There's not much that can be
said about Jim Starlin that'll do the man justice. Starlin came along in
the early 1970s and was part of a wave of creators that emerged to bring a
new life to comics. Along with Jeff Jones, Bernie Wrightson, Walter
Simonson, Frank Brunner and Allen Milgrom, Starlin blazed a path through comics
and in the process created a series of characters that remain mainstays in the
Marvel Universe to this day. He took an ailing character in the form of
Adam Warlock, a sadly underused Kirby character who'd never had his full
potential explored, and with a few tweaks turned him into a powerhouse.
Along the way he also created his own foe for Warlock - Thanos.
If Starlin was to be
remembered for one thing and one thing only, then I'm sure he'd be happy for it
to be Thanos. Thanos is a flawed character, and oddly enough it appears
that one man only knows how to write him - and that man is Starlin. In
other hands Thanos has ranged from a common criminal (arrested for robbing a
bank in one memorable Spidey book) to an insane demi-God. However, in Starlin's
hands he becomes a three dimensional character, with failings yet
divinity. Thanos is a God who wants supreme power, yet when he reaches
it he always fails to hold it. Thanos is both a nihilist and a narcissist
with a love for Death. Thanos: fated to succeed, yet doomed to fail.
Along the way, Starlin has
written some of the most controversial comic books of the last 25 years.
Starting with his Death Of Captain Marvel, the first ever graphic novel
published by Marvel, through to the death of the second Robin in the pages of
Batman, Starlin has worn the mantle of the killer of characters. To
this end, he took it to its (logical?) conclusion recently by slaughtering the
entire Marvel Universe, only to have the bringer of death, Thanos, sacrifice
himself to bring life back to the MU.
Starlin has had many firsts
in his career. He was one of the first artists to experiment with fully
painted covers for mainstream comic books, he was the first to create
a character for the Marvel Universe and retain full ownership (Dreadstar);
and has become of the most respected writer/artists in the field today.
Where a lot of his contemporaries have fallen by the wayside, Starlin just
keeps getting better and better, and the future only looks brighter with the
advent of a new Thanos series on the stand - and check out those previews!
From left to right: Captain Marvel, original cover art for issue 29 - Marvel
had John Romita re-draw Marvel's head; Captain Marvel cover art for issue 34 -
with the event that would lead to Captain Marvel's eventual demise; Original
art to the cover of Action Comics #631
JIM STARLIN: Hello.
DANIEL
BEST: Hello, Jim?
JS:
Yes, howre you doing?
DB:
Yes, very good, thank you. Id
like to start the interview by asking how do you do a Thanos series when youve
killed him in the last one?
JS:
Well, that was the challenge. To
start off with is the fact that I did sort of leave him as either he was dead,
or hed just gone through something that no other character in the universe
had ever done. And so I opted for
the latter and when he was, basically he was God, it never said that he was
actually going to go and die; he just said that was it.
And, as a result, he put himself back together, along with the rest of
the universe, but has gone through a bit of an epiphany while he was at it.
And the series starts off finding Thanos deciding that it hasnt
worked being a conqueror and all that, so hes going to give the lighter
side of life a little bit of a shot. Try and be a good guy. But,
of course, hes Thanos, so, well you can just imagine how well thats
going to work. <laughter>
From left to right: Cover to Thanos #1;
Interior art to Thanos; Preview cover art from Thanos
DB:
Its always been one of my favourite characters, and Ill say right
up front that I think the two annuals that you did that closed the Thanos Saga
in the 1970s were brilliant the Avengers annual (Annual #7) had some of
the best artwork in a Marvel comic for that era.
JS:
Thank you. That was
actually his second go round. The
first one was in Captain Marvel where he did the Captain and Cosmic Cube
thing. That also has one of my
favourite endings, with Captain Marvel turning into an old man and shattering
the cube and blowing away Thanos.
From left to right: Return Of The New Gods - cover art for
issue 17; Captain Marvel - promotional piece; Power Of Warlock - original
art for the splash page for issue 14
DB:
Lets go back to the start. Where
did you start what were your influences?
