Back in the now dim and distant days of the 1970s, I used to haunt the shelves of the local newsagents, searching for the newest batch of Marvel Comics to be slipped in between copies of the more common British comics such The Beano and The Dandy. It’s probably hard to believe now, in these days of instant availability, but it was really difficult then to find these comics. Among the many local newsagents – there were a lot more them then – only a few ever sold Marvel comics and even with these, it was a hit and miss affair, with copies of my favourite titles appearing some months and then nothing the next: which was particularly agonising if I was teetering on the edge of the usual comic-book cliff hanger. I started with the obvious ones: Spider-man, the Fantastic Four, the Mighty Thor. But then, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had a passing moment of brain madness and introduced the Silver Surfer. I was hooked (for on the written page, I was a complete fan of science fiction, so this blending of comics and SF was perfect for me). But while Lee and Kirby launched comics into space, it was Jim Starlin who made them cosmic. I clearly remember this cover:

Starlin reimagined Warlock, making him a cosmic messiah/schizophrenic, and wrote mind-bending stories about the nature of reality. Just up my star chart! So it was great to revisit Adam Warlock, in a set of stories that I had never read, to find him and his creator as brilliantly imaginative as ever. But what I think I particularly appreciated on this reading was the artwork. I’d forgotten how good it was: there’s something particularly appealing about the cosmic characters with which Starlin populates the story. Completely bonkers – in this version, Thanos murders half the Universe because he wants Death (a superbly disdainful beauty) to love him – but great fun.