Review of Comics from Wednesday 4/13

Gotham Academy #17
Story (Framing Sequence): Brenden Fletcher
Art (Framing Sequence): Adam Archer & Sandra Hope

The "Yearbook" anthology arc continues in Gotham Academy this issue with three more stories of time's past at Gotham Central, some within the year, and one thirty years ago. The framing sequence sees Oliver and Maps searching for Maps's stolen "yearbook," her homemade scrapbook of events of the past year, that was stolen by Robin last issue for reasons unknown, and while the frame does have a lot of fun interactions between the two, the draw for this issue is the stories by various creators within it. "This One's For You," comes from series writer Brenden Fletcher, but features characters and artists from one of his other books. Annie Wu and Serge LaPointe join Fletcher to tell the story of Black Canary filming a video on the grounds of the Academy. But the story isn't really about the band, but instead their road manager, Heathcliff, who started out as a cast member in Gotham Academy, and his relationship with the girl he left behind, Pomeline, the Academy's resident expert on all things magic. The story address the relationship, which hasn't been mentioned much since Heathcliff went off with the band, and is a sweet story of teen romance. "A Familiar Story," written and illustrated by Michael Dialynas, sees Maps and Olives on another night when they were wandering the hallways of the Academy after hours, and what happens when they run into a giant cat monster, who is, ahem, familiar to readers of DC's magical line, It's a fun story, and I like when these other DCU characters interact with the Academy kids. The final story, "What Became of the Gilkey Warlocks...?" comes from Mouse Guard creator David Petersen, and tells the story of a group of students in 1984 playing Serpents & Spells, an RPG that Maps still plays in the present stories, and the unfortunate thing that happens when they try to play in one of the Academy's hidden rooms. Whether or not it's an urban legend Maps is telling or something that really happened is left up to the reader. As the New York Times published an article today about the D&D scares of the 70s, this has a resonance as those parents worst nightmare. It's also interesting to see Pederson drawing people, as I'm so used to him drawing animals, but the art, no matter the subject, is as gorgeous as ever. Add in a pin-up from the always wonderful Colleen Coover, and you have a great issue for fans old and new from some amazing creators.

Princeless Book 5: Make Yourself #1
Story: Jeremy Whitley
Art: Emily Martin & Brett Grunig

It's always a good week when Princeless comes back for a new series! Before we get started with this issue, there was a zero issue which you really should track down, as it was a beautiful story about our lead, Princess Adrienne accepting herself, but I missed reviewing it the week it came out as I didn't get it for a couple weeks after it came out thanks to a shipping error, but it was one of the most moving comics I can remember reading in years.

Now, as for this issue, we have two distinct plots running in this issue. One deals with Devin, Princess Adrienne's brother, and his werewolf guide, Kira, encountering some characters who have appeared in the Princeless anthology minis, Tempest the elf and Prince Wilcome. The other plot sees the dwarfs of the dwarf mountain homeland preparing for a dragon attack, and we meet the Dragon Slayers, and I think anyone who knows Princeless knows exactly who the dragon is (and who's riding it), and so we get a very different experience than the Dragon Slayers expected. The plot with Devin and his party is interesting, as werewolves and elves are natural enemies, and Kira seems right on the edge of killing Tempest at any moment, even as Devin gets to know and like Tempest more and more. And Wilcome is a scheming little git who's counting on helping find the "missing" queen so he can earn himself a princess; he's everything the sweet and sensitive Devin isn't, and is one of the character types that Princeless so readily and ably lampoons.

Speaking of the kind of thing Princeless lampoons, the opening scene in the dwarf kingdom sees dwarf guards basically equating femininity to weakness, and when the dragon is sighted and the Dragon Slayers are called, who are the Dragon Slayers? All women. And they kick some serious butt. What follows is a sequence involving climbing, ballistas, and flying suits maneuvering through the snow. It's a tour de Force for both penciller Emily Martin and colorist Brett Grunig. Dragons are fantasy's mightiest killers, but you can absolutely see that these dwarfs could take them. I was kind of surprised when I saw this cover and saw two dwarfs who looked like Bedelia, Adrienne's dwarven best friends, since all the characters are usually so distinct, but I should have trusted artist Emily Martin more than that: they look like Bedelia because they're related to Bedelia. And boy howdy, but Bedelia's family are huggers.

Princeless is always a joy to read, and this new series looks to be no exception, with new friends, new enemies, and some badass dwarfs,

Thanos: The Infinity Finale
Story: Jim Starlin
Art: Ron Lim, Andy Smith, & Guru-eFX

Jim Starlin's most recent set of Thanos related stories comes to a satisfying conclusion in the aptly titled Infinity Finale. The second volume ended with the now godlike Adam Warlock imprisoned by Annihilus and Thanos committing suicide while trapped in a dimension between dimensions. The final volume begins with Thanos awakening in the halls of  Death, having been revived by Mistress Death, but unfortunately it took three months, and Annihilus has run roughshod over the galaxy. The few remaining heroes are hidden on Earth's Moon, preparing for a last ditch attack, while Pip the Troll hides in Annihilus's capital, attempting to free Warlock. There's wild action as the heroes fight the bug army, aided by Thanos who has a plan to stop Annihilus from wiping out the universe entirely. It's cool to see that Starlin either had everything planned out from the beginning, or at least went and made sure to pull in eeleemnts from the previous two volumes, plus the Thanos Vs. Hulk mini-series, the Infinity Entity mini-series, and last year's Thanos Annual. Starlin's Thanos is  a much different character than he is under anyone else's pen; more thoughtful, less hand wringingly evil; he's a protagonist you can root for, at least some of the time. Starlin also plays with the idea of "Above-All-Others," what DC calls The Presence and what most religions call God. Interestingly, while Starlin has always stood firmly against organized religion in his work, his God isn't such a negative figure; they are removed from the existence of the universe, but not against it. the god-like Warlock also gets his time to shine, as he must make amends for what Annihilus used him to do. I don't want to give away too much, as there are some very cool twists and turns at the end of the book, but a major gap in the Marvel Universe cosmology left by the run-up to Secret Wars is filled, and Starlin puts the original Adam Warlock back in play for whatever plans Marvel might have for him in the future. While the previous two volumes featured story and art by Jim Starlin, this volume sees the return of Starlin's old collaborator, Ron Lim, who drew half of Infinity Gauntlet, as well as all of Infinity War and Infinity Crusade. While I'm a fan of Starlin's own pencils, Lim is the guy who I associate most heavily with Marvel's cosmic universe, and his Thanos and Warlock (as well as Pip and other Infinity Watch related characters) are my definitive versions. It was cool to see him drawing Thanos and Thor fighting side-by-side, the armies of the dead versus the armies of the bugs, and the ironic punishment of the true mastermind behind all these events. While I can only hope we will see more Marvel cosmic work from him in the future, this is the last story from Jim Starlin, creator of Thanos and definer of Warlock, for the foreseeable future, and while he knows that he can't write a true ending for these characters, this is a fitting resting place for his versions of them.

