Getting in touch with your feminine side is rarely so literal, as in today's book: from 1993,
the Warlock Chronicles #5, "Perspective" Written by Jim Starlin, pencils by Kris Renkewitz, inks by Keith Williams.
Within the psyche of Adam Warlock's "good," feminine side, the Goddess, our hero has come to try and figure out her endgame. He was not expecting to appear literally split in half, though: his self-image was usually constant. Warlock meets the Wise Woman, an aspect of the Goddess, which would make her a splinter of a splinter of his own mind? She explains herself as the Goddess having used many aspects over the centuries, which also troubles Adam: in Marvel time, he was just barely older than Franklin Richards! But no time for that, since the Goddess may be near winning.
Adam has to take the traditional journey of enlightenment, seeing through the Goddess's eyes her childhood, stamped on by the masculine and evil Magus; than danger and salvation, again at the hands of the Magus. Then, why not experience the worst aspects of motherhood: pain, then abandonment. Can Adam choose a different, better path? By the time it's offered, it's too late to choose, welcome to "the inevitable darkness."
Finally, Adam gets to see the Goddess's ultimate goal, which is revenge on the universe and everything in it. The Wise Woman has a final piece of advice, "accept her."
I'm not sure if Adam was an "old soul," as it were; or if he had been repeating time loops or some such. Warlock's tombstone, prior to his resurrection in
Infinity Gauntlet, had the dates 1967 to 1977, but with Marvel's sliding timeline I don't think he was even ten; which makes stifling the Goddess for centuries a mean feat...
Going solely based off all that time-jumping, I think the poor guy can be forgiven for occasionally slipping into insanity/madness. Perhaps, perhaps, that's what these different "aspects" of him are, his mind trying to deal with going crazy from dealing with so many possible future versions of himself,most of them, if not all of them, becoming evil.
ReplyDeleteI guess the now immortal line from TDK about "Either dying the hero or living long enough to become the villain" seems to be Adam as a character in a nutshell. Poor guy. He just wanted to be whole.
I also pity Keith Williams here, as well as Starlin, for being saddled with such a shitty artist. I know that's basically what Marvel fans & writers had to deal with during this time period, but it seems like it could & SHOULD have been avoided if only the editors on these books held their artists to higher standard. Alas the negative influences from Image Comics during the early 90's is unparalleled in the negative impact it caused. DC suffered from this as well.