Adam Warlock

"Sculptor of worlds! Is it your voice I hear? If so, then speak ... and Warlock shall heed!"

- Adam to the High Evolutionary "Someone told me once … long ago … that men would call me Warlock!"

- Adam Warlock's response when someone asks his name Adam Warlock, originally known as Him, is a fictional character that appears sometimes as an anti-hero and as a protagonist in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Fantastic Four #66 (cover-dated Sept. 1967) (in cocoon form) and #67 (Oct. 1967) (in humanoid form), and was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Debuting in the Silver Age of comic books, the character has appeared in over four decades of Marvel publications, and starred in the popular titles Marvel Premiere and Strange Tales as well as five self-titled volumes and several related limited series.

Character biography
Him is an artificial human created in a facility called the Beehive by scientists calling themselves the Enclave. He is birthed in a cocoon-like structure, created to be the perfect human with enhanced abilities, as part of a scheme for the Enclave to rule the Earth. After meeting Alicia Masters, Him rebels against the Enclave and escapes. Later, the newborn Him decides to take Sif of Asgard as his mate, leading to a battle with her comrade Thor.Following this encounter, Him journeys into outer space, cocooning his form again.

Him's cocoon is recovered by the High Evolutionary, who befriends him and gives him the name "Warlock." The High Evolutionary reveals that he created a version of Earth without evil, calling it Counter-Earth. But another of his creations called the Man Beast introduced corruption into this world and now the Evolutionary wants Warlock's help to save Counter-Earth from the villain's evil. The High Evolutionary gives Warlock the green Soul Gem (also referred to as the "Soul Jewel") to help him in this fight. When he arrives on Counter-Earth, Warlock suffers amnesia and only recalls his name. Four teenagers find him and befriend him. Thinking "Warlock" sounds like a surname, they give him the first name of "Adam." Adam Warlock faces the Man Beast and dies in the process, but then resurrects thanks to forming another regeneration cocoon around himself. After the Man Beast's defeat, Warlock leaves Counter-Earth to find a new purpose.

In his travels through space, Warlock encounters the Universal Church of Truth, an intergalactic religious organization that is building into an empire by controlling different worlds and indoctrinating the populations to their religion. The church is led by a man called the Magus. Warlock opposes the Magus and he soon recruits allies in his fight against the Universal Church of Truth: Pip the Troll, the assassin Gamora, and Gamora's employer and adoptive father, Thanos of Titan. Eventually, Warlock discovers that the Magus is a future version of himself who traveled back in time after being driven insane by the use of his Soul Gem and imprisonment by the cosmic being known as the In-Betweener. Warlock chooses to alter his timeline by visiting himself a few months into the future and stealing his own soul before he is imprisoned, essentially committing suicide to prevent the Magus from ever existing (later stories showed that the Universal Church of Truth still came into being, but less powerful). Warlock then continues his journeys, knowing he has seen his own death but not knowing exactly when it will happen.

While fighting off the Stranger's attempt to steal the Soul Gem, Warlock discovers the existence of five other related gems. Thanos gains possession of these gems (later known as the Infinity Gems) and plans to use them to blow up Earth's sun. Warlock finds that Thanos has destroyed Pip's mind and left Gamora mortally wounded. To end their suffering and give them a chance at continued existence, Warlock takes Pip and Gamora's souls into the world within his Soul Gem. Warlock then enlists the aid of the Avengers, Captain Marvel, and Moondragon to battle Thanos. When Thanos mortally wounds Warlock and leaves him for dead, Warlock's younger self appears and takes the dying version's soul at last. In the Soul World of the gem, Adam is reunited with Pip, Gamora and others. The other gathered heroes continue their fight against Thanos but are losing. The cosmic entities Lord Chaosand Master Order intervene, influencing Spider-Man to temporarily release Warlock's soul from the Soul Gem. Warlock, now a spiritual being of new power, ends the battle by turning Thanos to stone, returning to the Soul Gem immediately afterward. For a while, Warlock finds a peaceful life in the Soul World with Pip, Gamora, and others

Years after his defeat at Warlock's hands, Thanos is reverted from stone back to living flesh and becomes the consort of Death. Seeking to equal Death in power, he once again collects the Infinity Gems, forming them into the Infinity Gauntlet. When the Silver Surfer confronts Thanos, the villain sends the Surfer into the Soul Gem. In the world of the Soul Gem, the Surfer meets Adam Warlock and convinces him that his help is needed again to defeat Thanos. Warlock agrees and Pip and Gamora decided to accompany him. Warlock transmits himself and his two friends into the bodies of three Earth people who recently died in a car accident, then uses his power to rebuild these human bodies into copies of their original forms. To stop Thanos, Warlock leads a group of Earth's superheroes against him.