JS:
Well, growing up in the sixties, coming of age during the sixties of
course my biggest influence was probably Jack Kirby.
Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko on Spider-man and Dr. Strange.
There were other influences, I greatly admired Joe Kuberts stuff at
the time, and Carmine Infantino and Gil Kane.
They were my staples, the ones that I went for and got into more than
any other ones.
DB:
And does anything stand out, would there be one Ditko, or one Kirby
that stands out in your mind than the others?
JS:
With Ditko it wouldve been that Spider-man where he was fighting Dr.
Octopus and ends up getting trapped underneath this huge mountain of debris.
Most of the issue hes figuring hes dying and finally works up the
energy to push it off. I mean, I
just thought that was terrific. Kirby, on the other hand, now where would it
be? Some of the Thor issues.
A lot of the different things on the Fantastic Four.
Galactuss first appearance, Silver Surfer, the Inhumans.
Kirby did a load of things that would just stick in your mind forever.
From left to right: Art from the Thanos
series
DB:
How did you get into comics? You
were in the Air Force briefly?
JS:
I was in the Navy.
DB:
The Navy my research is off.
JS:
Well, I can understand it because I was never on a ship.
I was what they call a brown shoe in the Navy and was in Navy aviation.
I was a photographer and I spent more time in planes.
The only time I ever went on a ship, they had a fire on an aircraft
carrier and they needed a photographer to come in and shoot pictures.
And that was in port <laughs> so my entire time on a ship in the
Navy consisted of about an hour walking around this aircraft carrier.
<laughs>
DB:
How did you get into comics? You
were one of the major talents in comics for the 1970s kind of
Marvels second wave.
JS:
Between the 1940s and the 1970s I can tell you exactly who got
hired during that time. Neal
Adams, Denny ONeil, Steve Skeates and Archie Goodwin.
They were really the only four people to come into the business during
that time <laughs> that werent there in the 1940s.
DB:
There seemed to be an explosion of people though in the 1970s.
JS:
Oh, there were loads. Jeff
Jones, Bernie Wrightson, Howard Chaykin, Simonson.
Comics were suddenly going from, I think Marvel had
sixteen titles and they suddenly kicked themselves up to eighty, so
they were hiring anybody coming across the state line and I just happened to
qualify.
DB:
So how did you break in?
JS:
First off, when I was in the service, when I wasnt doing the service
thing I was drawing comics and I would send them in.
I would send in complete Hulk stories to Marvel and theyd say Oh
thats nice, youre almost there, come back again next year.
Finally I got out of the service and I sent in two two-page stories for
the monster books, the horror books that Joe Orlando was publishing at DC.
Those were the first things I sold.
One later appeared in House Of Mystery, inked by, he inked like Wally Wood. His name escapes me at the
moment. But they didnt
actually appear until after I did Captain Marvel later and when I did it I
came to New York and went around the companies.
Marvel, like I said, were expanding their entire universe.
The first job I did was a love story, written by Gary Freidrichs and
inked by Jack Abel. That led to a
couple of horror stories that appeared in the monster books that Marvel were
doing at the time and then Iron Man, which then Drax The Destroyer and Thanos
showed up.
DB: Thanos would be
the character that youre best known for.
When did you originally create him?
JS: Well I had him
from a psyche class that I took. I
went to college between the service and getting work in comics, and there was
a psyche class and I came up with Thanos and Drax the Destroyer, but Im
not sure how he fit into it, just anger management probably.
So I came up to Marvel and Roy (Thomas) asked if I wanted to do a issue
of Iron Man. I felt that this may
be my only chance ever to do a character, not having the confidence that my
career was going to last anything longer than a few weeks. So they got jammed into it.
Thanos was a much thinner character and Roy suggested beefing him up,
so hes beefed up quite a bit from his original sketches from Iron Man, and
later on I liked beefing him up so much that he continued to grow in size.
DB: You seem to be
the only person capable of successfully writing Thanos did you check out
the classic story in an issue of Spidey Super Stories back in the late 70s?
