter. Guys, who's Will Polter? Where would I know Will Polter from? Oh, the name sounds familiar. He's in midsummer. Let me look him up.

Okay, we'll stew it right off the bat, had one of his credits mid summer Dan on the other hand Not don't know. Okay, he was He's in lots of stuff. He's an English actor. He was in We're the millers one of Dan's favorite movies Detroit another one that Dan loves I haven't I don't know a lot about Adam Warlock, but some of these photos do look like the drawings. I have seen just right off the bat. He was, of course, Dan knows Invest from Son of Rambo. One of the many movies where kids do things that they can't really do in real life in terms

of production design and production producing. Yeah, yeah, just general producing anything you can produce. Anyway, he's done a lot of stuff. You may know him, Dan, from the Bander Snatch Black Mirror. I'm just looking at other credits of his. It's amazing how few of the things he's done I have seen. I think I've only seen Son of Rambo, which he was in as a child.

Which one was Bander Snatch? That's the multiple choice one, right? Oh, I never see it. Because I was like, on the half-foam, the whole Oh, I never see it because I was like, I'm gonna have followed the whole time that I'm missing stuff that I should otherwise see. I'm just not even gonna bother watching this. I somehow managed to see, will we are the millers in the course of my life? So, yeah, I guess I've seen them in that.

So who are the millers? Why did we want to know about them? They're just, you know, some, some normal, funny people who get caught up together. They know they're trying to, you know, they pretend that they're a family. They, it's like, yeah, they're just like a pot smuggling scam that involves creating a fake family. Oh, I see. I was hoping it was like a, like a low-key reboot of Meet the Apple Gates. Oh, yeah.

They're all cockroaches. Yeah. So it was, it was a low-key remake, like they're instead of cockroaches, they're all low key. Or is that it was trying to be, it was no Elliott. It's, I was using some hips lying, meaning that it was, it was sneaky. They're, they were sneaky reboot that they were trying to not draw attention, but in fact, they were still doing.

Sneaky reboot, of course, is as equal to peaky blinders. Uh-huh. And, and a low key tie into sneaky reboot. Of course, there's a sequel to peaky blinders. Uh-huh. And and a low key tie into sneaky Pete. That was a sneaky Pete, peaky blinders crossover that America demanded. So anyway, I'm more like again, I feel like as much as I like those peaky bees, I feel like that lead is miscast and the same thing with sneaky Pete where it's like Giovanni Robici supposed to be a confidence man But the whole time he is like the squirrely is dude like I would not trust him with anything No offense my man. How about how about Piki's neat

I think you can pull that off. Yeah, okay. Okay. Okay. What about blind Pete? From the treasure. I don't say on that's blind pew Dan, not blind. Oh, we're blind peat from. It's nothing. It's just another combination of the sounds and picky blinders and sneaky peat. I should have said, I should have said, Pety blinders people go around blinding people named Pety or by throwing peat into people's faces. Yeah. Lining them instantly. That's what we're living in. Living them open to a visceral attack. Yeah. Anyway, so that's Adam Warlock.

Thanks everybody for listening. I feel like I hope you understand. Oh, yeah. Better. Yeah. So anyway, Adam Warlock's going to be in a movie. Is this a little disappointing to me? Yes.

Only in that I once soft pitched the idea of an Adam Warlock TV show didn't go anywhere. Anyway, why did I do that? Cause he's my second favorite Marvel character. Let me explain who he is. I think people may remember that the Ford Tom Broken tried to put him into layman's terms as Marvel's answer to Michael Morecox, Elric of Melnibene. A, who you know very well Dan is a kind of

definitely self-involved and somewhat lazy, Hey, so who you know very well Dan is a kind of a kind of a decadently self-involved and somewhat lazy Elf King, right? as a sword called Stormbringer who eats souls and He's just not having a good time of it Adam Warlock has a few similarities with that. He's also what I would say is kind of a cosmic Jesus crossed with a little bit of Charlie Brown And did I mention he's almost all powerful. Let's talk about him He's also what I would say is kind of a cosmic Jesus crossed with a little bit of Charlie Brown. And did I mention he's almost all powerful? Let's talk about him.

It's a little hard to describe him simply, which is why I'm interested in see how they're going to do in a movie because he's less a straightforward hero than kind of a seeker of personal peace who keeps getting forced to save the whole universe even though he would really rather not be bothered. And it's also confusing to comic book fans because there's an ex-man character named Warlock and he has a villain named The Magis and Adam Warlock's villain is also named The Magis. So why would one universe have two sets of characters with the same names? I don't know. Ask Chris Claremont. He's the one who came last with his characters of Warlock and Magis.

So I don't know what to tell you. So who created Adam Orlock, Elliot? Let me tell you about it, because it's an interesting story. And for some, before that, I'm going to say that one of the things I like about Adam Orlock, that I find fascinating, he's one of the characters who, the creator of the character was not the one who really made that character the version that we know of today. Much like Frank Miller did with Daredevil or Chris Claremont, where I mentioned before in a scathing way,

but now I'm mentioning in a complimentary way, did with Wolverine and the X-Men, Adam Warlock is very much the product of a number of minds, but especially the hands and thoughts and hallucinogenic drug trips of one Jim Starlin. Let's get there, Adam Warlock. He first shows up in the 1960s in Stanley and Jack Kirby's run on the Fantastic Four.

And he, well, let me just say when he shows up, he's not exactly the Adam Warlock. We all know and love, right? Because Adam, because, because, is he disguised as a robot clown? Like the Hulk was in the first Avengers comic? No, he wasn't. That would have been great. He does show up on a planet of clowns later. We'll talk about that later. Dan, can you open up the images that I sent you, the document I sent you, this full of images? Yeah, yeah, I have the PDF open here. Okay, before a PDF is also the sequel to sneaky peat.

Now, Dan, can you describe for me a little bit the first image, which is what I would call Adam Warlock classic? Okay, well, there's a very built gentleman who is kind of, you know, got like sort of spray tan orange is the base coat of his skin. He's sort of holding his hand and sort of a lushe, but powerful manner. He's got like a big old kind of Dr. Strangish cloak. But what's the clasp that holds that clasp? The clasp is a little skull. He has these gold bracelets like a sort of like a WWE belt and gold boots that are all kind of like Roman looking kind of like you know like a Centurion kind of things. And he's be wearing full pants. He's not have full pants. He has red briefs is all. He's where. That's more. It's like a wrestling outfit. Yeah, yeah, it's like a wrestling outfit.

And he's got like a big mane of blonde hair. Yeah. Yeah. He's got a real Stewart Wellington head of hair there. Yeah, that's true. You know, that's cool. I feel like I'm going to go as Adam Warlock for a Christmas day.

Yeah, your Christmas costume. Yeah. No. And you're like, do tell my family how to celebrate Elliot. You're like, you're, I'm not Christian? No more love. And you're like, Do you tell my family out of celebrate Elliot? You're like, I'm not Christian, I don't know how it's done. You're like, kids, come sit on my lap and tell Adam Warlock what you want.

And they're like, Mommy, this man isn't wearing pants. And the kids, and the parents are like, I'm not driving you all the way to the mall. Just sit on his lap. Now, this Dan, that was a great description. Now I want you to move to picture number two. This is Santa Wilok's first appearance in the Fantastic Four. And what is he, and so that's not him on the left.

That's a woman, that's Alicia Masters. What is she approaching? What does it look like to you? It's kind of like a sarcophagus that, you know, it looks like sort of like a big ol' worm. Yeah, on the Marvel by the month podcast, I believe I described it as looking like a coffin made out of ribs.