Fit to Be Tied In: A History of Marvel Crossovers and Events Part 3- Cosmic Crossovers from The Infinity Gauntlet to The Annihilation Wave and Beyond

While it can be argued that the original Secret Wars was Marvel's first cosmic crossover, after all the Beyonder is a pretty cosmic threat, the threat still was mostly directed just at Earth. Something like the "Dark Phoenix Saga" had a loftier scale, with the Phoenix a threat so great it called down cosmic empires. So for me, the era of the cosmic crossover didn't start until 1991, when Jim Starlin made his grand entrance to the crossover stage with The Infinity Gauntlet.

I've written about The Inifinity Gauntlet multiple times in multiple ways, but long story short: Thanos gets the six Infinity Gems (yes, gems. It might be stones in Super Hero Squad and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it's still gems in the comics). Thanos becomes a god. Thanos kills half the universe. Heroes fight Thanos. He kills heroes. Cosmic beings fight Thanos. Thanos captures or destroys them. Nebula steals the Gauntlet. Thanos joins with heroes to stop Nebula. Adam Warlock winds up with Gauntlet. Thus endeth the lesson.

It's a well regarded, well remembered crossover from first of the cosmic masterminds, Jim Starlin, with art by George Perez (who you might remember from another crossover, Crisis on Infinite Earths) and Ron Lim.. While Thanos had been appearing in Silver Surfer for over a year, this is what brought him to the main stage of the Marvel Universe, and took a villain whose appearances could be counted on both hand and both feet of two people suddenly became a villain who was central to the Marvel Universe. It also resurrected Adam Warlock, Pip the Troll, and Gamora, three other Starlin characters (Warlock is technically a Lee/Kirby character, but Starlin's Warlock is about as similar to Lee/Kirby's as he is to Reed Richards) who would be part of the center of the cosmic Marvel Universe for the next few years, and the other two parts of Starlin's Infinity trilogy.

Starlin and Lim return in 1992, which saw the debut of The Infinity War. Following up on plot threads from The Infinity Gauntlet, when Warlock was briefly the lord of creation, he cast all good and evil from himself, thinking this would make him an impartial deity. What it really did was help give birth to the Magus, the embodiment of Warlock's evil, who took the name and skin color of the dark future version of Warlock from the classic Starlin tales. The Magus's plan is one of those incredibly windy, Machiavellian ones that has about four levels of wheels within wheels, but it involves creating evil doppelgangers of pretty much every superhero and sending them out against their opposites to replace them. There are four different factions all investigating the Magus's plot: the Infinity Watch (Warlock's team who each got an Infinity Gem when he divided up the gauntlet); Galactus and his merry band of the Silver Surfer, Nova (his herald at the time, an Earth girl made into a fiery cosmic being, not the cosmic hero of New Warriors and later cosmic events fame); the heroes of Earth; and Dr. Doom and Kang.

Starlin does a lot of writing here about duality, about how we all have multiple versions of ourselves, some more divergent than others. For instance, Thanos's evil doppelganger is pretty much just Thanos. While the story is fun, it's much busier than Infinity Gauntlet, much more involved, and you almost wipe your brow in relief when all the threads come together. This was a big crossover with lots of issues where heroes fought their doppelgangers. Notable ones included Spider-Man #24, where Spider-Man's six armed doppelganger would survive and become part of "Maximum Carnage" and issues of Fantastic Four, where Sue Storm fought, defeated, and accepted her dark doppelganger, leading to the infamous Invisible Woman costume that had so many cut outs it might as well be an Emma Frost costume.

And if the Magus was Warlock's evil side, what happened to the good side? Well, that was the Goddess, who was the central antagonist of the final third of the Infinity trilogy, 1993's The Infinity Crusade. Powered by a couple dozen cosmic containment units (Cosmic Cubes of many shapes), the Goddess goes about recreating Counter Earth, the Earthlike planet that used to orbit the sun at the exact opposite point of Earth, turns it into a garden of Eden, and then populates it with superpeople from Earth she considers worthy. The Goddess's goal, she claims, is to rid the universe of evil. Sounds good, right? Well, pure good not balanced with anything is as destructive as poor evil, and again we get various factions fighting each other, including Goddess's heroes, the remaining heroes now forced to fight their friends, and Thanos and Warlock teamed up with Mephisto.

If you've read pretty much anything Starlin has ever written, you know he has a thing about organized religion, and the Goddess, with that name plus a giant cathedral and seeking people of faith, is clearly part of the evil religious figures that Starlin has created. This does have a really great last scene, one of those perfectly plotted little twists that makes you smile when you realize it was all there from the beginning.

After Infinity Crusade, the cosmic aspects of the Marvel Universe cooled off. Warlock and the Infinity Watch ended about a year and a half later, with Starlin having jumped ship about a year before. Warlock was sent over the the Ultraverse for a while, and needed a few years away to lose the stench of the epic failure. Thanos became a much more rote cosmic baddy, losing mos if Starlin's nuance. Starlin eventually came back, wrote the  self contained mini-series Infinity Abyss and Marvel Universe: The End, and the first six issues of a Thanos ongoing. When Starlin left that series, Keith Giffen took it over, and also wrote a four issue mini-series for another Starlin character, Drax the Destroyer. These two stories led into the renaissance for Marvel's cosmic corner.