JS: Actually, somebody
did point that out to me. Hes
robbing a bank or something like that?
DB: Yep, and then he
gets arrested, hand-cuffed and led away.
JS: Well you know, that
was Larry Lieber and Larry, you know, didnt actually read comics.
He was just grabbing whatever he could and probably he was told to use
Thanos and had no idea who he was and just treated him like another Spidey
villain. <laughs>
DB: You took Warlock
and also made it your own. How
did you come about to take over that title?
JS: Well, to start
off with, Warlock was selling terribly and they said How would you
like to work with Mike Freidrichs on it?
And so we did it for a bit and I actually took over the writing on it
because I just thought I could do better.
And Roy went along with me on it.
Like I said they, were expanding like crazy so they wanted product and
they didnt really have time to keep an eye on it.
I worked really quickly and you have less trouble if you turn things in
late rather than early, because they have to get it out to the printer, one
way or another, so a lot of times Id hold it up to the last moment even
though I was always ahead on schedule. Thats
how I was able to do stories like the Warlock story where basically hes claiming to be Jesus. Marvels
editorial staff: they just didnt have time to do anything else with it,
they had to get it to the printer.
DB: When writing
Warlock, what were your inspirations?
JS: I remember
reading a bit of Michael Moorcock at that time and he had these heroes
reincarnated and things like that, so it sprung off from there in somewhat
manner. But he just sort of went
off in his own direction. I had
done Captain Marvel, and Captain Marvel was this warrior who decided to give up
on the warrior part. On the other
hand Warlock was, the way Roy and Gil Kane had written him was, a saint.
They were doing Jesus Christ basically.
So I decided that I would take a saint and screw him up.
That was the main idea. It
worked out to be that Warlock is basically paranoid schizophrenic.
The whole idea of the series is that hes going to eventually commit
suicide.
DB: The Death Of
Captain Marvel. I have to say
that the last page of that issue was one of the most emotive pages Ive ever
seen in a comic book.
JS: Ive gotten
that from a number of people. Thats probably my most successful piece.
DB: Where did the
idea for that story come from? It
was a most unusual book for its time.
JS: Theres a kind
of interesting story of how that all came about too. Id done Captain Marvel and then Archie Goodwin, Steve
Englehart and some others worked on it and the sales had gone down.
It finally came to be cancelled so they thought Well, lets just
kill him off and bring in the Captain Marvel that eventually became Photon.
So they asked me if Id kill him off.
And I said OK. This
was a deal. I was trying to get
Dreadstar happening and part of the deal was that Id do the graphic novel
and then Dreadstar. So the Death
Of Captain Marvel was a side-deal for me and I figured Id just knock it out
and have him blown up in an explosion like dozens of times before, but as I
kept doing it I kept thinking I dont want to do this story, these
stories are already done, done to death.
The Doom Patrol died this way, he died this way, characters die and
they usually die in explosions. And
my father, at that point, was suffering from cancer.
Eventually he succumbed to it. So,
sort of a way for me to work out my feelings about his death was to write
about it.
DB:
Talking of Dreadstar, you did quite a
few issues and now its finally being reprinted.
JS: Come October,
Dynamic Forces are going to start off with the first twelve issues of the
comic book and theyre going to re-print the Metamorphosis Odyssey in full
colour and probably go on down the line.
DB: You created
Dreadstar and then you left the book suddenly to go to DC.
JS: I cant get
into too
much as to why I walked away at the time, but it involved not getting paid.
<laughs> Their book-keeping
department kept forgetting to send me cheques.
It was a different regime up there, Ive got to be fair about that.
So it was just a matter of Ok, take it elsewhere.
From left to right: Beautiful double
page spread from Namor #23; Rampaging Hulk issue 4 (Jim discusses this cover
below); More pencils from Namor
DB: You were also
known as a cover artist at Marvel and a lot of the classic covers, such as
Iron Man 100, were your work, and also my all time favourite the cover to
the Hulk Magazine where you painted the Hulk being crucified.