Yeah, that's also accurate. And then it has like, the top looks sort of like the eye of Saron in miniature. That's fair. So this is our first look at what would become Adam Warlock. He is the creation of a group called the Enclave, who are scientists, who are seeking to create a sort of super powerful man who is super strong,

super tough, can channel cosmic energy, super smart, all that stuff. And when he hatches out, let's go to image number three. He is the figure known as him. Okay. That's his name, him. And can you describe him now? What does he look like now? He's not Thor or the Lady. is the figure known as him. Okay. That's his name, him. And can you describe him now?

What does he look like now? He's not Thor or the lady in the picture. Now he looks kind of like if the silver surfer was the gold surfer, except he does have hair unlike the silver surfer, but not the big main. It's kind of like plastered at his head. He looks a lot like Eurian from Street Fighter. I could see that.

I always think he looks like Rocky from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Oh yeah, yeah. Very similarly, he's a lab-created man. And in the story, as done in the Fantastic Four comics, these evil scientists want to take over the world with their Superman. He emerges from his cocoon, I think, in the last three panels of the book, and then says, you guys are evil on destroying you, and he blows up their headquarters. We don't see him again for two years.

Now, there's an interesting story behind this comic, which is fairly bland. They spend so much time getting to this cocoon that he's in, that he's being born in, which is really fun. As soon as he emerges, it's a huge anti-climax. This was originally, Jack Kirby's intention was that these scientists were not evil, but were instead sort of objectivist libertarians who wanted to create the perfect person who was purely logical and was not didn't worry about morals, the morals of the week. And when he, in his original conception of the story, when him comes out, he would say, I'm perfect, you are imperfect to me,

and you displeased me, you have to go now, and would destroy them. And it would show kind of like how without morality and without sensitivity and emotion, man is destructive or whatever, you know. Yeah. And this was kind of, might have been him poking fun at fellow Marvel artist,

Steve Ditko, who I can't remember if he was still working at Marvel at the time. But Stanley was like, ah, this is a lot of stuff for kids to read. I'm just going to be kind of a Frankenstein story. And so in his hands, him becomes kind of like your basic, just born super powerful man child who's just running around not knowing anything about anything. And he tries to kidnap the truth. Like from Ethius. Exactly. Yeah. And so he appears two years later, he shows up again to try to kidnap

Siff, Siff, Thore's girlfriend, and Thore essentially beats him to death. Oh wow. And this character would not show up again for like three more years. Him with laydormant, which is actually very in character for him as we'll see. And the character for someone who's been beaten to death. Yep. Yes, that's true. They usually don't come back.

But animal lock sometimes they come back. Sometimes they come back. Yes. And sometimes they come back to. There was a seat. Right? I don't know. Oh, anyway, sometimes they also come back as well.

And then the third one is, they're still coming back. Right? Additional people want to come back. Do you ever lose? Is there anyone else who wants to come back, we're leaving now. If you're going to have to wait for the next shuttle. So either come with us, or the next one after that was, I'm sorry, it's full, you're going to have to wait.

You can't come back. So, three years later, it's 1972. The year before a certain album, that's right. Jesus Christ Superstar was rocking the charts. The concept rock opera about the final days of the supposed son of God by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. Now, who was under the heavy influence of that album?

Why Roy Thomas, the man who basically took control of Marvel Universe when Stanley got too busy to write the books on his own? And he decides, I want to do a Jesus Christ-type character, and I'm gonna bring back him only. Let's go to the next picture. I'm gonna rename him Adam Warlock. And Dan, can you describe or steward? Either one, can you describe what Adam Warlock looks like in that picture there? Yes, dude. Why don't you take this one? So this is the couple of Marvel premiere number one, which introduced this new Adam Warlock looks like in that picture there. Yeah, dude, why don't you take this one? So this is the couple of Marvel premiere number one, which introduced this new Adam Warlock figure. Yeah.

So he looks a little bit closer to that original, the classic Adam Warlock. He's got kind of like a like a flash Gordon suit and big, big shoulders. Looks like he's surrounded by some kind of like Jizz field. That's how the cosmic energy. And he's got, that's what I call it. And he's like, oh, and he's, I think he's got at this point, he's got those like trademark like all white eyeballs.

Yes, yeah. It's like like outside. I'm trying to remember if he's just like, he's like flexing like a maniac. Yeah, and behind him. He's got like a shazam lightning bolt Yes, he's got lightning bolt on his chest and Thor and Hulk are behind him and they're like what Hulk and Thor is like I thought I killed you and anyway

Adam Warlock comes back. This is Roy Thomas writing in the artist by Gil Kane the classic comic artist best known for how He always kind of placed people so that you could see up their nostrils I don't know why he just loved to he loved to draw people where you're looking up their nose. What Steve Dicco was to hands, Gilcane was to noses again, putting in layman's terms. And they given this name Adam Warlock. Thanks, Elliot. Thanks for that. I hope we'll tell him again.

They really, they really lay in the biblical tones. And they decide that this character of Adam Warlock is going to start getting crazy because he is taken out of earth and he's brought back to life by the high evolutionary who is the guy at the top of these two pictures on the right. Right. What do you guys know about the high evolutionary? He causes trouble at some point, right? Well, he has caused trouble.

He's obsessed with evolving things. He's a human scientist, but he wears this suit of armor and he's got a helmet that has a handle on him in case you want to pick him up and carry him somewhere. Well, maybe there's an iron in his skull and he's taking out. Yeah, he looks like one of those kettle weights. He looks like a kettle. Crossfit fellow.

And so the high evolutionary is created in another earth he calls counter-earth, which is on the other side of the sun. And he's got a bit of a problem because this counter-earth where things are a little bit different than the Marvel Earth. There's not that many superheroes. Dr. Doom is a good guy, although he's still wears a metal mask. He's got a problem with a character called the man beast, who I believe was one of the high-volutionaries experiments got wrong.

He loved to take animals and turn them into people, real island of Dr. Moro vibes. And the man beast has the ability to basically bring out the beast you'll hate in other people. That's him down at the bottom there. Dan, can you describe him in that, in that, uh, yeah. He's got, well, he's, he's got kind of like, uh, almost what looks like, Dan, can you describe him in that, in that song picture? Yeah, he's got, well, he's got kind of like almost what looks like a, I don't know, just like an armored space suit, your typical armored space suit that's heavy on like emphasizing the abs and giving you like really big shoulders. He's got like, abs in there, that's pretty easily.

He's got a big green cape that somehow cascades up above his shoulders before going back down. I'm not sure what's going on there. And his face, he's easier to draw the armor that way. His face candle. I mean, he kind of looks like a bat like that. Yeah, he's got like, it's not like a jackal or coyote head or something. Yeah. Now, this is a later version of the of the of the manbees to be honest, but he looks at like this. The first time the manbeats Shows up also in Thor. He looks almost like just a guy who's half kangaroo and just wear shorts and You and the cover of that issue. I should have given it to you. It says enter the manbeast or something like that and

Thor should have a look on his face. He was like seriously am I Like this is a guy I have to try to fight like I can hit him once and he's gone Anyway, this is when animal warlock starts taking on these religious overtones that will continue throughout Basically the rest of it history The high evolutionary brings him back to life He says I'm gonna give you something that's gonna make you a little powerful And he puts gives him the soul gem Which is a special magical cosmic gem. He says you'll learn more about this later

Which is a comic writer's way of saying, I haven't figured this part out yet. So I'm gonna make it mysterious. And that sole gem goes on as far ahead and gives him more power. And over, basically 10 issues or so, Warlock is kind of like a violent Jesus figure where he's fighting the man beast and the man beast minions and high evolutionary is like,

oh, why don't I just destroy Counter-Earth to stop this? And Warlock is like, give them another chance, give the humans another chance. Anyway, it doesn't really work. By 1974, the book is over. Warlock dies, he comes back, he dies again. And we've learned by this point, eventually, that when he dies, he just goes into a big ribs cocoon,

like the one he was born in. And he just, at the end of this one, he's like, I think there's other planets that need me. And he flies off into space. Cool. Okay, the end of Adam Warlock, right? Wrong guys. That's where Adam Warlock begins as far as I'm concerned.