Annihilation was released in 2006, so it was well over a decade after the Infinity trilogy. A war fleet led by Annihilus, the insect-like ruler of the Negative Zone (an antimatter universe) from Fantastic Four, comes into the normal Marvel Universe and starts systematically destroying everything. Since theer were no cosmic ongoings at the time, the crossover was instead handled as a prologue one shot followed by four mini-series, Nova, Ronan the Accuser, Silver Surfer, and Super-Skrull, that funneled into a single mini-series, Annihilation, where a ragtag group of rebels, led by Nova (which will be Richard Rider for the remainder of this article), must fight back the Annihilation Wave. The scale is huge, but the series itself is small, just six issues, and Giffen and artist Andrea Devito use every page to the best effect. It's action packed, it's heart wrenching, and it's exciting. Annihilation gave birth to a new Nova series, which was used to springboard another three events that made up the new era of cosmic Marvel.

The year after Annihilation began, it's sequel launched. Annihilation: Conquest saw the Kree Empire invaded by the techno-organic alien race, the Phalanx, who had fallen under the sway of this summer's Spaderyest villain, Ultron. Once again, a ragtag group of heroes have to face down the big bad. This event followed the same format as Annihilation, with a one shot and then four four issue arcs, but this time one of those stories took place in the recently launched Nova ongoing. The other three were Wraith (a new character, created by Middleman creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach), Quasar (starring Captain Mar-Vell's daughter, Phyla, and returning Adam Warlock to life), and Star-Lord by previous Annihilation mastermind, Keith Giffen. Conquest was another exciting, world spanning cosmic piece, and Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (DnA for short), who wrote it as well as the Annihilation: Nova mini-series and the Nova ongoing, get a lot of credit for their strong characters and wild sci-fi ideas, which is deserved. However, I want to call out Keith Giffen, whose contributions tend to be forgotten. He did write Annihilation, and while I have a feeling DnA might have picked the characters, it was in Giffen's Star-Lord mini-series that Marvel fandom was reintroduced to Mantis, Bug, and two other then little known characters, Rocket Raccoon and Groot, who appeared in a little movie that came out last summer.

With all the key players in place, this book launched a second cosmic series by DnA, this one the launchpad for that movie I just mentioned, Guardians of the Galaxy, which not only featured the moive team of five, but Adam Warlock, Quasar, Bug, Mantis, Jack Flag, Major Victory. and Cosmo, the Russian cosmonaut dog who appeared in the Collector's menagerie in the movie. The next cosmic event broke the pattern established by the Annihilation event, both in naming and format.

War of Kings was the Game of Thrones of cosmic events. Two of the great outer space empires, the Kree and the Shi'ar, went to war, with the Shi'ar currently under the control of Vulcan, the incredibly powerful and totally insane third Summer brother of long lost X-Men storyline, the Kree had recently been conquered by the Inhumans; so in a very meta way, it's a forerunner of Marvel's current publishing issues with mutants versus Inhumans. The lead in to this story took place in Guardians and Nova, along with a mini-series called X-Men: Kingbreaker, featuring the Starjammers and a group of X-Men who were fighting Vulcan, and War of Kings: Darkhawk, a mini-series that established a tin between the 90s hero Darkhawk's alien armor and the Shi'ar.

The core mini-series dealt mostly with the war, and featured a lot of the Inhuman royal family, Vulcan and the Shi'ar Impreial Guard, and Lilandra, the deposed Shi'ar ruler, and the Strajammers. Nova and his newly reformed Nova Corps took up the battle in his title, while the over in their title, the Guardians tried to stop the War in their title, as they had been warned the war would have dire consequences. As the series moved to its cataclysmic end, the Guardians failed, and Vulcan and Black Bolt were seemingly killed as a massive bomb, meant to obliterate the Shi'ar, exploded, tearing a hole in space dubbed The Fault. Only by sacrificing himself does Adam Warlock stop The Fault from eating all of the universe, but in so doing he finally gives in to the future and becomes Adam Magus.

War of Kings led into a branding called Realm of Kings. It was like the Dark Reign banners that ran through much of Marvel for some time; not really a crossover, but more telling readers that these stories had something to tie them together. The Fault becomes the principle problem, and investigating it shows that it ties the Marvel Universe to a malignant other universe filled with undying monster versions of this reality. The Universe is dubbed the Cancerverse, and is a place wheer Death has been killed, meaning nothing can die and it has used up all its space and needs to expand. While Nova and the Shi'ar investigate, the Guardians are forced to deal with the Universal Church of Truth, the body created by, and once more under the control of, Adam Magus. It turns out the Magus is trying to throw open The Fault and let the Many-Angled Ones (Cthulhu like monsters) and their converted servants in. And he succeeds, but not before the Guardians find a cocoon like the one Warlock hibernates in, and from it emerges Thanos, long thought dead after the end of Annihilation.

The final act of this period of Marvel's cosmic dramas was The Thanos Imperative. While Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy had cult followings, their sales were middling, and so they both ended with Realm of Kings, and everything was wrapped up in a six issue mini-series with two bookend one shots. The Cancerverse Revengers, led by a corrupted Captain Mar-Vell, begin invading the Marvel Universe, and kill Adam Magus immediately for failing to kill Thanos. The various cosmic forces fight a holding action, trying to keep the Cancerverse forces, and the universe itself, from advancing far from The Fault, while the Guardians, Nova, and Thanos enter the Cancerverse, as Thanos's close relationship with Death will allow him to reawaken it/her in that universe and stop the spread. It's a tense battle, full of epic cosmic figures, and DnA threw everything they could into this last cosmic tale. In the end, the heroes succeed, but not without a cost: Drax is killed by Thanos, and as the Cancerverse collapses, Thanos, Star-Lord, and Nova are seemingly trapped forever in the what remains of it.

And that's it. There were a couple of follow-up mini-series for a new cosmic team called the Annihilators, set up to be the opposite of the scruffy Guardians who fought by wits, instead being made up of incredibly powerful characters, but they didn't really take off, despite being good stories and having great Rocket and Groot back-ups. A couple years after that, with Thanos revealed as the big bad at the end of Avengers that Thanos and the Guardians returned in Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagely's Avengers Assemble, which set up all that's come since.

Later this week, come back for Part four, where Dan returns to take you through the next batch of X-Men events.

The Matt Signal Advent Calendar 2014 Day 4: The Infinity Gauntlet #1

The Infinity Gauntlet #1, July 1991

Up until Infinity Gauntlet #1, I was a Batman reader pretty much exclusively. I would pick up comics guest starring Batman, and even an occasional something else, things like Real Ghostbusters or Trannsformers. And my little brother wanted to read comics like his big brother (probably the last time he tried to be like me), so I had read a couple issues of The Incredible Hulk he had bought and quickly discarded, written by some guy named Peter David.