JS: Oh yeah!
That was actually the first painting that I ever did. <laughs>
DB: No offence, but
its almost like you should never have done another.
JS: Well a lot of
them didnt come out as well as that one did. <laughter>
DB: How much work was
involved in doing that cover?
JS: That took me
about a month. It was acrylics
and it was like three feet by four feet.
It was a gigantic painting and I still have it round somewhere.
I was just learning as I went and the background kept changing.
The background on that painting is about an inch thick. <laughs>
Oh this one doesnt work, lets try this.
DB: You went from
Marvel to DC and killed Robin.
JS: Well, I always
thought that the whole idea of a kid side-kick was sheer insanity. So when I started writing Batman, I immediately started
lobbying to kill off Robin. At
one point DC had this AIDS book they wanted to do.
They sent around memos to everybody saying What character do you
think we should, you know, have him get AIDS and do this dramatic thing and
they never ended up doing this project. I
kept sending them things saying Oh, do Robin!
Do Robin! <laughs> And
Denny ONeill said We cant kill Robin off.
Then Denny one night got this flash that Hey, if we get this number
where people call in and they can vote on it, they can decide whether Robin
lives or dies. So thats how
it started. I wrote up two
endings and the readers came in and voted and I think it was 93 or something,
it was this negliable amount, the difference for him to be put to death.
And the death won out of course. So
we did this and the book came out, Denny was on all these talk shows across
the country that day saying, its kind of funny because he was taking credit
for the whole project. But as
soon as the book came out and Robin died, the executives up at DC started going
Whoof! because they had all these lunch pails with Robins picture on
it suddenly it was all my idea again. <laughs>
DB: Its a shame in
a way because more people remember that story line than any of the other
Batmans that you wrote.
JS: I was always fond
of the one that I did with Bernie Wrightson (Batman: The Cult mini-series).
DB: How did that one
come about?
JS: Bernie and I
wanted to work together on something and we came in and pitched that.
At first they loved the idea but they wanted me off the project because
I was writing the regular book and they said If were going to have a
special project with Bernie then we have to have a different writer on it.
So I said Oh screw that, Ill quit the regular book.
<laughs> They went along
with me being on it and it worked out well.
It was like their best-selling book that year.
DB: You worked with
Bernie again on a Punisher mini-series at Marvel.
JS: The first Punisher job was really the sequel to (Batman) The
Cult. That whole story was a
Batman story to begin with, and if you go back and look through it youll
see that some of the characters from The Cult got converted over almost
wholesale. We presented that to
DC and said Here, do you want a sequel to this, it was your best-selling
book that year and they said No, we want Bernie to do Swamp Thing
instead. So Bernie and I wanted to do this story so we took it over to
Marvel instead. <laughs> And
they never did get the Swamp Thing story out of him.
DB: Youd think
they could have done a trade off Bernie does Swamp Thing and then you do
the sequel.
JS: Well he actually
did one issue, he pencilled one issue of Swamp Thing, but he lost interest.
From left to right: Art from the Thanos
series
DB: Youve also
written and published novels.
JS: My ex wife and I,
we wrote four novels together. One
of them we serialised in the back of Dreadstar, two of them got published at
the time, one was Madman and the other was Lady L.
We couldnt get the third one published.
It was City Predators and it was a mixed genre, a physic that tracked
down serial killers. None of the
publishers wanted to print it because it didnt fit into any one genre, so
that one sat on the bookshelf for years.
And through a series of strange coincidences, Steven Spielberg got hold
of it and talked Warner Brothers into optioning it.
This was just before he started up DreamWorks. So they optioned it off and suddenly we had this book that
everybody wanted to publish and we ended up getting a nice chunk of change
through that. <laughs> Then
he went off and started DreamWorks and the whole project went down the drain.
Occasionally it still comes up and it still gets optioned.
DB: Not too bad for a
book thats not been published.
JS: Comes in handy
every so often. <laughs>
DB: You then went
back to Marvel and worked on the Silver Surfer, where you brought Thanos back
immediately. Did you go back to
Marvel just to bring him back?