Because this is where a certain man comes in, a man named Jim Starlin. Let's go to the next picture, shall we? You're gonna see a very overwrought picture of Adam Warlock. And I'm just gonna read to you this. This is very, this is very Adam Warlock. And I'm just going to read to you this. This is very, this is very Adam Warlocky dialogue that he's monologueing right here and says, was it not also revealed to me that he whom I thought an ally was in truth of a trayer, a herald of anti life, ultimate death,

did not these same fates tell me in my sleep. I was the chosen champion of life, the evil titans natural foe for I am the savior, the God's lair, the demon, the avenging hand of life, the evil titans natural foe for I am the savior, the God Slayer, the demon, the avenging hand of light, Adam Warlock. I was thinking to why he's my second favorite Marvel character because he's a big guy. Yeah. Talk about a senior quote right there. Yeah, only I had read this one as my high school. So yeah, my yearbook could say I am the savior of the God Slayer, the demon, the avenging hand of light.

Now, something to keep in mind here. I'm a huge fan of Jim Stalin. Jim Stalin's this for it, guy's people don't know him. He's a writer artist. He's been involved in comics for 50 years at this point. And he has a taste for the cosmic and likes to do things not her space. I believe that he was not averse to if he had a story idea,

just taken drugs and writing down what he saw and building that into the story. And I'm a big fan of his of his work. first, too, if he had a story idea, just taking drugs and writing down what he saw and building that into the story. And I'm a big fan of his work and I especially love his Marvel work. I'll read pretty much anything he does. And he does these big cosmic medical, metaphysical stories where these characters are struggling towards some sort of personal enlightenment, but keep getting thrown around by the universe. It's very 60, 70 stuff.

And Jim Starlin's biggest claim to fame is that he created Thanos. And I think it's still the best writer on that character. And he's the reason that Thanos is more than just a villain who loves death and wants to kill people. And it's more of kind of like an amoral, three-dimensional character. And you guys are familiar with Thanos from those movies, right?

Oh, yeah, he's the big purple dude. Yeah, he's got little ridges in his face. He's got ridges in his chin very much so. And he's a purple dude. So, so if people are wondering, just go to go to your video store, go look in the look in the purple dude category, get Avengers, not the first one. I mean, he shows them at the very top. Watch out for that grimace movie, they may go to the asylum pictures section of your video store and pick up reach face purple dude. If you haven't seen the adventures. Yeah, when the revengers fight tangos.

So the, anyway, Jim Sterling, he just, he had just done a run on Captain Marvel. Return that guy from kind of a straightforward alien soldier who became a superhero and turned him into a cosmic Jesus figure himself who has what's called cosmic consciousness and is, you know, has to battle Thanos and stuff for the soul of the universe. And he had problems with Marvel on that book. He left for a while. He comes back and they say, you want to do a book and he goes, yeah, I want to do Adam Warlock. And you know what? He's already a cosmic Jesus figure. I've done that. I'm going to take him a step further. I'm going to make him kind of a paranoid schizophrenic who can't really trust

reality. And so Adam Warlock becomes the most 1970 science fiction character in the Marvel universe who is not a Jack Kirby character because Jack Kirby does a lot of 1970 science fiction stuff. But Adam Warlock is more like a real like a guy, a person who read the book, Steppenwolf, and then went out into outer space and was like, I'm also going to have a quest of self discovery discovery. And there's a fact, red like Siddhartha and then decided to go out into space. He's, he, and over decades, Jim Starlin develops this conception of Adam Warlock and Thanos as these two characters who kind of stand outside the normal flow of the universe's destiny and aren't bound by the same rules of life and death, which makes them, these people who are more on their

own independent quests. Thanos is for power and love of death, and Warlock is just a find a place where he can just sit down for a goddamn minute and not be bothered. Like he just wants a place he can lie around and not talk to anybody. And they're just going after that for three years. Doesn't that sound like he or the dream, right? But like, I mean, it's when Captain America is pretty great. It's true, but when Captain America is fighting for like freedom

and Spider-Man's little like, well, with great power must come, great responsibility, it's easier for me to relate to a character who's like, can I have a moment? Please? Can I just have some damn quiet for a moment? And it's during this time, he goes on a bunch of like real 1970s sci-fi paperback adventures. He picks up his two most enduring supporting cast characters. Let's go to the next picture. That's Gamora on the left. And you may know her from the Guardians of the Alexi movies. Before she appeared in those, she was the much less clad character

of Gamora, the biggest woman in the universe. Here she's dressed more like one of a job as dancers. Yes, she's kind of like if Elvira was a intergalactic assassin. You know, and his other sidekick, Pip the troll, who Dan, he's in the foreground of this cover right here. He's a foreground. Yeah, can you describe that character to me, Pip the troll? Oh, sure. Let's imagine if like a troll was hanging out at the Playboy Mansion, and he had, you know, sort of like was relaxing in the bushes. He's

breathing a little bit of fire, but it's smoke. It's smoke. He's smoking a cigar. Yeah. No, okay. Okay. Yeah. It's it's it's clear. But he does look like he's still pretty billed like he's well, the thing about PIP is he's got a lot of upper body strength. He's got a big beer belly. And he's got like an old sort of, I don't know, like he's drinking out of like a wine scan, a wine scan like he's in the the bocus section of Fantasia. Yeah. Or of, yeah, he's at the Roman world section of Delos. Yeah. Or Westworld is. Oh, and he's, he's, he doesn't have any clothes on except for he's got the Roman world section of Delos, the rest world is. Oh, and he doesn't have any clothes on,

except for he's got some, you know, like, leaves around his junk. Yeah, and now, and you'll notice that, that's very good description, Dan, thank you. And on the coverage, you'll notice that the title that has here is a trollish tale of triumph and tragedy, and he's laying across a sexy lady and a guy in the back is about to stab him.

And the guy says, now a little man, you die. And Pip goes, yeah, but what a way to go. This is the cover of Warlock number 12. Yeah. And so Pip, the troll is, he's another great character. Yeah, he's a waste troll. He's, he's, uh, Adam Warlock. And look at the cover.

It looks like Adam Warlock is, uh, either rushing to kill Pip or to help him. You can't tell. It's hard to tell. They, they have their arguments, but he's rushing to save him. He help him. You can't tell. It's hard to tell. They have their arguments, but he's rushing to save him. He becomes Adam Warlock's best friend. What's amazing is that so Pip the troll starts as basically a caricature of Jack Kirby,

this little guy who's always talking and really is kind of a pugnacious guy in his smoke cigars, and turns into maybe the sleiciest guy in the Marvel universe by the time Starlin' is done with him. He's always drinking, he's always looking for parties. But you know what, he's ready for it, and he never wears clothes. He's just wearing his underpants almost all the time. But you know, he's Adam Warlocks' buddy. He sticks with him a lot of the time.

Yeah, he's great. And so you'll, as you know from that Weinstein stuff, it's like Jim Starlin decided to bring like a fantasy character into the series. Yeah. He's a space troll Jim Starlin decided to bring like a fantasy character into the series. Yeah. He's a space troll, but he's very much like a fantasy troll. Okay, guys, let's talk about the two best things about this version of Adam Warlock.