But there was something about this cover, about the menacing head of Thanos looming, the Gauntlet itself, and all those strange characters who I was unfamiliar with, as well as that cover copy, "The End Begins Here!" that drew me in. And by the end of the opening scene, where this clearly bad guy named Thanos was talking with some guy who looked like the Devil about being God that I was hooked. By issue's end, Thanos had wished half the universe into non-existence, and the heroes were already playing catch up. Plus there were pages I didn't get about new souls taking over dead bodies and a cocoon that I knew meant something else big was coming.

Besides being my first real exposure to Marvel Comics, Infinity Gauntlet showed me another facet of comic collecting I was unfamiliar with: collecting for a creator. I had never put too much thought into the people who produced the comics I was reading, but there was something about the writing here that captured my attention. I looked at the name of the writer, Jim Starlin, and was looking at my trade of A Death in the Family, where Jason Todd died, and I saw it was the same writer. Well, from there I started looking for other stuff he'd written, other issues of Batman, the reprints of his Warlock run, and the stuff he'd written that led into Infinity Gauntlet. Pretty soon I was following Peter David too, and Denny O'Neil thanks to his work on Legends of the Dark Knight, which I talked about yesterday, and we were entering that wonderful six year period where all three core Batman titles had the same writers (Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon, and Alan Grant), so another nail was in my coffin, and I was hooked into another vein of comic book fandom.

If you're interested in learning more about The Infinity Gauntlet, check out the recommended reading I wrote for it.

Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 8/6

Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files: War Cry #3
Story: Jim Butcher & Mark Powers
Art: Carlos Gomez

The Dresden Files has always been a mix of action, character, and comedy. This issue is very much an action piece, as Harry Dresden's small band of wizards, stranded in a small house in the woods, meet the vampires of the Red Court head on. It's by far the best action sequence in any of the Dresden Files comics so far. Writer Mark Powers, working from a plot by Dresden creator Jim Butcher, does a great job delineating the powers of each of the wizards. It would be easy to have the three junior Wardens (magic police, for those of you not in the Dresden know) fighting the same way as Harry, but each has their own style, focusing on a different kind of magic. Artist Carlos Gomez draws some horrifying vampires, and there is an air of menace to them as they charge the drastically outnumbered Wardens. It's a smart choice to have the Duke Bravosa, leader of the vampires, remain in his human form, as it feels like it's building to the big reveal of what exactly he will look like when he finally changes his shape. One of the things that has struck me about reading the Dresden Files comics versus the novels is the shift in perspective. All the prose Dresden stories are written from first person point of view, usually Harry, but occasionally some of his supporting cast. While there is still Harry's first person narrative in the comics, the events can shift away from Harry, showing the history of the mysterious force that the Wardens are trying to keep out of the Red Court's hands, the invasion of the house it rests in by the Court's human servitor and the desperate fight by the Venatori Umborum, the human scholars, to keep him from taking it, and the cloaked mystery man fighting his way through the woods. While I had seen the cover of issue four already and had a pretty good idea who that character was going to be, his last page reveal was one of those moments that makes me smile, not just because it means the good guys have a chance, but because this bold pronouncement is well within character for a major Dresden Files player making his first appearance in the comics.

She-Hulk #7
Story: Charles Soule
Art: Javier Pulido

After a couple issues investigating the mysterious Blue File, series artist Javier Pulido returns to She-Hulk for a delightful one-off that I can't help but think of as, "Honey, I Shrunk the She-Hulk."  An inventor whose partner has disappeared comes to She-Hulk for help in finding him and settling their dispute. The only problem? This isn't a normal legal dispute; their invention is shrink technology, and the partner has shrunk himself and is hiding somewhere in his own backyard. So She-Hulk goes to Hank Pym, Marvel's expert on shrinking, and She-Hulk, Pym, and Hellcat, who serves as investigator for She-Hulk's law firm, shrink down and go searching. As writer Charles Soule has done before, he tosses the usual tropes of this kind of story on its head. He has Pym make it clear just how dangerous being that small is; everything can now kill you. And when Hank is stolen away by a bird, She-Hulk and Hellcat are on their own. We've seen from the beginning of their relationship in this book how their personalities can clash, but the argument here works well to flesh out these characters; She-Hulk is kind of a control freak, and Hellcat feels like she needs more freedom and trust. The argument ends with She-Hulk proving how much she does trust Hellcat, and everything works out. Soule built in the limitations of the new shrink tech, and the end of the issue uses those limitations cleverly. I had figured out the big reveal as to who the buyer was the two inventors were arguing over selling to was, but the scene where they have to sit down together and She-Hulk does her lawyer thing was put together by Pulido perfectly; The body language on that page alone should be taught to young artists on how to get across character without words. The final page of the issue sets up the next story, one I'm excited to see. Soule continues to balance superhero action with legal drama in a way I haven't seen done in a long time, and each issue just gets better.

Swamp Thing #34
Story: Charles Soule
Art: Javier Pina

Charles Soule writes another of this week's highlights, wrapping up many of the plot threads that he has been building throughout his run on Swamp Thing. I feel bad, realizing I haven't talked about this book since Soule took over from Scott Snyder, as it has been consistently entertaining. Soule has really changed the status quo, removing many of the elements of the traditional Swamp Thing mythos and introducing his own characters. And so, of course, I'm reviewing the issue where he drastically changes his own status quo by removing most of those characters. This issue finds Swamp Thing finally facing down his former allies, The Wolf and The Lady Weeds, former Avatars of the Green that he returned to human form. They have been trying to find a way to return to their previous forms pretty much since they were made human again, and this issue the Lady Weeds, never the most well balanced entity in any form, takes her stab at it. Soule does a good job balancing the two aspects of Swamp Thing, the super hero and the horror hero, in this issue, by having Swamp Thing fight a big, hideous monster (very much in the mold of the horror hero), but still valuing the life of the innocent and the guilty (something in the superhero mold). Javier Pina's design for the monster is hideous, and perfectly suited to this horror tinged comic. But as with She-Hulk, Soule never lets the character work fall by the wayside. The final disposition of The Wolf is not something I saw coming, which is something I find happens all too rarely in superhero comics for me. And the fate of the Lady Weeds, well, let's just say wronging Capucine, Swamp Thing's warrior woman ally, is something you do at your peril. Capucine is an excellent addition to Swamp Thing's cast, and is a character with so many levels. It would be easy to play her as the typical badass warrior, but Soule has built a character with heart as well as muscles. And the transition of Brother Jonah, the third of the former Avatars to a new life, is not what I expected. I'm glad the character, who has been a wise adviser to Swamp Thiing since his introduction, will still be a presence in the comic. I am looking forward to seeing where Soule goes with the story with so much of the deck cleared, although the cliffhanger for this issue indicates things aren't getting any easier for our mossy hero, with the introduction of a new character who looks to be an avatar of a new parliament. Building onto an existing mythology is a challenge, sometimes falling very flat, but I'm happy to say Soule has done a great job so far, and I hope he keeps doing it for quite some time.