JS: I just thought itd be perfect. They offered
me to write the Silver Surfer and this was just at the end of the run that
Steve Englehart had, so I said Hey, let Steve finish off the story line and
well go from there. He
seemed like the most logical character. My
time at Marvel is associated with Warlock, Captain Marvel, Silver Surfer; but
basically what Ive been doing is going back and doing Thanos stories,
because hes been in every one of them.
DB: You brought
Thanos back for a few issues of Silver Surfer, killed him off without actually
killing him, and in between the Thanos stories you had this great story arc
where you had the Surfer fighting bureaucracy. One thing that I think is
underplayed when it comes to your writing is the humour that you possess,
something thats also been on display with your many Hulk/Thing team-ups.
JS: They never quite
go over as well as the cosmic stories. I
always find that unusual too.
From left to right: Original
pencilled art for Marvel Feature issue 12 (Jim's first Hulk/Thing story),
Rampaging Hulk page and the classic Iron Man #100 - one of, if not the
best Iron Man covers
DB: I loved the two
part Hulk/Thing story that you did in Marvel Fanfare.
JS: Well one of my
biggest influences was Jack Kirby. And
Jack was also very good at taking the serious characters and putting them into
a situation where, like theyd meet the Impossible Man. Those stories are hilarious.
Of course, I always thought that you need to take a break every so often
from the seriousness or youll burn out there.
DB: Then you brought
Thanos back into the Surfer, which led into the Infinity Gauntlet.
You were working with the likes of Ron Lim and then George Perez. All the way through this did you ever have an urge to start
drawing comics again?
JS: Oh yeah, like you
said I am a very good artist and I was going through a spell where I wanted to
get away from the drawing board. I
think it actually helped me in many different ways during that time.
It improved my art having that time off, plus it gave me a chance to do
some things that, I went off for a while and worked in animation up in
California. In the long run it
wasnt a very satisfying experience because what youre part of in the
giant projects is one pencil. Its not your project, its something else, but I learnt
quite a bit during that time that I was able to put to good use later on.
DB: When you returned
to Marvel, did you ever entertain the option of resurrecting Captain Marvel?
JS: Well, I made it
clear to them that I wouldnt. Just
recently they actually considered doing it, I understand.
I think they decided for a reason not to. It was a good story, it keeps selling <laughs> in
its form, you know, his death. So,
I dont think they have any desire to bring him back.
Plus the fact that nobody would know what to do with him.
DB: I think hes
popped up twice since then, once in the pages of Silver Surfer and once during
Kurt Busiek and George Perezs run on the Avengers.
JS: I actually did a
thing with Peter David in Captain Marvel (the new one) where another
dimensional character of the original, it wasnt exactly the same one,
appeared. I think there was
actually a Thanos story where he meets the soul of the original Captain Marvel
on a rock.
DB: How did the
Marvel: The End come about? My
understanding was that it was to be part of a series of stories, such as The
Hulk: The End, imaginary stories that would see the last days of the
characters.
JS: Well I looked at
the idea, which was sort of an imaginary story, and I didnt really feel
like doing that. So I gave them
this plot and no-one seemed to notice that it didnt fit in with the rest of
them. And I just went off and did
this. They approved it and I went
Ok, this works out well. Theyd
approached me because for years theyd talked about, you know, Id become
associated with the killing-off of characters, Warlock, Marvel and Robin, of
course. They talked about me
killing-off the Marvel Universe. It
was just sort of a joke but I
guess it was just (Joe) Quesada who decided Hey, offer him this thing and see if
he really wants to kill-off the Marvel Universe.
Id passed on previous things, they wanted me to kill-off Shang Chi at
one point.
DB: What made you say
no to that?
JS: Well I hadnt
done the book for years, so I really wasnt into that.
DB: You co-created
Shang Chi. How did that come
about?