Okay, the best thing is he is literally at war with himself. He learns that the soul gem on his head, it's not just a thing that sits there and gives him power. The soul gem likes to capture the souls of other people, like it eats them. At one point, the Soul Gem tries to eat Warlock Soul and Warlock is like, you can do it, but first I'm gonna commit suicide,

and then you'll be stuck on a dead body, and the Soul Gem goes, no, no, no, I don't want that to happen. I need you to walk around and take me places. So that's how he defeats the Soul Gem. And we also learned the Soul Gem is one of the six gems of power. So Jim Starlin is basically laying the groundwork for the MCU in the 1970s without realizing it. And as a result, he would win a very big lawsuit settlement with Marvel many years later. Yeah.

Over the creation of Thanos. Yeah. So Jim Starlin is one of the rare like real victories in comic books, where apparently the story I heard was that he sued Marvel over Thanos and they said, you made this, it's work for hire. And he goes, here's my high school notebooks where I first drew Thanos, which proves that I created him before I started working with you.

And they were like, we'll settle you with you, sir. And the details of the settlement have never been stated, as far as I know, but apparently who's very happy with them. So I'm happy about that. That's great. I love it when real people make money instead of corporations. That's fantastic.

Okay. He's at war with his soul, Jim, but he's also at war with himself because his greatest nemesis, the mages, who I mentioned earlier, is an evil version of himself from the future. Let's go to picture number seven. Oh, what?

Now, Dan, what are the main differences between Adam Warlock and the mages that you recognize in this picture? I mean color is a big one. Yeah, he's like gray right still To Adam Warlock's warm tones and His hairstyle is sort of like a white afro instead of a mane of blonde hair. Yeah, that's the most amazing thing about the mages is that he has either a ridiculous perm or like this big afro. And eventually in the 90s he changes to more of a tied-off man bun type look. But as the much as I love these stories in the 70s,

it's hard to take them a just totally seriously as this major villain because of his hair. But that just shows you how powerful he is. He's reached this point where no one can tell him that his hair looks ridiculous. Yeah, he's also knew of his skull down from like a class but his neck to on his belt now. Yeah, he's still like skulls, he just, you know,

he needs them somewhere else. Well, he doesn't wear a cape that much. That's the thing. As you can see, as Dan mentioned, yeah, the mages, his hair is ridiculous. And so he's apparently, at some point in the future, he's driven mad by, I believe, the soul gem. And he runs what's called the universal truth of church,

a universal church of truth, not universal truth of church. The universal church of truth, which is kind of an evil mind controlling religion. And the mages likes to show up in the present and taunt Adam Warlock and be like, there's nothing you can do about it. I'm you in the future. You're gonna turn to evil bra,

and you're gonna be totally bad. He he he. And Adam Warlock spends a lot of time being like, when is it gonna happen? When am I gonna turn into a bad guy? Can I stop it? I don't know what it could happen at any moment that I just turn into a villain.

I don't like it. Eventually, sad to say, World Lock Management is to defeat the mages by cutting off that future from our timeline and mages gets trapped in the sole gem. But I just love the idea of a villain who is you in the future. So it's like, I know you're gonna win.

I know I'm gonna win because I'm from the future, and I'm you. When you turn, it's like, I know you're going to win. I don't going to win because I'm from the future and I'm you. When you turn, it's like, it's a little bit like if my friends, parents could come from now and go back to the 60s and be like, I voted for Trump, Dick. Yeah. Now, but I'm all about keeping immigrants out now. Do about it. It's an interesting twist because I feel like in my life, the villain is always me from yesterday or the day before.

Oh, yeah. And you're cleaning up that mess, yeah, yeah. I understand. Well, anyway, it's the, it's like the old story. If you could kill Hitler as a baby, would you do it? Especially if that baby grew up to be you. And then you grew up to be Hitler at some point. Dan, do you need to do it?

Okay, wait. I mean, I, well, if I was, it's not a hard question, Dan. Dan, it's not, but if I was an adult Hitler, I wouldn't kill myself as a baby. No, no, but if you weren't Hitler yet, like if you were halfway there, like you're half-ler. Oh, yeah, sure. Why not? Okay. Let's do it, guys. Dan, we casually killing himself as a baby to first all greater tragedy. I understand. Okay. That's the needs of the mini, et cetera. Anyway, let's not talk about this anymore. Okay. So Jim start, okay, because you're changing your mind. I get it. Okay. So Jim

Starlin's Warlock run, one of the things I like about it, it feels really personal. There's a story that I kind of can't believe got published called 1,000 Clowns, where Jim Starlin has had a more like imprisoned on a planet run by a caricature of Stanley and the other Marvel editors. And on the planet, they're building a mountain of garbage that has diamonds scattered within it, but the mountain is so big that you can't find the diamonds. And so it's, he wrote and drew an issue of Marvel comics that's literally about how crappy it is to be at Marvel comics and work for them Which he got with my or somebody who can do that anyway eventually Adam Warlock he comes into conflict with Thanos and the only way to stop him is to sacrifice himself

That's what Adam Warlock does. He's always sacrificing himself He gets sucked into the soul gem and he loves it But that's not all for Adam Warlock and we'll have more lock of Warlock after a quick word from our sponsor, Daniel. Our sponsor's not Daniel. Dan has the... A spancer? A spancer's not Dan, not Donner.

Spancer for hire. Hey, our spancer this week is Squarespace. Squarespace, you know them. We've talked about them before. A lot. It's a service that helps you create a website. Turn your cool idea into one of those sites you see on the internet. Only this one's yours. You can use the blog or publish content, sell products and services, all kinds, and much, much more. And how does Squarespace do this? Well, by giving you beautiful, customizable templates created by world-class designers

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about a website that I'd like to make with Squarespace, but we're talking Adam Warlock, and I just cannot wait to get back to him. So let's get back to Adam Warlock, shall we? Thank you. Hi, it's me, Dave Hill from before. Here to tell you about my brand new show on Maximum Fun, The Dave Hill Good Time Hour, which combines my old Maximum Fun Show, Dave Hill Good Time Hour, which combines my old Maximum Fun Show, Dave Phil's podcasting incident with my old radio show, The God Damn Dave Hill Show,

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[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Don't drill a hole in your head. Let's move to the next picture, shall we? This is an image from a Infinity Gauntlet comic where Silver Surfer is describing a time when he showed up in the Soul Gem and Adam Warlock is just hanging out. Dan, can you describe this Adam Warlock in the second panel there? What's he look like now? Now he looks kind of like a warrior monk sort of. What's he doing with his skull decorations? His skull is now a top a staff. So he's got kind of a wizard look

because he's got a robe and a staff. Yeah, so for a long time, Adam Warlock is hanging out in Seoul World with the Pip and Gamora and this forearmed enormous headed dude that he is. Yeah, what's the thing? I can't really really talk about this guy.

This is the... So this guy shows up in an early issue of Starlin's run of Adam Warlock and his soul gets sucked into the soul gem. That's how Adam Warlock defeats him. And every time they go to the soul world, that guy is there. Every single time you see the soul world, he's there.

And when I was a kid, I didn't know that story. It wasn't reprinted for a long time. And I'd always be like, who is this dude? Like what's his story? His whole body is head. He's got enormous face. His forearms. And he always has a smile on his face.

He's just like, looks like the friendliest monster. And his giant head looks kind of like a turtle shell. Yes, exactly. With like big bug eyes. Like he is this character just if you want to just Google soul world for armed guy and maybe it'll come up. I don't know, but he it boggled my mind for years. Who is this guy?