Thanos: The Infinity Revelation OGN
Story & Art: Jim Starlin

Jim Starlin, the creator of Thanos and so many of the major cosmic Marvel characters, returns to Marvel for an original graphic novel featuring his greatest creation, Thanos, and the character he redefined, Adam Warlock. It is... well, a story I'm still trying to process. Starlin writes stories about big themes, cosmic themes that somehow turn into these deeply personal journeys for these characters. The story opens with Thanos going on a quest to determine why everything has felt off since his most recent resurrection. Upon visiting Drax the Destroyer, to see if he feels the same way, we see Drax shift from modern Drax to classic Drax from one panel to the next. While I thought this was something in Thanos's head, showing how fragmented his view is, it is actually a clue to exactly what is going on in the book. Pretty soon, Warlock is back from the dead too and he and Thanos are investigating why the universe seems off. We get to see Thanos fight a bunch of Badoon, throw down with the team of cosmic superpowers, the Annihilators (and maybe see why they don't hang out too much anymore; Thanos and Warlock make pretty quick work of them), and then have a conversation with another version of himself. There's even a stoned alien comic relief, which feels like the gravedigger from Hamlet or the porter from Macbeth, the common man in a world of great beings who is just there for a chuckle. By the end, Thanos has his answers and Warlock is a different man.

One of the elements that struck me in the book was the use of the embodiments of the forces of the galaxy, Eternity, Infinity, Death, and the Living Tribunal. These characters are the things that divide Starlin's cosmic Marvel Universe from the one of Abnett, Lanning, and Bendis. Starlin likes to use these characters to investigate these grand themes and write great, Shakespearean tragedies. By moving away from those concepts and using characters who are more gritty and planetbound, like Rocket and Groot, the current Marvel cosmic world is more relateable in some ways.

Trying to talk about this book without spoiling anything is challenging, since so much of it works so much better on a second read when you know exactly what Starlin is up to throughout. Still, Thanos written by Starlin is not like Thanos written by anyone else. Not only is he cunning and regal, but other writers tend to forget that Thanos has a sense of humor; a biting and dark one, but a sense of humor nonetheless. He isn't all serious and dark pronouncements. And no one does introspective and haunted like Adam Warlock.  There is also a segment where we literally see the world as created by Warlock or Thanos, and neither is particularly appealing.

But I will say this: keep an eye on Warlock's gloves. Trust me, they're there for a reason

This is a book that is well worth the read, especially if you are a fan of the classic Marvel cosmic stories. Expect to have your mind screwed with, though, and if that ins't your thing, well, this isn't a book for you. I hope that Starlin and Marvel have reached the accord it seems they have, as Starlin has created a springboard for all sorts of interesting new Warlock stories that I hope he gets a chance to tell.

Recommended Reading for 4/25: Batman: The Cult

Some stories take on a life of their own and live forever. Batman has his share of these: Dark Knight Returns, Year One, A Death in The Family, Long Halloween, and Knightfall to name a few. Then there are stories that are simply stories of the month; perfectly fine stories but not going to go down in the annals of history. And then there is an odd category that falls somewhere in between, a story that is resonant, that at the time sees to do something new, or different, or momentous, and is something big at one point, and then slowly falls out of that favor or canon. Batman: The Cult is one of those stories. I took a straw poll of some of my customers, and while many had heard of it vaguely, very few aside from fans who were fans at the time or hardcore Batman fans like me, had actually read it. So I decided to talk about it today, both because it is a great comic, and because it looks like certain elements of it are coming around again.

Batman: The Cult, with a script by Jim Starlin and art by horror comics legend Bernie Wrightson,  is a dark story. It came out on the heels of Dark Knight Returns (DKR) in 1988, so it was directly in the shadow of that story, and matches it in format, as a four issue prestige format series. It's not a perfect Batman story, and has some controversial elements in regards to its portrayal of Batman, but when you think about its timing, that was a big deal. This isn't twenty years after Frank Miller and we're still treading water. This is a story that takes this new Darker Knight and really breaks him down, both thematically and literally. It isn't directly a sequel or knock off of DKR, but a story telling a Batman story from that with its own mature edge, and exploring themes that Starlin is comfortable with (Although I will admit there is a clear attempt to tie in to DKR, by having Batman more or less build that Batmobile-tank from that story in here, for good or ill depending on how you feel about those kind of things).

The story of The Cult centers around a new villain in Batman's world, Deacon Blackfire. He is the leader of the titular cult, a possible immortal who bends people to his will, and has a frightening agenda of conquest, using his devotees to kill any criminal, no matter how small the offense. If you're at all familiar with Jim Starlin's writing, or have read any of the commentary I've made on his work on Warlock, you'll know Starlin has a real issue with organized religion, and while this story isn't as heavy handed as Dreadstar, Infinity Crusade, or his recent work with DC, Blackfire is the sort of religious figure that Starlin writes about, the ones who use religion to nothing but benefit themselves. He's not a particularly complex villain, as he is Ra's al Ghul from Batman Begins without any of the subtlety brought by Liam Neeson's performance. He freakin' bathes in human blood once a month to maintain his immortality! There's no sympathy to be found for the Deacon; he's just a bad guy.

The story opens with an extended hallucination, and pretty soon we find Batman tied up and being tortured and conditioned by Blackfire. We get a flashback to how Batman came to be in this predicament, and pretty soon, Blackfire breaks Batman and turns him into one of his mind controlled slaves. Its not easy material, and while it isn't a mature readers book, its not something I'd give to a little kid. Wrightson's art is especially effective in some of the more horrific hallucination sequences, and his vision of Gotham's sewers are clearly sewers but still have the gothic vibe; only Gotham City would have overly designed sewers.

