This weekend’s escapist, lighthearted superhero blog post from Balladeer’s Blog will present the 1970s clash between Marvel’s Adam Warlock, who is coming up in the next Guardians of the Galaxy movie, and the Magus, evil head of a thousand-planet empire.
At any rate, The Magus, as we’ll call this multi-part story, transformed Adam Warlock into the cosmic savior he became best known as. It also introduced Gamora, now famous from the Guardians of the Galaxy movies.
PART ONE
STRANGE TALES #178 (February 1975)
Title: WHO IS ADAM WARLOCK? / ENTER: THE MAGUS
Synopsis: This issue features a prologue titled Who Is Adam Warlock? The purpose of that prologue was to recap the fictional history of Adam Warlock up to this point, since this was Warlock’s first appearance in an attempted relaunch of his solo series. The recap is presented by Sphinxor, who is later revealed to be working for the Beyonders.
Sphinxor released recaps of the following stories:
FANTASTIC FOUR #66-67 (Sept & Oct 1967) – Featuring Warlock’s first appearance, albeit under the name “Him.” The Fantastic 4’s mad scientist foes in the Beehive, later called the Enclave, created Him, an immensely powerful life-form, to serve them in their mad schemes. Him, emerging from his cocoon for the first of what will be many times, refuses to be their pawn. The FF survive the encounter with Him, who slaughters some of the scientists and disappears.
THOR #165-166 (June & July 1969) – Him had been floating in space in his cocoon since leaving the Earth. The cocoon was found by an Earth space probe which brought the cocoon back to a research center on Earth. Him emerged from the cocoon, met and fell in “love” with Thor’s romantic partner Sif and abducted her. Thor furiously fought Him to rescue Sif and defeated Him, who again retreated into his cocoon and floated off into space.
MARVEL PREMIERE #1-2 (Apr & May 1972), WARLOCK #1-8 (Aug 1972 – October 1973), HULK #176-178 (Jun 1974 – Aug 1974) – This time Him’s cocoon was discovered floating in space by the godlike being called the High Evolutionary. This sometimes hero and sometimes villain added to our hero’s already massive powers by endowing him with a Soul Gem, later ret-conned as one of the Infinity Stones. This was its very FIRST appearance. Continue reading
With the superhero movie season already upon us Balladeer’s Blog’s examination of another old, old, OLD Marvel Comics hit continues. 
PART TWO
After his clash with Warlock last time around the Magus has alerted his empire’s starships to be on the lookout for any sign of our hero. The first vessel to come across Adam is the spaceship called The Great Divide, commanded by the blue-skinned Captain Autolycus of the Black Knights of the Church (more on them shortly). 
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