He's always there. Why he like in the Infinity War series, he shows up again for a moment with no explanation of who he was. And it's like, there's a story there. And there was. Anyway, long story short, he just wants to say in the Soul Gym. And he gets to for a long time,

because nobody was that interested in Adam Warlock, except for Jim Starlin. The entire 1980s go by with no atom warlock in them. It's very sad. It's not until the 1990s that he comes back. There's a, at this point, the last time we've seen atom warlock was in the late 70s, I believe it was, when he briefly leaves the soul gem as a being made of fire to turn Thanos into stone when Thanos tries to create concrete universe

with his cosmic cube. And then we don't seem again until let's go to the next one, the Infinity Gauntlet series. This is in 91 and this is a fantastic series where Thanos gets all those Infinity gems. He got it in a little mini series called Thanos Quest. And now he is just taken over the universe with his super powerful gauntlet. That's so shiny. Look at how shiny it is on the cover. Look at all this, all this sparkle on those gems. The gems.

There's like, and the wine. Just so is there and Lady Death. Lady Death. Lady Death, but death. Yeah. Mistress Death. Lady Death is an evil-ernie character, who's best known for just wearing bikinis and garter belts

all over the place. Yeah. I never, I never had any of those books. I could not figure out what the stories might be because all I knew about evil, Ernie and Lady Death was that evil, Ernie looked like a ripoff of Eddie from Iron Maiden covers. And that Lady Death was just a busty lady who wore bikinis and was like, I will absolutely explain it all to you on another mini. I need this Stuart mini or it's Stuart explains evil earning.

This is finally, anyway, Jim Starlin by this point, he was the writer on Silver Surfer. He had a really great run on that. A lot of it is with Ron Lim as the pencil or Ron Lim, of course, one of the unsung greats of Marvel comics. He does not get as much attention as I think he deserves. Even though everyone he draws kind of has a much wider mouth than they would in real life. Anyway, he draws the second half of the Infinity Gauntlet

and many series, George Perez draws the first half. Anyway, Jim Starlin is writing Silver Surfer. He goes, I wanna bring Thanos back. And the story is so amazing that Marvel says, this is better than just a Silver Surfer storyline. This has to be the biggest crossover we've had since Secret Wars. And you know what, it's really great and it really works. And because Jim Lutztarlan is in the driver's seat, who's the pivotal figure in it? That's right. Adam Warlock.

There's a panel that you have right there where Adam Warlock is holding the infinity gauntlet and he says, let the conflict end because spoiler alert, it ends with Adam Warlock with all the infinity gems. That's right. He's now the most powerful character in the Marvel universe. What's he going to do with the most powerful character in the Marvel Universe. What's he gonna do with those Gems? What do you think guys? Okay, you're- He's gonna split him up

because he's a good guy, not a bad guy, right? He is a good guy, not a bad guy. It helps that the living tribunal, which is the three headed judge who works for the one above all, which is the Marvel Universe's version of God, is like, hey, I don't trust you, you shouldn't have all those Gems together. So he splits them up. And this is the Marlowe University's version of God, is like, hey, I don't trust you, you shouldn't have all those gems together. So he splits them up.

And this is the first time in a while that Adam Warlock has his own book. He has a book for a little bit called The Warlock Chronicles and the Asbook called Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch. Let's go to the next picture, shall we? And you can see this is the T-Shot. Hell yeah, Moon Dragon. Mm-hmm. As Adam Warlock is shouting, let the stars know you to be the infinity watch.

And by the stars, I assume he meant dancing with the stars type stars, like, or maybe the stars of modern family. I don't know. He splits up the gems. Each of his friends gets a gem. So it's Adam Warlock, Pip, Gamora, and who's this? Drax the Destroyer, not the movie version, the superhero version. But he still got that kind of same goofy energy as the movie version though, right? He's still very dumb. That's true. At a certain point, well, there's

a, and, and on the left there, that's Moon Dragon, who is Drax's daughter, but she doesn't know that because in a fight, she gave him major brain damage. And he no longer remembers. And Dan, can you describe, uh, describe what's that, what's Drax have clasping his cape and also on his belt? Uh, well, he's got two skulls. Exactly. He's got both the skull belt and the skull clasp. Jim Starlin likes skulls as a design element. Well, in Gamora, she's got skulls one on each shoulder there. Yeah, that's true. He loves skulls everywhere.

And Moon Dragon is not originally a Jim Starlin character, but she's a real cosmic character. She fits in. Dan, look at that character. A subscriber to me and tell me what you think her backstory is and Stuart, maybe you can correct him if he's wrong. Maybe he'll guess it right. Uh, well, she's got slightly more clothes on than Vampirella. I mean, she has a cape, sure.

Just marginally, you know, she doesn't have any hairs. You get big hoopier rings and a gym in her head. What's her? Well, that gem is her infinity gem. Yeah. Okay. So she's a, what's her name? Moon something? Moon dragon. Moon dragon. I'm going to say that that she is literally some sort of cosmic dragon somehow. Okay, I mean, there is a cosmic dragon. I mean, not at this point, eventually she does become a dragon. That's true.

Up till now, not so what do you know about Moon Dragon's real origin? I don't even remember it all. I just remember that she looks awesome. Okay, well, here's, it's pretty simple. She is the daughter of Drac's, the destroyer. Drac's, of course, was an American sex player. He was a jazz musician.

Thanos had a spaceship that Drac's family saw while driving down the highway, so Thanos blew them up. That's when Chronos brought back, later brought back the dad's body and turned him into Drac's The Destroyer, a behemoth of a man, massively powerful, whose only dream, only desire was to destroy Thanos.

And later on the daughter who was alive, she's taken up by the Titans. She's trained by the Titans in kind of space martial arts into the event she gets with some space monks. And for a long time, she's popping in and out of the Avengers comics of the 70s as the single most ecotistical character in the Marvel Universe.

And she's amazing. She'll just show up and she'll be like, she'll have entries, there's one issue with the Avengers. So I guess we have to have some tryouts. We need more members. And Moon Dragon shows up and goes, I'll be your leader. Don't worry.

I'll make everybody fight so we can see who's worthwhile. I'm the best. Anyway, like she's constantly rubbing people the wrong way. She learns some lessons in humility. And she has the power of something called the Dragon of the Moon. I don't really remember all of it, but years later, she turns into a real dragon. In the current books, she has merged with an alternate universe version of herself and she is still in love with Captain Marvel's daughter. So she is in a stable

relationship. Yeah, I remember in bits of this, like a lot of my knowledge of the cosmic characters comes from the later, uh, abnant, abnant landing run with the, uh, guardians books. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. It's a great run. Uh, anyway, uh, as, as the answer had moon dragon is essentially all you need to know is she's a bald psychic with almost no clothes on.

And, uh, she's a super ninja. This is to me like the classic warlock family of characters. The Infinity Watch is the closest we get to Adam Warlock is like a straightforward superhero character. Even though they don't really go out and write wrongs so much as they sit around their headquarters, which is a castle on Monster Island where the Mole Man lives and wait for stories

to come and force them to do things. There's a character at one point whose name was, what's his name, it's like Maxim, I think, who shows up and has lost his memory and he's slowly getting it back. And he knows he's supposed to kill Adam Warlock for some reason. I don't know if we ever find out because the book ended before the mystery was done. There's a story where Adam Warlock is tricked into falling in love for the first time. And it's ridiculous.

So when Adam Warlock got the gems, one of the things he did was he cast out the evil and good sides of himself. So he could be a being of pure rationality. The evil side, well, it's that major's character again. And he comes back, let's go to the next slide in the Infinity War. That was the sequel, The Infinity Gauntlet, where the major is like, you know what I'm going do? I'm gonna make evil duplicates of all of the Marvel heroes. And the last thing, uh, legacy of that Dan is. Uh, uh, what? Secret Wars or some shit?

