Jim Starlin wrote and drew Marvel’s very first original graphic novel back in 1982, The Death of Captain Marvel, and he’s at it again, 30 years later. It’s just been announced that Starlin is writing and drawing THANOS: THE INFINITY REVELATION a 100-page graphic novel that will continue Starlin’s influential Infinity series, and tie in with Guardians of the Galaxy. Andy Smith is inking and Frank D’Armata is coloring. Starlin told Newsarama “…it’s the story of undefined obsession and the end results of that obsession cause a catastrophe. After all, they call Thanos the Mad Titan — even Adam Warlock, the closest thing Thanos has to a friend, trying to hold things together.”
This is interesting on many fronts. First off, it seems to reinforce Marvel’s interest in original graphic novels, something that has waned quite a bit since 1982.
Even more interestingly, there is the matter of the relationship of Starlin, Thanos and Marvel itself. While there have been many lawsuits concerning the creation of Marvel characters where creators tried to get the rights back or more remuneration—Marv Wolfman and Blade, Joe Simon and Captain America, Gary Friedrich and Ghsot Rider, to name a few—no one has a better claim than Starlin does to Thanos. Starlin created the character long before he used ihim in Warlock, and even showed the original drawings on his Facebook page. Many had wondered if Starlin would pursue legal action after Thanos showed up at the end of the Avengers movie—and while he complained about it mildly in an interview, he’s stayed mostly quiet about he matter since.
Obviously, Marvel and Starlin have come to some kind of agreement about this. Is this graphic novel just a payout? Or just a smart move to capitalize on a great comics character by the man who created him? I’d be very surprised to see any of this publicly discussed, but it would appear that everyone is getting something out of it, and that’s the way more of these things should go. .
Wonder what kind of philosophical conversations he has with a raccoon, a tree man and some ex-con alien from a Tattoo Parlor planet? This movie can’t come out soon enough. We all could use an unintentional 300 million dollar comedy. Especially if Disney has to take a write off for it the next quarter.
It kind of looks like the sequel to “SpaceBalls”
That Drax page is a reminder that Starlin’s still got it. No text but communicates perfectly (using flashes of Drax’s old costume) that the reborn Jax still has the drive to kill Thanos that was the whole point of his original existence.
Man, I love this. Starlin is a great guy and deserves this attention with Thanos about to hit it big. It seems like Marvel’s doing right by Jim.
Starlin’s a beast! I like what I’m seeing.
i’m probably as big an avengers fan as you’ll ever meet and i had high hopes for the first of this new line of original graphic novels (avengers: endless wartime)that marvel is producing, but IMHO it was very disappointing. i think the next one due is a spidey story (we’ll see how that one works out, i don’t wanna give out any spoilers in case anybody hasn’t heard what the plot twist is gonna be yet), after that i’m not too sure what the next one will be, maybe it’s the thanos story above, which i also have high hopes for. from the samples above one can see that starlin still has his chops and he’s written some really great cosmic themed marvel stories over the years. also have to agree with the report above that starlin and marvel have probably worked out some kind of deal considering how all the parties involved are playing so nice.
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