JS: Yes, with Steve
Englehart. Both of us were fans
of the TV series Kung Fu. Wed
actually get together with a number of other folks, this was when we were all
just starting up in the business and wed get together and watch that show
as a group. And we approached
Marvel to do that series, we wanted to do it, except Warner Brothers
Productions couldnt give it to us because they were linked to DC.
So they said create your own. We
started to and it was one of the more stranger jobs that I ever did in this
business. It didnt have Fu
Manchu in it in its original state. Marvel
had gotten the rights to that from the Sax Rohmer family, so he was grafted on
to the story. I came up with
dozens of sketches of what I thought Shang Chi would look like; trying to be an
oriental character except when I was doing the costume design. I did just this
generic face on top of the figures and Stan said Thats the face youve
gotta go with. And it was just
this regular face. <laughs> I
remember Steve and I walked around New York City and we talked about it a lot.
Id be hard pressed to say what was his and what was mine at this
point. I know visually it was
pretty much all mine. We came up
together with the whole phone company headquarters for Fu Manchu just from
walking around town. A
lot of it
was chosen because we had to bring Manchu into it, so a lot of it got changed
from the original.
From left to right: Original
pencilled cover art for Dreadstar - issues 4, 2 & 5,
DB: Youve worked
with Allen Milgrom a fair bit through your career, what does he bring to your
work, and was there any resistance to your bringing him with you, as hes
not the most popular person at Marvel?
JS: Well hes not,
but not for his work habits or anything.
Allens very industrious, he was inking all sorts of books for much
more than he should have. It cost
him some quality in the art just from all the work he was doing for them. He was a very popular editor up there for a long time but a
couple of years ago after Bob Harras was fired as the editor up there, hed
had a hard time with Bob, a lot of folks did, and he was inking a Spider-man
book and just wrote in on the walls like some graffiti Ha ha Bob.
And the editor caught it but didnt remove it.
The book ended up going to press and they fired Allen for it, after
hed been working for them for twenty five years.
And they just fired him. Allen
and I go back, way back to high school, him and I used to draw comics together
back in high school. Allens
always done a nice, beautiful job on my work, he brings a nice angle to it,
much more so than a lot of folks and he understands what Im doing.
Weve worked well together and plan to continue to do so.
DB: And Marvel
didnt have an issue with you when you said youd be bringing Allen on
board?
JS: Never came up.
I think the editors knew exactly what I was doing by bringing him onto
the project, but I dont think they wanted to, if I could fix this situation
that they probably didnt care that much of then so be it.
DB: Is there any one
character left that youd love to do?
JS: Over the last
year or so Ive been trying to get this book started, a book called Kid
Kosmos. I had it set up at Cross
Gen and then the deal fell out unexpectedly.
It just fell apart, mostly because of the troubles the company itself
is having. Since then, because it
was turned down by another publisher, other publishers are little bit hesitant
to try it. But thats the one I
really want to do. I think its
my Spider-man and Im just frustrated to all hell that I havent been able
to get it published.
DB: How do you see
the industry these days?
JS: Ive seen it go
through all sorts of changes. Through
the 70s when I first started it was pretty much just work for hire.
And the 80s there was this explosion.
Creators got better rights. Then the Ron Perelmans and that came in
and pretty well stripped my Marvel of all its worth and just about
destroyed the comics during the late 80s, early 90s.
And I see it getting back on its feet again now.
Its a slow process but the movies have helped and the sales are
slowly going up again. A lot of these poor Mom and Pop comic shops that got
completely destroyed, wiped out of the system by some of the retailing
practices at both Marvel and DC during the 90s, a few of those guys are
settling in again and were getting more of these comic book shops so, I
have hopes.
LINKS FOR FURTHER
READING AND INFORMATION:
Jim Starlin's Website: http://www.starlin.com
Kid Kosmos Website: http://www.kidkosmos.net
The above has a plethora of information about Starlin's Kid Kosmos
project, including the first few issues, complete and on-line, design
sketches, a history and updated information as to when and where we can
finally expect to see Kid Kosmos in print. Hey - Jim Starlin comics for
free? Whatcha waiting for??