Alright so Adam Warlock is the newest hero, anti-hero,
uhhh misunderstood baddie turned goodie to be introduced into the MCU,
who may just be one of our main stay characters leading us into Secret Wars in a few years.
And throughout this video we’re going to be breaking down this character from his origins,
powers, big moments in the comics, along where he may be going in the future of the MCU. I
know one place Will Poulter’s character won’t be going… anywhere near a waterfall
Anyway, potential minor spoilers for Guardians vol 3, just a heads up, you know, so you’re not mad,
but yeah I’m your host Jared, now let’s get into.. I mean, let’s talk about Adam Warlock
So obviously Adam Warlock is the latest character in the MCU, teased all the way back in the post
credits scene from Guardians vol.2, with the Sovereign Queen teasing he is the next step in
their evolution. Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger… He is basically a Daft Punk song, but this latest
potential MCU hero has a rich history in the ole’ world of comics dating all the way back to 1967,
where he sorta kinda made a first cameo appearance in Fantastic 4 issue 66 & 67,
as HIM. A genetically created perfect specimen, by a group of scientists calling themselves
the Enclave. Now like any science experiment, these old dudes wanted to use HIM for nefarious
purposes, but luckily HIM sensed this, damaging their facility, and getting the heck outta there.
HIM then had a run in with Thor, after trying to steal his gal pal, Lady Sif,
and was promptly given a smackdown by Odin's son, resulting in HIM returning to the safety
of his regenerative cocoon to heal. Now at this point, the character was revamped
a bit by editor-in-chief Roy Thomas and Gil Kane, making him into the Christ-like figure
we see here in live action. No lie, Thomas later claimed in 2009, inspiration for this change came
from the wildly popular, at the time, musical Jesus Christ Superstar. I shit you not haha.
Changing his name to “Adam Warlock”, Adam like Adam and Eve, and having his second origin be tied
to the High evolutionary. Inserting the Soul stone into his noggin, and sending him to Counter-Earth,
a hopefully utopian planet, very similar to earth, that the High Evolutionary was trying to perfect.
However Man-Beast, a failed experiment of the High Evolutionary, was running a muck on this
utopian planet, which resulted in Adam Warlock, or just Adam or just Warlock, depending on your
preference, becoming Counter-Earth’s first high profile superhero. Trying to rid the
planet of the evil presence of Man-Beast, which eventually was achieved by Warlock.
After these feats, Adam ventured out into the cosmos, where he came across the Universal Church
of Scien… I mean Truth… Truth… the Universal Church of Truth, which was an intergalactic cult
led by a nutjob named Magnus. The goal of this church was to spread its teachings across the
universe, planet by planet. If they were willing, they would assimilate their teachings into their
culture, and that is that. But if they were not willing, Magnus and the church would essentially
pull a Ronan the Accuser and "purify" the planet, eliminating any and all who did not submit.
Now the shocker is, Magnus is revealed to be a corrupted future version of Adam Warlock because
of the prolonged use of the Soul stone. The ole’ I gotta defeat my evil future self storyline. So
in order to defeat himself, Adam teamed up with Pip the Troll, Thanos and his daughter Gamora,
to defeat Magnus. After doing so, Adam then turns on Thanos when the other five infinity stones are
discovered. But is displaced in time, defeated, as his soul resided in the Soul stone after Thanos
took it from him. In a last ditch effort, Adam’s soul projected from the stone, now a full on
being of pure energy, defeated Thanos by turning him to stone. Talk about…. Rock bottom. Adam’s
consciousness retreats back to his new home in the Soulworld, which exists in the Soul Stone.
The final bit of Adam Warlock’s story follows that of a very familiar story we’ve already
seen on the big screen, the Infinity Gauntlet Saga. Though a bit different here or there,
the general framework of Thanos, who surprisingly found a way back to life,
acquires all of the infinity gems into his gauntlet in order to court death,
snapping his fingers, half of the population disappears, blah blah blah.
But Adam, who has been living in Soulworld, within the Soul Stone, is resurrected alongside
Gamora, and teams up with Earth’s heroes to defeat Thanos and take back the stones. However instead
of them being destroyed, they are otherwise split up amongst who are coined the Infinity
Watch. This comprised of Adam Warlock, Gamora, Pip the Troll, Drax, Moondragon, and secretly shhhhh
dont tell… Thanos. That last one threw me for a loop, but whatever you do you Adam.
Obviously Adam my boy has been through a lot, and each incarnation of the character seems to have
slightly different powers and abilities, with the most common being superhuman speed, durability,
stamina, strength, agility, the ability of flight, manipulation of cosmic energy into cosmic
projectiles, recuperation, which is essentially him reverting back into a cocoon for regeneration,
like some sort of caterpillar/butterfly boy, and immortality, solely…. Pun intended on the Soul
stone being a technicality that he cannot die, because death cannot claim his soul.
Like a Dark Souls boss, he also became stronger and stronger with every resurrection, which later
allowed him to dive into "quantum magic" on top of the cosmic powers he already possessed. This
allowed him to tap into quantum energy, creating force fields and teleport at the speed of light,
creating wormholes and other irregularities in space. The Soul stone also allowed for transmuting
healing factor, stealing the essence from other living beings, and transferring that to himself
or others. Basically this dude has a stacked perk tree of any and all powers out there,
even being in the possession of the full infinity gauntlet a time or two.
Obviously this MCU version is going a bit of a different way with things, because the Soul
stone isn’t implanted in his head, so a lot of those powers are morphed into different things.
In the comics he also had a relationship with the Guardians of the Galaxy, even leading them,
and that’s where I think they will be taking things with the character moving forward.
Nothing is officially announced as of now, but with Secret Wars being on the horizon along with
his connections to the Fantastic Four, I believe he’ll play a prominent role in at least Secret
Wars. And as a soft reboot that Secret Wars is rumored to be, I could see him along with Rocket
and maybe some other new faces being the rag tag group of the Guardians. It really depends what
Kevin Fiege has up his sleeve, and how faithful they are looking to stick to the source material.
But yeah, that is the rough cliff notes version of this new face we hopefully
will be seeing a few more times in the MCU moving forward. I’d love to
hear your thoughts on the character. Do you wanna see more of this chiseled jawed man,
and what did you think of Will Poulter’s portrayal? And I’ll let you know
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But with that out of the way, thanks for the constant support,
I’ve been Jared, I’ll see you in the next one, take care, and peace.