Thanos is defeated and Warlock obtains the Gauntlet, becoming a near-supreme being of the universe. Warlock allows Earth's heroes to believe that Thanos is dead, but in truth the villain starts a new life of seclusion, deciding he no longer wishes power and will no longer involve himself in the affairs of others. Following this, a hearing attended by the various cosmic beings of the universe such as Eternity and Galactus protest Adam's worthiness and argue that there is still the threat of him eventually becoming the Magus. The cosmic Living Tribunal, whose power and authority exceeds Warlock's, decides that Warlock cannot be trusted to keep the Infinity Gauntlet. The gems will be divided among other beings of Warlock's choosing. Warlock keeps the soul gem for himself and gives one gem each to Pip, Gamora, Drax the Destroyer, Moondragon, and a reformed Thanos. Warlock dubs the group the Infinity Watch and suggests they go their separate ways but eventually they agree to live together as a team, except for Thanos whose identity as a gem-bearer is kept secret from the group for an extended period of time.

It is later revealed that during Warlock's temporary possession of the Gauntlet, he purged good and evil from his being, leaving him entirely a creature of logic. His good and evil aspects take on life as two new physical beings — the evil half becomes a new incarnation of the Magus, while the good half is a woman calling herself the Goddess. The Magus attempts to become the supreme being in the universe, unleashing an army of dopplegangers against Earth's heroes. He is defeated, partly thanks to the Goddess stealing some of his resources, which she in turn tries to use to eliminate all life in the universe so that it can be cleansed of sin. Warlock, aided by an army of superheroes, eventually defeats each in turn, and absorbs them into the Soul Gem, reuniting good and evil with his soul.

Later, the Infinity Watch battles to protect the soul gem from Count Abyss, a powerful entity who has no soul of his own. After finally defeating him, the infinity gems are stolen by Rune, a vampire from a parallel universel. The Infinity Watch disbands  and Warlock tracks down Rune. Following the discovery of a seventh gem, Warlock and the gems are returned to the main Marvel Universe.

Later, several clones of Thanos go rogue. To defeat them, Thanos works alongside a group of superheroes and Adam Warlock, who is reborn from his cocoon yet again with a slightly altered appearance and nature. Events lead to Thanos obtaining the god-like power of the Heart of the Universe, but Warlock convinces him to relinquish it. Warlock later assists Thanos' in his quest to redeem himself at last

During the "Annihilation" war, so many beings are killed that Warlock is incapacitated by the backlash of souls. He reforms his cocoon around himself to recover properly. When the threat of the techno-organic Phalanx rises, Moondragon and her partner Quasar awaken Warlock so he can help. Once the Phalanx is defeated,  Warlock agrees to join Gamora as part of his newly formed Guardians of the Galaxy, formed and led by Peter Quill, the hero Star-Lord.

Warlock shares a few adventures with the Guardians. Later, Warlock attempts to repair damage done to the Spacetime continuum by patching in a piece of an alternate, sInftable timeline. This other timeline he draws from turns out to be the original future where he became the Magus. By "stitching" that event into his own timeline, Warlock immediately transforms into a third incarnation of the Magus. He attempts to gain control of the Universal Church of Truth, leading to a battle against the Guardians of the Galaxy. The Magus then allies himself with Lord Mar-Vell, but is killed when he fails a mission. The Universal Church of Truth resurrects the Magus as a child, but then the Annihilators imprison him inside his cocoon. His cocoon remains under the watch of the Annihilators.

​The new Infinity trilogy
While on a new quest, Thanos encounters Warlock's soul in Death's domain. It follows Thanos back to the living world, where it regains human form. Warlock accompanies Thanos on a journey as their universe merges with another one. Due to the convergence, Warlock is retroactively replaced by his counterpart from the other universe. Extremely disgruntled by the experience, the new Warlock left Thanos to ponder his situation, and he eventually ended up on "New Krall" acting as a gladiator in a fighting pit. Thanos receives a message through time/space from his omnipotent former self to seek this new Adam Warlock who is now unnaturally more powerful than before. Agreeing, Thanos first seeks Pip the Troll to teleport to New Krall and then contacts Gamora to also go to Adam, as they both are his closest friends and can keep him from doing any damage to the universe. During this time Annihilus begins a re-invasion of the Positive Zone searching for an immense power source that turns out to be Adam himself and launches a devastating siege on New Krall. The Shi'ar, led by Gladiator (also looking for the power source), appear and Annihilus, now with the power of the Hulk and a new fear projection ability, defeats them. Pip swiftly teleports Adam, Gamora, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and himself back to the Guardians' ship to safety and are joined by Thanos, where they discover the universe that Adam created was not destroyed, but became a part of him and has given him the power of Eternity and Infinity. Thanos enhances Pip's abilities to teleport the ship to Annihilus' empire to stop Annihilus once and for all, but are overwhelmed by Annihilus, who teleports Thanos into limbo and takes Adam prisoner (by placing a neural disruptor on him), forcing the Guardians to retreat. Pip stays behind, stating Adam is his only friend and he will not abandon him. The comatose Adam is placed into Annihilus' ship's power source to use him as battery. Pip, after hiding on Annihilus' ship for three months, finds the comatose Adam and launches a rescue mission, killing his guards and striking Adam repeatedly to waken him. Finally awakening, Adam unconsciously destroys the universe and is left floating in a void. Panicking, Adam calls out for Thanos and wills the Titan back into existence. Thanos then proposes to Adam a plan to beseech the One Above All to recreate the universe. The One Above All agrees, on the condition Adam act as the universe's new Living Tribunal. Adam and Thanos restore the universes and immediately kill Annihilus and his fleet, ending his threat once and for all. Finally, on Thanos' request, the "new" Living Tribunal resurrects the original Adam Warlock from the point he was killed moments before the convergence took place. The true Adam, alive again, decides to take Thanos' advice to go back to "the existence that is his". He immediately goes to Pip the Troll, who runs to his friend with open arms, and they return to their old life of adventure.