What was different here, and is different than many other interpretations of Batman since, is that Batman is broken here. There's no way to deny it: at the end of the first issue, Deacon Blackfire wins, and if not for the rogue actions of one of his cult members later, he would have kept Batman under his thumb. I often see people comment that the Batman in comics now, at least since Grant Morrison, has more or less been a Batgod, brilliant and unstoppable. This is not that Batman. He's a very fragile, very human figure.

Another character presented with a more well rounded interpretation than was usually seen at the time was Jason Todd. Yes, the infamous second Robin, the one everyone hated so much they voted to have the Joker kill him, was Robin at the time of The Cult. And Jason acts heroically throughout the story. He is clever, sneaking into the sewers and following Batman until the right moment to save him, and supports Batman throughout the entire ordeal. As a matter of fact, he doesn't act particularly bratty at all. This might be viewed as out of character for Jason at the time, but it was probably his most heroic moment in his entire career as Robin, and it was a nice bit to give him right before he was, well, unceremoniously killed.

The story progresses to a point where Gotham is taken over by Blackfire and his cult, and again we get story elements similar to DKR. Gotham belongs to Blackfire as it seems to belong to the Mutant gang at the beginning of DKR, and even moreso, since Blackfire has made public pronouncements on TV saying so. He's clearly a madman, but people still seem to be siding with him; this is again Starlin's anti-religion theme coming out, showing how the sheep are lead by a mad shepherd. Naturally, Batman wins in the end, and Blackfire is defeated, but Starlin ties things up a bit too neatly and the ramifications are never dealt with.

The thing that makes this book controversial in some circles of Batman fans, and the key point in any real discussion, is that Starlin breaks pretty much all the rules of Batman throughout it. Batman starts using, and training Robin to use, guns, even if they're just loaded with tranq darts. And more damning is the fact that Batman kills. Not just while under Deacon Blackfire's mind control, although he assuredly does there, but after he has defeated Blackfire (and his entire cult, with nothing more than Robin, a Battank, and his own two fists), he lets the mob that has now turned on the mad preacher tear him limb from limb and simply walk away.

If you're at all familiar with Batman as a character (and if you're reading this blog, I have to imagine you are), the main thing you know about Batman is that he DOES NOT KILL. If he did, would you imagine the Joker would be around today? Starlin had a very loose interpretation of this in his time writing the Batman titles. This wasn't the first time Batman just let someone die; in Ten Nights of the Beast, Batman locks up the titular villain, the KGBeast, in the sewers, and leaves him to suffocate, starve, or die of thirst (as I think about it, a lot of Starlin's Batman stories have sewers in them). And at the end of A Death in the Family, Batman seems as close to killing Joker as he ever is. This stuff is very problematic to anyone who conceives of Batman as someone who holds life sacred. Starlin seems to view Batman's code more flexibly than pretty much any writer before or after, even moreso than Miller, which is saying something. It makes me more than a bit itchy, I admit.

While so much of the story leaves you scratching your head or possibly irritated, the art is completely entrancing. Bernie Wrightson is one of the modern masters of comic book art, and a true master of horror. His Batman is one whose cape is alive and swirling. The horror of Deacon Blackfire's hanging corpse room is palpable. The action is smooth, with a Batman who moves at times like an acrobat and at times like a heavyweight boxer. The final battle between Batman and the cult is one of the most stunning Batman battles ever visually. The only thing that might have made it better was if it was presented in black and white; I've always thought Wrightson's work looks better in black and white.

I really sat back after looking this story over again, and thought about whether or not to recommend it, or to talk about it in a more general sense. It's not exactly the kind of story I usually recommend, since I clearly have some issues with how it's told and with the interpretation of Batman. But it is an interesting story, and lives in its world completely; there are no half measures here. It's a great story for debate, about its relative merits and what it says about Batman as a character. Also, it will be worth it because, if you've read the second issue of Batman: Eternal, I think we're going to be seeing aspects of this story showing up there. I won't say anymore, but I think between the first page of Eternal and a hint in that second issue, Batman may still have to meet Deacon Blackfire in the new DC Universe.

The four issues of Batman: The Cult are available as back issues, and a trade of the series is currently in print.

Recommended Reading for 4/5: The Infinity Gauntlet

The power of a god is something that many comic book villains have attempted to attain, but usually the heroes stop them just in time to keep them from attaining this goal. But what happens when the villain does become a god? That's the basic premise for The Infinity Gauntlet, a six issue event mini-series written by Jim Starlin and with art from George Perez and Ron Lim from the early 90s. It is definitely my favorite Marvel Comics event story, and is still possibly my favorite Marvel story of all time.

When Jim Starlin, legendary already for his runs on Captain Marvel and Warlock in the 70s, returned to Marvel, he started writing Silver Surfer and immediately returned his greatest creation, Thanos of Titan, to life. Thanos was a mutant alien from Saturn's moon, Titan, and was obsessed with Death. Not death, the end of an existence, but Death, specifically Mistress Death, the Marvel Universe personification of death, and wanted to win her heart. To do so, during those Silver Surfer issues and in a mini-series called Thanos Quest, Thanos obtained the six Infinity Gems, which when combined grant the bearer supreme power over the galaxy. So by the time The Infinity Gauntlet begins, the heroes of the Marvel Universe are already painted into a corner and they don't know it.

The opening pages of The Infinity Gauntlet should be comic book event opening 101. Even if you don't know the players, you know exactly what is going on. Purple guy (Thanos) is clearly some sort of major cosmic badass, as a guy who looks like the Devil (Mephisto) is sucking up to him, having created one word out of stone in 50 foot tall letters to impress him: GOD. Thanos brushes this off and smashes all of Mephisto's hard work, already establishing the dynamic between the two characters. Coupled with a quick recap of the events from Silver Surfer as recounted by the title's main character as he crashes into Doctor Strange's sanctum right after those initial Thanos pages, you're off to the metaphorical races.

One of the great things about The Infinity Gauntlet, especially in relation to so many event comics today, is how much happens in a single issue. This was long before the idea of decompression became the central tenet of major comic book storytelling, so every issue was chock full of stuff. By the end of the first issue the Earth has been alerted to Thanos's coming, mysterious souls have taken over the bodies of some dead humans, various heroes have been seen unawares, and Thanos has talked to Mephisto and Mistress Death. Oh, and Thanos has wiped out half the universe's population with nothing more than a snap of his fingers.