What do you think it is? Dan knows, Dan knows the last thing, like, I'll see if, oh, you, well, I'll just tell you. It's the Spider-Man villain doppelganger who is an evil monster or a Spider-Man. Who is prominently shown in the maximum carnage crossover, as you were gonna say. Otherwise, Infinity Ward doesn't have that much of a legacy other than More Adam Warlock. And then there's Infinity Crusade a few years later, which is when the good side of Adam Warlock

tried to take over the universe. And so because Jim Starlin always works in with Marvel on this massive cosmic scope, you have this strange and and because Infinity Gauntlet was such a huge success, you have this strange kind of situation where the linchpin of these massive company-wide crossovers is this character who does not have his own book and doesn't have that big a fan base, to be honest. Like, Adam Warlock is very prominently featured on the cover of Infinity No. 1, and surrounding him is like Wolverine, Captain America, Spider-Man, because it's almost like Marvel had to be like, all your favorite are in here. Don't worry, you could read this Adam Warlock story. It's got other characters that you've heard of. Come on. To put it in perspective, I think the incredible Hulk, who is probably maybe the second most recognizable Marvel hero

to the average person. No, Black Knights on this cover too. Yeah, well, he was an American angel. Yeah, that's archangel, Gamora, so was server, just quick silver. Vision, he was all white. She-hull. Yeah, quasar, you know, quasar, Wendell von, there's Daredevil. Daredevil barely makes it onto the cover.

Now again, this was a fold-out cover. The back continued the image and then I think you could fold out. Wait, which one? Infinity War. Okay. Because then you look at Infinity Crusade and Adam Warlock is not so probably placed, but you see the goddess, which is the Infinity War. Okay. Because then you look at Infinity Crusade, and Adam Warlock is not so probably placed,

but you see the goddess, which is the good version of him, but you still got, you know, Wolverine spider in all their faces. What would I see when I see, if you look at this cover for Infinity Crusade, is they're really half-ass and some of these, drawing these faces on the, right? Well, part of the reason for that is because

that part, the parts where it's orange or gold, that would have been actual foil. Oh, I see. This is a book I bought. It was this was back when all the comics that were first issues had shiny foil on the cover or holograms or chromium or whatever. And so that would have it. And I so Ron Lim was probably like, I'm not going to waste my time drawing these, these

faces in super detail. If they're just going to be so shiny, you can't even see them. Yeah. And that's why it also costs, as you'll see, $3.50 for that first issue, which is, at the time, was ridiculous. Now it would be a bar. Yeah. So at the time, I think, a regular issue costs like $1.25.

So, okay. I think, I was gonna say, probably the Hulk is maybe the second or third most recognized one-marble character. I think Spider-Man and Iron Man are the others. The Hulk has been the central figure of I think one company-wide crossover World War Hulk. Adam Warlock has been the central figure of at least three company-wide crossovers, which is kind of silly. Yeah.

Yeah. But it's also probably a side-effect of Warlock. He's never been popular enough to have his own series for long, so he's available to be the central figure of these. Now, okay. Warlock falls be the central figure of these. Now, okay. Warlock falls off the map a little bit. Whenever Jim Stalin leaves Marvel Comics, Adam Warlock kind of disappears for a while because not everyone else is that interested in using him. In 2004, if you scroll to the next one, the Great Writer Greg Pach and the artist Charlie Adlerd, they tried to reboot Adam Warlock with a new Forissue mini series called Warlock,

the kind of ignored all his previous continuity, and it was almost like they're trying to pitch the movie version of him, but it just it was not I liked it. It's a pretty good miniseries, but it was not super popular. That version of Warlock never appeared again. We don't really see classic Adam Warlock until the late 2000s, when, as Stuart mentioned, we get into what I'm going to call the Abnant and Laning period of Cosmic Marvel Comics, although it was kicked off by Keith Geffen. That's right, Dan, your favorite creator of ambush bug in Trenchur. And so, Trenchur.

So, around 2008, the Marvel Cosmic Books kind of get a rebirth with a storyline called annihilation, where anionis, the evil robo bug from the negative zone who wants to destroy all life, it attacks the positive matter universe with his army of bugs, and they kill billions of people. It's an amazing series. It took all these characters. Yeah, these characters like Super Scroll and Dracks and Nova and Ronin, the accuser, who had not been done well with over years and made them super cool. It's a great series. That was one of my favorite like takes on Super Scroll to. Yes, where he's like, what makes the scroll so super? Well, Super Scroll. So Dan, as you know, scrolls are shape changing aliens. You know, this from the Captain Marvel movie, right? So I'm

aware of the scrolls. So Stuart, what's the deal with killer earth, the super scroll? So you can correct me if I'm wrong, but super scroll was what genetically engineered to mimic the powers of the fantastic four. Yes, he's got all their powers. Because the fantastic four keeps whipping the scrolls, asses. So they're like, we got to make one of them, but only one. Yes. And so he's like a hero to the scrolls, but he's always losing. And so by this point, he is a laughing stock of the scrolls and they're like the super

scroll. You get your butt handed to every time. So he's really got to prove himself. And knows what becomes the top cosmic cop in the universe. Drax who for years had been a comedy figure by this point. There's a silver surface scene that my children love me to read to them, where Drax keeps bothering silver surfer and saying, where's Thanos, where's Thanos, where's Thanos? And Silver surfer flies through a sun and Drax still won't let go of his board.

And so he goes to the Fantastic Force headquarters and sits Drax down in front of a TV. And it's a page of them watching sitcoms. And the Silver surfer just leaves two panels before the end. And Drax is like, huh? Like, Silver. And the next panel, the next page is a full page panel, the Silver Surfer flying through space and he's got the biggest grin on his face. He got rid of this guy. So, tracks was kind of a comedy figure, but he gets re-brorn in this Keith Geffen miniseries that ties into an annihilation as the tracks we know from the movies, except smarter,

where the tracks that Dave Batista's playing, who's like a big buff guy who's as knives to chop at things, and is an ultimate fighter who never was a shirt, like that's the tracks from this series. Anyway, it's a really great series, and they reinvented these characters in a way that was also very respectful to where they came from. Star Lord is reintroduced and is a much stronger character than he eventually becomes when they just make him kind of crisp rat in the comics. But, anyway, it spins off into Dan Abnant and Andy Lanning's Guardians of the Galaxy series. Stuart, I know you're a fan of Abnant and Lanning from their Warhammer.

Well, mainly Dan Abnant's Warhammer books. Yeah, they're great. Yeah, actually, I don't know. Does Andy Lanning write any numbers? You're a nice guy. Just an Abnant. Yeah, it's just Dan Abnant and only Warhammer books. Yeah, they're great. He's awesome. Yeah, actually, I don't know. Does Andy Laneing write a new guy? Yeah, it's just Dan Abnett and only games workshop. It's a great Guardians of the Galaxy run. It sets the groundwork for the movies. Like the ones where you see the characters in the movies, they're the characters from that series. Yeah. And Warlock eventually comes back to life, joins the group, they fight the universal church of truth a bunch more times. And he's kind of like,

he's like just part of the team, which I, which was kind of fun. Like he's just this like weird dude who's part of the team. Yeah, it was, it was fun for, it was fun to have him there. But at the same time, I kind of missed that he was no longer kind of this weird loner seeking personal fulfillment. He'd become more of a like just silver surfer type, noble weirdo. Yeah. Like, there's a good bit where he becomes Adam Magus

and he kills the whole team, which I like that part. Yeah, that was good. And the art in those issues is phenomenal. I can never remember the artist's name, but he does mostly DC work now, I think. But it's a series well worth checking out. Anyway, around this time. Okay, so that's end here.

There's an image of Adam Warlock here. He just kind of looks like a regular superhero, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, just like a normal guy. He just looks like a normal superhero. He's like a totally normal guy. Where's the normal guy? Spandex and a cape. Instead of a cape, he has a long flowing kind of crotch front cape.