​Powers and abilities
Adam Warlock possesses a number of superhuman properties and powers derived from his artificially determined genetic structure. His bone and muscle tissue is denser than human, endowing him with superhuman strength and resilience. Among his body's special adaptations are an enclave of cells able to tap and transform cosmic energy for personal use. Warlock could use this energy to enhance his physical strength, endurance, and powers of recuperation. He could also employ cosmic energy to negate the force of gravity beneath him, enabling him to fly. In an Earth-like atmosphere, Warlock was able to attain the speed of sound (770 miles per hour). He could use his cosmic energy to locate and enter natural space-warps (discontinuities in the fabric of space) in order to traverse interstellar space. He can also project cosmic energy from his hands as concussive force.Warlock's energy-manipulating powers waned at the time he was given the soul-gem by the High Evolutionary. No longer could he direct concussive force from his hands or enhance his strength. Whether this power limitation was caused by his symbiotic relationship with the soul-gem or some other factor is not yet known. When Warlock was summoned from the soul-gem to defeat Thanos, he seemed to possess these cosmic powers once more.He is is able to spin a cocoon around him at will in a matter of seconds. He did so infrequently during his short life, usually to protect himself from mortal harm, and usually he would emerge from the cocoon at a further level of physical or mental maturity. It is not known where the substance of the cocoon came from, or where it went after he emerged from it.

After taking the memories of the Magus from his soul and some of his own abilities as a result, he gained superior senses in which allowed him to locate space anolomies such as black holes Adam was later gifted with enhanced perceptions from his rebirths, allowing him to see the auras, the souls and states of others as well as examine others genetic structure. His multi-compartmental brain bestow Adam cosmic senses. Adam has the ability to detect or produce wormholes and other irregularities in space on a cosmic scale. After one of his recent rebirths, He also has the ability to sense whenever someone is teleporting. Adam possess profound mystical senses in addition to his cosmic awareness capabilities that is capable of sensing mishaps on a spiritual level such as irregularities.

While formerly possessing powerful telepathic capabilities as Him, he has since lost most of the high level of telepathic power, retaining a fraction of telepathic power he once possessed. However, the exact level of capability in his Telepathy is unknown. His defenses have been described by renown and extremely powerful to be intense and even was able to throw out Moondragon from his mind as well as dispel Mantis' intrusions. Because of his connections to the usage of souls overtime, Adam has later gained emapthic capabilities from sensing souls. Such capabilities allowed him to feel the billions of souls killed by the Annihilation Wave.

Adam is a capable energy manipulator, with such power having been augmented by the Soul Gem for the majority of his life, although was somewhat capable of doing so independently until his recent resurrections. His latest resurrection has allowed him greater capability with his manipulation, now capable of "short-circuiting" even other energy manipulators such as both Silver Surfer and Quasar. Adam has been seen employing various kinds of energy into constructs. Whether the use of it comes from his metaphysical quantum energy or other kinds of energy, he has been shown capable of creating swords, pieces of armor, and shields.

True to his naming of Warlock and among his energy manipulation capabilities includes manipulating mystical energy for a variety of purposes. He relayed much of his mystical powers, however, from the Sould Gem instead of his own independent energies during his extended time with the Infinity Gem. However, he still displayed some independent powers without it's reliance. Much of his mystic powers includes exorcism, body transmutation, and astral projection. Adam can use his mystical powers to travel into the future in his astral form. As a master of his own soul, he can render himself immune to individuals who are capable of draining other's soul. Adam can cast spells for a variety of effects. He was able to use a spell to expunge both Drax and Silver Surfer from the Soul World with an incantation. Adam has displayed capability in creating mystic portals.