The Infinity Gauntlet had a very precise structure: The first issue established the premise and gave us the inciting incident. Issues two and three dealt with the ramifications and gathered the heroes. Issues four and five were the battle with Thanos. And issue six was the denouement, the resolution of the story. Starlin paced the story perfectly so it didn't feel like there was a wasted page.

Starlin used this series to also bring another of his major characters back from the dead: Adam Warlock. Starlin evolved Warlock from his previous incarnation as the cosmic answer to Hamlet, and made him both a leader and a manipulator. Warlock plans the entire battle against Thanos with a cold reasoning and has no problem sacrificing his allies to triumph. It's an interesting change to the character, and continues his evolution from everything Starlin did before and sets him on the road to where Starlin planned to go with him.

Starlin uses a ragtag selection of heroes who survived Thanos's wiping out of the galactic population as the squad that Warlock, Silver Surfer, and Doctor Strange gather to confront Thanos. I think Starlin had a lot of fun in selecting whatever heroes he really wanted to write. There's an excellent scene where the Hulk and Wolverine, old enemies, sit on a roof and have a conversation. Doctor Doom, the only villain who joins in, is perfectly played as the character with an agenda of his own, hoping to claim the power of the Gauntlet for himself.

The central character of the piece is clearly Thanos. Thanos could easily be presented (and has often been by lesser writers) as a two dimensional maniac, loving death and blood and pain. But Starlin has a fuller view of the character, one that does not paint him in a light that is heroic, but gives him dimension. Thanos so desperately seeks the approval of Mistress Death that he does any- and everything to garner that favor. Throughout the series, while he has the power of a god, he doesn't use it for anything other than trying to get Death to look upon him. There is the clear analogy of a man with a deathwish, someone who seeks the end to his suffering, courting death, and Thanos takes that to the extreme. He also only exacts perverse suffering upon Eros, his brother, and Nebula, the woman who purports to be his granddaughter. He hates life and his own family is the greatest reminder of that.

By the end of the series, Starlin breaks down Thanos. Having lost the Gauntlet, he is confronted by Warlock, and the two have an intense discussion about Thanos's tragic flaw: subconsciously, he doesn't feel like he really deserves all this power. This is the third time in his history Thanos has gained nigh-omnipotence, and each time it has slipped out of his hands. Thanos denies Warlock initially, but he comes around. Looking back on the whole series, the point is perfectly illustrated. Starlin sets up numerous instances where Thanos could have simply squashed his enemies, but instead plays with them in a way that could easily allow him to be defeated. Not banishing Mephisto from his presence, a being who is surely planning against him, is another perfect example.

While the early issues are brilliant set-up, with great character pieces, issues four and five are truly some of the greatest action comics ever written. It's basically a two issue battle between Thanos and first Earth's heroes, and second the avatars of the cosmic forces. The initial battle is not something you got in comics as much at the time: a complete defeat of the heroes, where Thanos takes them apart. Thanos must have become the god of ironic punishments, as he quickly defeats the heroes in ways that fit their powers or demeanor: Wolverine's skeleton is turned to rubber; Quasar has his hands blown off right after recovering from a similar injury, the Hulk is shrunk down to a few inches tall, Thor is transformed to clash and smashed. But Thanos's arrogance is countered in what might be one of the great Captain America scenes of all time. Compared to the heavy hitters, Cap doesn't stand a chance against Thanos. But when confronted, Cap stands his ground, telling Thanos he can't win. Of course, Thanos kills him, but in the end Cap is proven right.

The issues that were crossovers to the main series, while not integral to the story, integrated well with the changed universe. Getting a better idea of all that was going on with Silver Surfer, who had been dealing with Thanos for some time, in his own title, for instance. Or the issue of The Incredible Hulk, where the shrunken Hulk rests on the shoulder of his nemesis, the Abomination, talking in his ear and using his diminutive stature to be the "voice of God" and get the Abomination to do the right thing and wrap up threads in that title's ongoing stories.

In the end, nothing really changes in the Marvel Universe because of The Infinity Gauntlet. Thanos and Warlock are back, along with supporting characters Gamora and Pip the Troll, and the Infinity Gems were now central to the Marvel cosmos, but aside from that, all the deaths are undone, and the universe returns to the status quo. I don't think that this was a story meant to change the Marvel Universe. I feel like most event books today promise to change the Universe forever, but wind up being decompressed or muddled stories that wind up having minimal effect as it is.  The Infinty Gauntlet is simply a great story, one of immense scope, that wouldn't fit in any one comic.

Now, with Thanos's profile increased by his cameo at the end of The Avengers, he is popping up regularly. After being the main villain of the initial arc of Avengers Assemble, he is now featuring in his own origin mini-series, Thanos Rising. The Infinity Gems were also featured prominently in the first arc of the new volume of New Avengers. Thanos one Marvel's great villains, and this is a story that really presents him in all his glory.

The first three issues, and the first few pages of issue four, are drawn by legendary artist George Perez, who brings his usual hyper-detailed style to the art. He craws the crowd scenes brilliantly, and his Thanos is perfectly creepy. The remainder of the series is drawn by Ron Lim, the artist now most associated with the Marvel cosmic line in the 90s. Lim's style is clean, with a dynamism that makes the massive fight scenes easy to follow. I have a great fondness for Lim, especially when he's working on these characters.

The Infinity Gauntlet is available in trade, as well as its two sequels, Infinity War and Infinity Crusade. Many of the Silver Surfer issues that led into the series are available as the trade: Silver Surfer: the Rebirth of Thanos, and many classic Thanos appearances were recently collected as Avengers Vs. Thanos.

Recommended Reading for 8/17: Warlock

The first major crossover I read was, strangely enough if you know me, not a DC event, but a Marvel one: The Infinity Gauntlet, the story of the mad Titan, Thanos, acquiring the power of a god. After devouring all the issues of the regular series, and all of the crossovers, I was dying to read anything else I could about Thanos, and his nemesis, Adam Warlock, but since both of them had been dead for quite a while before the series, it wasn't easy. But what I was able to find was a reprint of the story that is today's recommendation: Infinity Gauntlet mastermind writer/artist Jim Starlin's original Warlock tales from the 70s.

Starlin began writing Warlock when his title had disappeared from the stands. Warlock had run for eight issues before facing the one enemy no comic hero can fight: low sales.The dangling plot threads had been picked up and tied up in issues of The Incredible Hulk, and then had not been seen for six months. As a character, Warlock had been a not too subtle messianic allegory, going as far as to die and be reborn to save Counter Earth, an alternate Earth. But Starlin had a different vision for the character.

