Warlock: Rebirth #3 // Review
He was created to be the next evolution of humanity. A lot of things have changed since then. Now, his replacement has come, and he’s ready to retire into a realm of peace and tranquility. Too bad he can’t. He’ll try his best to escape the paradise that traps him in Warlock: Rebirth #3. Writer Ron Marz continues an epic-level cosmic adventure that is brought to the page by penciler Ron Lim, inker Don Ho, and colorist Romulo Fajardo Jr. The retro feel of the art mixes with a powerful delivery of the cosmic in another satisfying return to the early 1990s Marvel Universe.
It’s a familiar site. A pair of blue-skinned life forms look over a newborn humanoid somewhere in deep space. The planet is doomed. There’s an advanced spacecraft that is set to be an arc in space sending the last-born offspring of a doomed planet. Suddenly, there’s a glowing green mass that shoots into the scene from somewhere in the vast distance of the heavens. There’s an explosion. It is Eve Warlock. She’s there to save the planet. She has the power to do so. Something’s askew about the whole situation. Meanwhile, Adam Warlock is trapped in the Soul World. If he’s going to be anything other than a memory, he’s going to have to face Eve without the power of the Soul Gem that she now possesses.
Marz is taking traditional notions of cosmic-level action and jostling them in provocative directions. The near-Superman origin story is just one of many different elements that Marz is playing with in the course of the issue. The character of Eve is a fun concept of a type that’s been explored pretty extensively elsewhere. Eve has been created and gifted with power by the High Evolutionary, and she’s defending life in a universe that she’s only been a part of for the length of a few panels here and there. It’s the type of thing that’s been explored before, but never in quite this way before.
Marz’s Infinity Gauntlet-era story is once again brought to the page with pitch-perfect era-appropriate art by Ron Lim, who also drew The Thanos Quest and the early 1990s Silver Surfer issues. The feel of the comic continues to perfectly mirror the era. It feels like it might have been pulled off the rack in a comics shop during the original Bush administration. Lim’s work has progressed beautifully without a significant change in style since the early 1990s. As a result, the actual execution of the action feels lightyears ahead of where Lim was decades ago without feeling at all different stylistically.
It’s a remarkably beautiful retro comic that seems to be circulating around the edges of some really interesting themes. Marz seems content to let the ideas slowly develop and play out as the mini-series punches its way with great power through conflicts that feel like a natural progression from some of the more clever aspects of the Infinity Gauntlet era.