To counter the future dilemma of the Fault expansion into the Cancerverse, Adam's subconscious allowed his resurrected form to gain the power to heal repairing space and reality itself. Dubbed "Quantum Magic" and also referred to as "Metaphysical Quantum Energy Manipulation", this allows him to perform magical feats in which are performed from available power around him and "conjured psi-llables". He is also capable of performing large scale and complex spells capable of manipulating the timeline and insert a previously "unused" future in place of the current timeline. Such a feat, however, can only be performed If properly energized by a tremendous amount of energy and cannot hear others during it's preparation and casting. He can even cast spells for healing, magical concussive blasts, telekinesis, magical lightning, teleportation, transmutation, materialization, and force field generation.

According to Lord Chaos and Master Order, Adam is outside the loop of destinies and as such is capable of deeds in which cannot easily be seen or tracked by even those with cosmic senses (such as Quasar) wielding the Infinity Gauntlet and exclusively using their cosmic senses granted from the gauntlet. This also extends into supernatural powers, with those unable to gather intelligence on Adam Warlock through magical means.

Adam possess a profound amount of knowledge from his first-hand experiences dealing with cosmic dilemmas and is considered intelligent in which own right to the point he is considered a genius by Thanos. Adam possesses an extraordinary amount of information regarding the mystical and cosmic items among within the universe such as the Infinity Gems and the Quantum Bands, the understanding of the universe and its greater powers, and information on the supernatural in which seemed superior to Magique and the capability of the Shi'ar Empire.

Adam is an accomplished strategist and tactician. His capability has been noted and even garnered respect from the likes of Thanos, who once remarked him to being a "Tactical Genius". He was capable of even devising a plan to separate Thanos from the Infinity Gauntlet successfully. Perhaps what makes him most formidable is his capability of manipulating Others into becoming the pawns of his plans. His level of manipulation has caused him immense dislike from Silver Surfer because of his ruthless capability of manipulation. According to both him and Mephisto, this is attribute due to the fact that while he had split himself of his good and evil self, he was a being who didn't considered good or evil relevant to decisions made for the best of the universe.

Appearance in Marvel Cinematic Universe
Adam made his first live-action debut in the 2017 MCU film, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, being created by the secondary antagonist of the film Ayesha, the High Priestess of the Sovereign.

Personality
Adam Warlock is often portrayed as both anti-hero and both as a protagonist, and very minor times as a villain. However ,he has an extremely unique personality which people find very confusing; he is an extremely powerful individual, depicted as a godlike being, which uses his mighty powers to defend the universe and to know more about his true destiny using his vast intelligence ,which he mainly seeks to expand more and more ,which means that he is really intelligent, wise and sophisticated.

Additionally, Warlock isn't knowing how to find the way in which he could become a true hero like the Avengers team or the Guardians of the Galaxy team. He just wants to do it by his own ways; to seek his destiny alone, without nothing interrupting him to do so. So, he uses his powers to travel the cosmos, and strives to find more and more knowledge, which means that he is having such an amount of great greed for knowledge.

For that reason, Warlock always will go to find his true destiny, and only small times, he will arrive to Earth to assist many heroes such as the Hulk or Thor Odinson. His godlike appearance is depicted for almost all the times he has appeared in comics, coming from the fact he really is a god from outer space like Thor himself.

Both of those things which stated above are implying that Warlock is maybe prestend as the personification of anti-heroism, acting in many other ways which differs the other heroes.

As a villain, he will always going to act as all villains are acting. But ,it is very important to remember that Warlock isn't a villain or a hero, so his true status as a character is left as a true mystery.

Trivia

 * Roy Thomas in the 70's gave the messianic archetype to Adam after being inspired by the musical Jesus Christ Superstar.
 * In a 2009 interview, Jim Starlin recalled: I had quit [the cosmic superhero series] Captain Marvel over a dispute at that point, but I settled the dispute with Marvel and I was going to come back [to that title]. But [a different team was in place]. So Roy [Thomas] asked me [what character] I wanted to do. So I went home that night and pulled out a bunch of comics. I came across, in the Fantastic Four, Him, and came back the next day and said that's who I wanted to do, and that night I started working on it... I had basically taken Captain Marvel, a warrior, and turned him into sort of a messiah-type character. So when I got to Warlock, I said to myself, 'I got a messiah right here to start off with; where do I go from there?' And I decided a paranoid schizophrenic was the route to take. Starlin also deconstructed the messianic nature of Adam by introducing the Universal Church of Truth and Adam's evil counterpart, the Magus.

​External Links

 * Adam Warlock explained.