It's like he's like he's like he's wearing a half apron. Like he's like after he saves the world, he's going to go do his shift at chiles. So here's where it thinks get interesting again because guess who's back on the Adam Warlock beat as of the late 2000s. Dan. Which Jim Starlin. Jim Starlin. Jim Starlin.

That's right. Jim Starlin comes back and he doesn't do an Adam Warlock series. No, go to the next, the next one. He does a Thanos versus Hulk miniseries, which has a surprisingly small amount of Hulk in it. It's mostly Thanos versus Anilis, and that rolls into this series of original graphic novels that came out as hardcover books. The Thanos, the Infinity Revelation, Thanos, the Infinity Relativity, Thanos, the Infinity Finale, and then the Final, the Infinity Entity, which is Adam Warlock, coming over there. As you can see from the picture here, Adam Warlock is dressed in more of a karate outfit

this point, with big shoulders and everything. With these, I mean, they're still comic drawings, but with these covers and that, those subtitles, they really look like paperbacks from the late 60s or 70s. They do. What I love is, if I can describe the covers, the cover of Thanos, the Infinity Revelation is just a big close up of Thanos's head over a star field. And he's like, oh, Thanos, the Infinity Relativity, it's Thanos, Adam Warlock, and also the face of a nihilist who by this point is given himself an enormous monster body. Thanos, the Infinity Finale, it's Thanos's face again, but he's had the shit beaten

out of him. He has literally a bloody nose and there's blood pouring down his chin. And it's like, I just always thought it was a strange choice for a cover to have the main character just like beaten all to crap. Anyway, this is where Jim Starlin kind of re-asserts that Thanos and Adam Warlock for all the time they spend in the Marvel Universe exist outside of it and go on their own adventures that Thanos does things for his own reasons and adventures that Thanos does things for his own reasons and Adam Warlock does things for his own reasons. And they eventually, the whole thing ends with Adam

Warlock, kind of single-handedly recreating all of reality and then becoming God's second-in-command as a new version of the living tribunal, the cosmic figure who is the judge over all the universes. And it's, it almost feels like the apotheosis of what Jim Starlin is doing with these characters, where by this point, Adam Warlock has figured that the only way he can find peace is literally by being the most powerful being in the galaxy who only shows up when he can judge other people and tell them what to do. And Thane knows by the end of it is like, oh boy, that was some adventure. But it's all, it's hard to know whether these books are in continuity or not.

I think technically they might happen in a different alternate universe, but you never know. When Jim start on his handling them, their adventures are somehow both on the margins of the Marvel universe and also the single most important thing happening in the Marvel universe, you know. Ever since then, Adam Warlock has shown up in comics every now and then. There was this recent storyline with him in the Guardians of the Galaxy

that I think was called Infinity War. I could not follow it. It's just a lot of running around for Infinity Gems in the desert and I didn't really understand what was going on. But to be honest, I gotta admit something, guys. Cause untight, let's do. When other writers handle the character,

I find that it's hard for me to care as much. And it's weird to me that Adam Warlock, who had two previous creative teams working on him before Jim Starlin took him on, to me that's Jim Starlin's baby. And even though he didn't create him, it feels like that's the, he put his stamp on it so indelibly that it's his character.

And I'll read any Jim Starlin Warlock comic. Again, I told you there's a whole storyline in Infinity Watch where Adam Warlock gets a magic spell put on him that makes him fall in love and it's goofy as I'll get out. Sounds great. But it's just, he's a really interesting character to me. And I want to hear if you guys have any thoughts about what you've heard before I get into why I think I like Animal Rock so much. What do you guys think?

Why do you think you like him? No, no, but like what do you, what do what are your, okay, so this is hate you. What are your feelings about this character who has his complicated history and is not an easily defined hero character? I, you know, I mean, I've always enjoyed a character who's a hero who would rather not, like not like just the like the usual, you know, Joseph Campbell, you know, deny the call sort of rather not. But like genuinely, like they, they, they're heroes, but they like to expend as little effort as possible, whether it be like, I know that because he's a horrible human and they made a bunch of bad sequels, it kind of ruined the original Pirates of the Caribbean, but the original movie,

when you see Jack Sparrow, it's so fun to see a character that's like, I don't know. I'm like sort of like just like shambling around while doing his stuff. Or even on television, 70s mystery shows, the Rockford files, where it's like, do I have to get into a fist fight? I don't want to. That's not my preferred with doing it. Basically without trying adventure finds them. That's true. Yes. Yeah. So, I was, I mean, I think my first exposure, like a lot of folks was to Adam Warlock was

during the Infinity Gauntlet series. That was certainly mine also, yeah. And I, you know, I never really connected much with the character because a lot of it was just him like standing around. And he does a lot, there's a lot of scenes in that where he is standing around and Silver Surfer goes, aren't you going to step in now? And he goes, the pieces are in place. Now, we must play the game.

That kind of stuff, which, I mean, as a kid, I loved that stuff. I loved any character who seemed like they had any idea what was going on, you know. And my funny thing is my little brother loved Adam Warlock. That Adam Warlock was his favorite character. But also, and that brother also is a big fan of the Eternal Champion books. So I think there's a specific, he must just be operating on that like 70s, like Prague wavelength that I'm not quite on. It's possible.

There's a, there's something very, there is something very 70s about Adam Warlock even now. It's partly they've tried to update his hair and it doesn't point to it. But I think it is, there's a certain kind of heroic narcissism about him. I wouldn't say hedonism because he's very aesthetic. But like a heroic narcissism where it's like,

no, there is something noble about me finding the inner truth about myself and devoting myself to that. And there's something, his outfits are always kind of very glam. The comic book author Tom Manning, his friend of mine, he was telling me today he had a theory or heard somewhere that Ziggy Stardust was a big influence on Jim Starlin's animal lock. I don't know about that.

I haven't seen that listed anywhere. But the same time, he told me that, the evil demon from the New Mutants comics was an homage to Dave Sim of the service books, and that turns out to be true. So when Tom tells me something, he's like, that's why I'm so calm. And that's why C.I.M. smokes the cigar and wears a little vest just like service. And I was like, I was like, but that can't be a tribute. He's the bad guy. Why would that be a tribute? And but it turns out it's true. Anyway, so there's

a there's this definite like 70s selfish stew in there and not selfish stew like selfish stew. It's steward is selfless and he'd do anything to help. He really is. Even the shirt off his back. In fact, you don't have to take your shirt off. Put it back on. I know you're proud. But sure. I mean, I've been I figured I should show this this off. Stewart did so much, you know, surrounding and during my wedding, you know, Stewart was a real prince of a, of a gent of a man. He was a real VP of the running. A big minimum. Yeah. You have it. Nobody else did anything. So just doing the bare minimums.

That's right. I know. LA pull out. You put a lot of work into your speech. I did put a lot of work into my speech and I did pull out of work into my speech and and I it was the most the biggest work I put in was restraining myself from roasting Dan barely restrained roasting It was very sweet Yeah, it was a sweet roasting. Yeah sweet roast Honey roast

I think it's Adam Warlock is someone where he's what makes him interesting to me is his personality, which is kind of a hard thing to describe, partly because he's like kind of a cold character. He's a cold, self-involved character, but he's got, but he is, he runs very hot, like his passion is very hot, but in a, but towards cold ends, which is to get away from everybody else. He's basically noblin' good, but yeah, he puts off helping anybody until the last possible moment.

He's always really irritable about it. Like he's never, he's never like a, I feel like he's also like a, like a mega intellectual type where he, yes. You know, he's always pondering important things. And, yeah, exactly. He's very humorless.

