Warlock Fists ’90s Hate – Boldly Goes Where Comics Aren’t

This is a bucket and-one for people who hate comics from 1990s (who, as an aside, shouldn’t be more than bench warmers on any opinion team or platform). First, you have the sweet ‘Collector’s Item 1st issue” banner on the cover that’s incredibly useful to comic fans because any comic that has that or any similar slogan on it isn’t ever going be worth anything (this cost me a handful of pennies to add to the few I already own). Second, drawing a foul, it’s repackaged in this rigid plastic holder with the other first few issues of Warlock and the Infinity Watch with its own “Limited Edition” announcement–in fact it states it twice, throwing in “Collector’s” again on the top tab, bordering on a flagrant. Personally, these things don’t bother me, mostly because I have better things to do than be offended or angered at stickers or (imagine this) hyperbole on a damn superhero comic book cover. I do like a lot about his package though.

I’ve mentioned before that Warlock may possibly be my favorite character in comics but it wouldn’t be egregious to call him a third tier MARVEL character, which is why I love that this is a “limited” packaging of 70 thousand. Consider that top selling comics of the month today at times have problems breaking 10ok (at least in the U.S.) and this just makes me smile, reminiscing about my the true Golden Age of comics, possibly one that could be referred to as the last generation that were kids. Imagine how many copies of #1 must have been printed in general if 70k were stuffed in these things later. Dig the Toys R Us sticker too because I just love the idea of comics being anywhere that normal people may frequent and don’t have to be subject to specific missions and plots to encounter in the wild.

Most importantly, as odd as this may sound, this may be my favorite single comic ever. It’s a bit of an epilogue to The Infinity Gauntlet miniseries (which itself was the main course of the very nice Thanos Quest – for why you should bow down to Thanos, check out Ben Thompson’s Badass article on him) duology) but the trial of an omnipotent Adam Warlock in this issue is also a great moment that seems so natural in the greater narrative of this character’s adventures life, especially the one Roy Thomas and Gil Kane would reinvent even pre-Starlin. I’ve been looking for original art from this issue for some years now as my grail of grails, so if anyone has any leads let me know and I’ll be glad to pay a finder’s fee if a transaction comes out of it!

The great, powerful, and lovely Agnes Garbowska did a recreation of this cover for me in her trademark style that I had previously posted over at G-Mash: