The psychedelic existentialism of Jim Starlin

During the 1970s there was a run of wonderful existential-inspired cosmic stories, and few did them better than Jim Starlin. While I missed out on his Warlock days, I was a big fan of Dreadstar and the nihilistic anti-organized religion story he had to tell. But it's impossible to tell the story of comics without touching on his run on Warlock.

Starlin took a secondary superhero who had adventures like this:

And turned him into a cosmic hero battling an evil future self and grappling with the ramifications like this:

 

To stop himself from becoming the villain he hates, he confronts a future self and convinces himself to kill himself.

To the modern reader, it's overwritten and overwrought, but it was new and different and spoke to the times in a way that comics hadn't yet. This would all grow into the Thanos/Infinity War stories that swallowed the Marvel Universe and is now swallowing the Marvel movies. If you want more on the weird Warlock story and Starlin's writing, check out this great blog.

Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to show off some of Starlin's incredible artwork that obviously helped inspire Rick Veitch for the flashback in Supreme #49. Enjoy!

 

 

 

As we've seen, some of the great artists of yesteryear turn up to work on Supreme, and Starlin is no exception. He'll do the art of an entire issue later in Moore's Supreme run.