This year, the sequel has been published: Thanos: the Infinity Relativity
Lee-Kirby Kreations Annihilus and his lieutenant, Blastaar, launch an attack from the Negative Zone. I feel we have already seen this before in the 2006 crossover, Annihilation. Meanwhile, the Guardians of the Galaxy track the missing Gamora to the Skrulls arena planet ( first seen in the Thing/Slavers arc in 1969).
On New Kral, Warlock handily recounts his amended origin to Gamora. We also subsequently learn that, as the living embodiment of his defunct reality, Warlock is God. Heavy.
The Imperial Guard and the Silver Surfer get involved as "The Bug King", now an armoured giant emitting fear, abduct Warlock and employ his new powers to move his planet to the Posiverse ( Shades of the Daleks!). Thanos is exiled in limbo and the mad Titan reacts by blowing his own head off. Freaky.
I didn't enjoy this sequel as much as its predecessor, I'm afraid. There was little of the surreal, psychedelic flavour of Revelation. In essence,there was too much combat and not enough Kozmic. The crowded battle scenes reminded me of the Dreadstar monthly series, which I always found underwhelming.
I'm not enamoured of the modern, movie Guardians and would much rather have seen Moondragon, Quasar or Nova. One has to admire, however, the fluency with which Starlin blends his own creations with those of Abnett and Lanning. Frustratingly, though, the story is not complete in one volume but will be concluded in The Infinity Finale in 2016. Also, it seems to spin out of the Thanos vs.Hulk miniseries, which I haven't read.
It will sell reasonably well, I think, because of the Mad Titan's Marvel movie cameos but it's a poor jumping-on point. It's also wilfully obscure about the nature of Warlock's greater purpose in the Marvel Universe.
In the new couple of posts on Materioptikon, I'll be looking at facsimile editions of DC's 100-page Super-Spectaculars.
All images considered copyright of their original owners
For some strange reason, I find myself less impressed by Starlin's new art than I am with his old - perhaps that's due to the absence of the nostalgia factor with his recent stuff. I was never too keen on Thanos - he seemed to me like too much of an obvious Darkseid rip-off (visually at least), so I'm disinclined to bother with these new publications.
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