Taking a brief aside here, Warlock is a fascinating example of a question that is currently en vogue with both comic book fandom and the industry at large: what constitutes the creator of a character in a shared universe? Is it the person who first introduced them, or the one who took that character and remolded them into something completely new? When introduced by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in The Fantastic Four, Him (as Warlock was called then) was the result of a mad science experiment to create the perfect human being, who realized his creators were evil and abandoned them. In his first series, Roy Thomas wrote him as the earnest messiah, seeking the redemption of Counter Earth, giving him the name of Adam Warlock. Starlin jettisoned neatly all the previous characterization, creating a haunted and flawed character, a space Hamlet, a philosopher who contemplated action and inaction, the nature of good and evil, and above all else, mortality.

Starlin's run on Warlock began in issues of one of Marvel's try out book, Strange Tales, before heading into a resurrected Warlock series. The majority of the run dealt with Warlock's confrontation with the Universal Church of Truth (UCoT) and their god, The Magus. The distrust of organized religion is one of he central themes of Starlin's entire body of work, and this was the first major piece to deal with it. The UCoT converted everyone in their path, whether they wanted to be or not, and imprisoned and executed those if found criminal or degenerate. Their good intentions were a road to a bloody hell, and The Magus was a mad god that Warlock had a personal stake with: he was Warlock, an insane and evil future version sent back in time, who had cut a bloody swath through much of the galaxy.

Evil twins and dystopic futures are nothing new, and weren't even when Starlin was writing these stories. What was new, and has rarely been done since, was Starlin's take on the trope.Usually, the hero stops the double or clone, or averts the event that would create the dark future, and everything ends happily. But Starlin made it clear that The Magus was an inevitability; even if he avoided it for a moment, the circumstances would come around again. Cosmic forces sought the creation of The Magus, and Warlock was presented with only one option: suicide. He would have to travel into the future, to the moment before The Magus's birth, and take the life of his future self.

Most heroes I had read about wouldn't kill anyone, let alone themselves. More than that, Starlin had found other ways to make readers reconsider the title character. When imprisoned by the UCoT, Warlock was submitted to psychological torture. The only way to defeat it was to accept another point of view, which Warlock did, but it was an insane point of view. Warlock had accepted the madness that was the core of The Magus. Even though he had escaped, he was now at least partially insane, and had taken the first step down the path of The Magus willingly.

So we have a hero driven mad and suicidal. Could Warlock have the deck stacked further against him? Of course he could! While he was hero of Counter Earth, Warlock was given the Soul Gem, which augmented and added to his powers. At the beginning of the run, Starlin revealed that the gem was sentient... and hungry. The gem desired to absorb the souls of living beings, and had begun to fight Warlock for control of his mind and body. Worse, it had siphoned off a large portion of Warlock's life energy, meaning removing the gem was impossible. So besides all the other madness, Warlock had a voice in his head not his own telling him to kill.

With two Warlock's running around the title, you might think there wouldn't be room for other characters, but Starlin quickly began introducing the supporting cast that would be with Warlock for the next twenty five years. Pip the Troll was a cigar smoking, hard drinking degenerate who Warlock encountered in the dungeons of the UCoT. Gamora, the deadliest woman in the universe, was an assassin with a personal grudge against the church sent to aid Warlock by an unlikely ally.

That unlikely ally was Thanos of Titan. In a classic, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend,"situation, Warlock allied with Thanos, who sought to stop The Magus. Readers knew Thanos as the nemesis of Captain Marvel, but here he was working with the good guys, even for his own reasons, which was strange. And it was Thanos who provided Warlock with the knowledge and means to travel to the moment he needed to, and there to use the Soul Gem to take his own soul and stop the birth of The Magus.

Now, I know that constitutes a pretty huge spoiler. However, loyal reader, I want you to consider two points. First, these are thirty plus year old comics, so seriously, I think we're past the spoiler warning time. More, though, you see how Warlock experiences the latter part of this story. He knows exactly how he is going to die, but not the exact time of the event. Every moment he's watching for the signs of his now absolute end. Pretty freaky, huh?

With the Magus saga wrapped, Starlin wrote a few shorter tales. There was the tale of the origins of Pip the Troll, strangely comic after the previous arc, but a good pallet cleanser before the next darker tale. Warlock confronted the Star Thief, a massively powerful psychic who sought to revenge himself upon Earth by destroying all stars. In the final issue of his series, Warlock fought a psychic battle against the Soul Gem, and learned a secret; the gem was one of six powerful gems. But after that revelation, the series was once again cancelled*, leaving the tale of Warlock's eventual demise unfinished.

Fortunately, Starlin was given the chance to tell this tale. In Avengers Annual #7 and Marvel Two-In-One Annual #2 Warlock and all his cast were together one more time, this time with the Avengers, Spider-Man, and The Thing at their sides in final battle with Thanos. Thanos had gathered the five other Soul Gems (which would eventually be called the Infinity Gems) for the first time, as well as having siphoned energy from Warlock's during the Magus battles, and was using the power to wipe out stars, dedicating the act and deaths to Mistress Death, the cosmic embodiment of Death whom Thanos loved. Over the course of the two issues, Pip and Gamora were both gravely injured by Thanos, to the point that Warlock had to take them into the Soul Gem. And after being defeated by Thanos, Warlock, badly beaten, looked up to find himself waiting to send him to join them. I won't spoil the final battle with Thanos, or what was waiting in the Soul Gem, but it was an ending that was perfect to what had gone on,

The thing that makes Warlock revolutionary for its time was the philosophy. This was a comic that dealt with weighty issues and didn't shy away from the darker side of life. Comics would eventually come to do this often, but even then, the level of thought and discussion is often left to Vertigo titles and indies. Warlock was the perfect mix of super heroics and thought, captivating readers.

Marvel will be releasing the entire run of Warlock this week in The Essential Warlock. This mammoth black and white volume will reprint the entire Starlin run, along with the earlier Counter Earth stories. Essentials are a great bargain, and this one is something everyone should try out,

*There was apparently a sixteenth issue of Warlock planned, but the art was lost. Check out issue 46 of TwoMorrows Publishing's excellent magazine, Back Issue, to find out more about that.