He doesn't have a sense of humor. He doesn't have fun. And that's why it's fun to see him with Pip the troll who is the original party troll. And he's disrespectful and condescending to the other characters because he legitimately thinks he's above the many is. But he always comes through and saves the universe in the end. And I was thinking about this today and it's almost like in a weird way, Jack Kirby is what Jack Kirby intended to be the worst case scenario of a libertarian. Someone who only who takes who basically is like, you don't live up to my standards for

the world. So I feel free to destroy you because I'm stronger than you. In a weird way, Jim Stalin turned that into kind of the best case scenario of a libertarian. Someone who's like powerful and self-obsessed, but leaves other people alone and will reluctantly help out when he's really needed, like recognizes some humanity and other people. And maybe there's something appealing to me in that, like that I am very much not a libertarian.

I like, because I am a weak little man, and I can't see very well, so I need the help of others, and so I'm willing to help them. Like we're all in this together, but especially me, because without my glasses, I'm just burgeoning with water and wandering around and opposed to my flip to wasteland. And I can't read my beloved books,

but he's kind of maybe too... Yeah, I'm just a big dumb, beautiful idiot. And I lay it around to our baby. Pointing me in directions. Yeah, and Dan, you're just a poor boy. You don't need no sympathy because it's easy come, easy go, little high, little low, anywhere the wind blows. Doesn't really matter to you. And... And I just a poor boy. You don't need no sympathy because it's easy come, easy go, little high, little low, anywhere the wind blows.

Doesn't really matter to you. And the... And I just killed a man. Oh, no, mama. And so maybe there's something in there that's like a fantasy figure to me of like, if you were really powerful enough that you could just kind of wander around, ignoring other people as much as possible.

And when you fell into an adventure, you could be like, okay, except at the same time, he's like a rational headed character who is very 70s Marvel, and 70s Marvel is every character twisted in agony and bearing their teeth and grunting about like, oh god, why must the universe be so? And stuff like that. So I guess what I'm saying is,

he's a weird character, he's very complicated. And I can't wait to see how they simplify him to the point of adorability in Guardians of the Galaxy. Yeah, this guy seems like a real, you know, I don't know how to stand to this. I don't do not know how this could be put on. The thing is, I don't know how the thing is, so at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy volume two, at the tag, they're like, I'm going to

make a person. I'm going to name him Adam. And so I don't know if it's going to be that he is a newly created being who's like, oh, what's this? Oh, that's a, that's a chicken nugget, buddy. You're the eat them. Mmm, good. Like, I don't know if they're going to do that.

What's this? What's this? There's white things in the air. Yeah, this colors everywhere. Exactly. Can't believe my eyes. I must be dreaming wake up're gonna do that for you. What's this? There's white things in the air. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's colors everywhere. Exactly. Can't believe the eyes. I must be dreaming wake up. Jack, it isn't fair.

But you'll still wake up Adam Warlock. It isn't fair. Anyway, what's this? There's something very wrong. What's this? There's people singing songs. Yes, do you know what's going on here? There's a lot of little creatures laughing.

No. Everybody seems so happy. It's all about that. It's a bit. No, it's just the lyrics to a song. It's too bad. It's okay. Yeah, just the song lyrics bits. So I wonder if, but. No, it's just the lyrics to a song. It's true, it's a bit. Yeah, just the song lyrics bits.

So I wonder if I don't know how it develops the character's gonna be. He's gonna be a newly birthed Rocky Harmonster or if he's gonna be the Adam Warlock, we know and love who would be like, we need to save the universe and then in Warlock we'll be like, ugh. Ugh, do we?

Okay, you know. Is he gonna be the baddie? Do you think he's gonna be the baddie? Do you think he's going to be the baddie? I hope he's not the baddie. I hope he, I, but who knows, maybe the baddie's going to be the mages. I don't know. We'll see. Yeah.

Maybe that's a big spoiler that we'll all find out a month ahead of time. Yeah. And it'll be like, oh, well, that seems kind of obvious in retrospect. The same way that they may have spoiled, they may have revealed who the villain is in the Doctor Strange new movie. I think I was telling Stuart this, but like, I was trying to tell me about this at dance wedding, how they, they may have revealed

the Dr. Strange, but Dr. Strange only has like four villains and they used two of them in the first movie. So it's gonna be one of these other two, you know. And this is a subject for another time, but I wonder if it really is a spoiler to find out who the characters are going to be in a movie. I don't know, maybe. So guys, that's Adam Warlock.

Do you have any final thoughts I feel like I've gone on for a very long time talking about this character? The audience is long gone. No, this is interesting. I mean, I don't know. I'm really careful what you wish for a situation from some of the vocal listeners of the music. Some of the folks that tweeted at Elliot being like,

yeah, I wanted to hear that Adam Warlock. I was surprised how many people who were like, I was so bummed when you didn't tell me about Adam Warlock. It's like, I don't, and also, because Adam Warlock is one of his characters where there's not that many Adam Warlock comics. You could, in probably in a week,

you could probably catch up on his whole history. It's the same way that I've always dreamed of writing something about Chester Arther. So I was like, I'm gonna read every book about Chester Arther and I think there's five of them. So it was not that difficult. Did you achieve that dream? I did.

So I can't find any other one. Oh no, the dream of writing something about Chester Arther? No, no, that's a long-term project that I'm still working on. Well, yeah, I'll be interested to hear the reaction to this. I mean, I was interested. Don't give me wrong.

I was interested. But I don't know whether the deep dive is going to be beloved or beloved. The most beloved. Yeah, beloved. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to be beloved or boulevard watches. Well, guys, so that's the thing about minis, not the bar minis, which is Stewart's bar and

to great bar. I was just there on Saturday. So actually, please, please, this wedding reception. That's the thing about these mini episodes is there a little bit of a little bit of experiments. There's like, throw up from a note in a bottle thrown in the ocean. See if anyone picks up. In this case, it's more like putting a whole book in a bottle and then throw it in the ocean. But, hey, tell us what you think. Tweet at me, tell me if you want my next explainer

to be interrupted by Tom Brokoggan, talk about June. Or interrupted by somebody else, tell you maybe Jimmy Stewart's really interested in Narnia. I don't know. Wow. Anyone who's waiting to find out. Yeah, I want to know all about Earthsea? Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe, maybe Edward G. Robinson is, is, is, it wants to know if the foundation series is accurate to the books. Sure. Are there, tell me more about these dragon riders of Perth? Yeah. That's, yeah, Christopher Walken has a big interest in the dragon fighter. I don't know.

So I guess. So I guess now. So let me know, let me know on Twitter. Did you like the Steve dive? Would you like more in the future when there's other Marvel movies? Don't ask me to do it for DC movies. Don't know. Don't care. Not interested. For me, DC Comic Sans for Don't Care Comics, except when I'm working on them, please give me more work. But if you just want me to go back to bad impressions of people talking about niche skiers, I don't know what you're talking about impressions. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, if you want accurate guest stars coming to tell us about things because, you know, there's,

there's more than enough options for those wheel of time is coming out soon and maybe Nicholas Cage is interested. Yeah, we'll find out. Yeah. So tweet at me. I'll try to respond if I don't respond. Just know is that my life is a whirlwind of activity. Sure. I'm doing an important shit.

Just know that it's all I've done is very low priority to me. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. Anyway, I love the fans. I live for them, but they are bottom of the list when it comes to my to-do. And so without any further to-do, let's close the book on Adam Warlock and on Jim Starle.

And this really became a love letter to Jim Starle and which is great, because I love his work. And now a watch will find out something horrible about him personally, and I'll be like, ooh boy, I didn't know. No, I bet he's a good guy. Anyway, for the flop house and for Adam Warlock, I have been Ellie Caelin. I've been Dan McCoy for the flop house

and for Moon Dragon. I Stewart Wellington. And I'd like to leave you with Adam Warlock's famous catchphrase. He doesn't have one. Alright. Bye. Bye. you