Avengers Annual #7

The last Avengers issue before this was #166, but the last time the whole team was assembled was Super-Villain Team-Up #14, with Beast continuing that story into Champions #16. The only other appearances of Avengers since then have been Iron Man's own #95-109, with Yellowjacket guesting in the last 2. Yellowjacket's not here, and neither are Wasp and Wonder Man. Starcore is a space station built to study the Sun. It as launched in Hulk #148 and appeared in this title in #102-103. Chris Claremont was involved in all these issues, and took his invention with him to Uncanny X-Men. The man speaking from the satellite is probably Dr Peter Corbeau. The assembled heroes mull over the situation en route to the spacefleet, including:- Moondragon remembers being orphaned by Thanos and adopted by his father Mentor on Titan, and then being a candidate with Mantis for Celestial Madonna in this series. Iron Man remembers clashing with Thanos thrice before (IM#55, CM#27-30 then the Cosmic Cube story starting, for him, in Av#125). Thor hopes to face Thanos personally this time - in the Cosmic Cube tale the Avengers only fought another of his spacefleets. For Thanos' earlier mercenaries Starlin used lots of already-known alien races. But this time he seems to have made them all up from scratch. The Avengers (and friends) assembled here will continue on into MTIO An#2, and they will be rejoined by their missing teammates in #167. But in between Iron Man and Yellowjacket will guest in CM#56, and Thor in the following issue.

After some irrelevant stuff in #12-14 Starlin brought Thanos and Gamora back in Warlock #15. The reader learnt of Thanos' planned stellar genocide. Thanos sent Gamora to find Warlock, partly to keep her out of the way but also because he needed Warlock for his plans. Gamora's spaceship was then totalled by Destroyer, who was looking for Thanos as usual. But this was not what left Gamora in the state we find her here. Then the series was cancelled. Warlock was then seen in Marvel Team-Up #55 (not by Starlin but obviously with his connivance). There the Stranger revealed that Warlock's Gem was 1 of 6 Soul Gems. Stranger had 1 and sought the others. He clashed with Warlock and a new character the Gardener (not yet revealed to be an Elder of the Universe), who had a 3rd Gem. This brings us up to date. It is claimed here that Thanos had already got the power he needed from Warlock's Soul Gem during the Magus affair, so he didn't really need Gamora to find Adam in W#15. Presumably Starlin had a slightly different plan for events if the Warlock series had continued.

W#10 explained that after he lost his godhood in CM#33 Thanos returned to his corporeal state drifting in space (and here we learn that his spaceship picked him up). W#10 also told us that Thanos needed to keep Warlock alive because he had plans for the Soul Gem (plans which are now seeing fruition). Also that Thanos had taken Gamora (last survivor of the Zen-Whoberis, a race destroyed by Magus' religious zealots) and transformed her into a warrior capable of killing Magus. But in #11 Warlock ended the threat of Magus by going forward in time (to now) and absorbing himself into the Soul Gem (as he does here), thus preventing the future Magus from existing. #11 also involved the In-Betweener who claimed to work for Order and Chaos, who are also mentioned in this issue and will appear in MTIO An#2. After reality is changed no-one remembers the Magus and his fanatical Church except those who were at the centre of the change. Paradoxical aspects of this are ignored, especially if there was no Church then there was no Zen-Whoberi genocide and Thanos didn't train Gamora to be the deadliest woman in the galaxy. A different Universal Church of Truth will feature in the future-set 1990 GotG. Another version will resurrect Thanos and Magus in the 2008 Guardians of the Galaxy. Before that Magus will be recreated as Warlock's evil half in the Infinity War mini-series, and later crop up as a foe of Captain Marvel's son Genis-Vell.

This story (here and in Marvel Two-In-One Annual #2) is written and pencilled by Jim Starlin, and is a continuation and culmination of his work on Thanos and Warlock most of which he also pencilled as well as wrote. On this site we have already seen Thanos' appearances in Iron Man, Avengers and selected issues of Captain Marvel, ending the Cosmic Cube saga in CM#33. Meanwhile Warlock was born as Him, the perfect human created by the Enclave in Fantastic Four #66-67. After a bout with Thor in Thor #165-166 he teamed up with the High Evolutionary who dubbed him (Adam) Warlock and gave him the Soul Gem in Marvel Premiere #1. This began his adventures on Counter-Earth which spread to his own 8-issue series and some Hulk issues. Then Starlin took over Warlock's life and pitted him against an evil future version of himself called Magus, head of the militant Universal Church of Truth. This happened in #178-181 of a revived Strange Tales, continuing in #9-11 of his own revived series. He picked up allies Pip the Troll in ST#179 and Gamora the deadliest woman in the galaxy in ST#180, and then her employer/adoptive father Thanos in W#9.