Oh, a completely separate Moorcock-y thing is the whole Strange Death Of Adam Warlock sequence (where he goes one year forward in time to witness his own death), and how it plays out exactly the same but with very different emotional impact when we see it from past-Warlock's point of view and then a year later from…

I didn't for the longest time, seemed a little pointless and anti-climactic. But if you like comic-book-profundity at all (and not everyone does) it's a great example of it. Starlin's choice of characters to escort Mar-vell out of this life is very inspired. (Although the trope has been copied a bunch of times since…

My favorite is Eric Idle (I think? It's been a long time) as the irreverent young poet who wants to talk about anteaters and gets dragged out. It's true! They're real!

I love all the alternate endings. Especially the summing-up by the panel.

Reading them two weeks late, I can attest to this.

Wow, I love both of those but neither can displace the Benny Hill association. I guess 10x as many episodes helps.

One very small correction on this thoroughly excellent essay on my favorite character: his Counter-Earth nemesis is Man-Beast, not Man-Wolf. A little more 70s cosmic paradoxical.

I love that even Warlock, jaded as he is, seems horrified when he says: "But he doesn't have a mouth!"

First Comics also adapted a lot of Elric, Hawkmoon, and Corum stuff most excellently, though very differently, along with the "original" "Michael Moorcock's Multiverse". Not sure if it's ever been compiled in graphic novels but the issues are generally pretty easy to find at conventions.

Was looking for this comment. Right on. Although there's a little combination of Moorcock's character Hawkmoon, who actually has a jewel in his skull (it's the name of his first book) and is a little more Warlock-like in terms of companionship than Elric is. But otoh the soul-gem really is Stormbringer.

Rom started with a sort of "science that seems like magic" a la Madeleine L'Engle thing going on ("The Dark Nebula!"), but there was later a second-wave Dire Wraith invasion that was more openly sorcerous.

It's interesting that Marvel sometimes had good ideas like Epic that then got better used by DC (as Vertigo). And tidily enough, one of the great Vertigo characters is Swamp Thing, who seems to have originally been an answer to Marvel's Man-Thing.

also God Loves Man Kills, which I think was a direct influence on the movie X-Men 2

I read the Avengers / Two-In-One two-parter about 500 times when I was a tween. Warlock's tragedy is such a good fit to that age. Including them continuing and having such an ambiguous reaction to Warlock's death. No one really understood him but Pip & Gamora, and they pre-deceased him. He saved a world that had no…

(Darkstar was killed on the way back to his own time of day.)

Yes, but he does not get to practice any real frontier medicine.

Reminds me of a Phil Hendrie character routine: "Dolphin-safe tuna. That means that, thanks to our catching them, these tuna are finally safe from dolphins."

Years before the show, when I was pre-casting the novels with Americans, Robards would have been my Barristan. Would love to hear "Even now I could cut through the five of you like carving a cake."

There's got to be a part in there for Helena Bonham Carter.

I couldn't place Keisha Castle Hughes but her name looked really familiar…now I'm glad to see her again. Loved her in Whale Rider and don't think I've seen her since Revenge Of The Sith. (Should I bother saying she was wasted in that movie? Is that redundant?)