How Guardians of the Galaxy 3 sets up an Adam Warlock Marvel film

Does anyone still working at Marvel Studios have a personal passion for Adam Warlock, the big golden dude played by Will Poulter in ? Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3? There haven’t been many signs of it yet – and it will be an important question for the future of the character.

While guard 3 finally brings Adam Warlock – the savior, the avatar of life, the head of the Universal Church of Truth – to the screen after several teases (in the First and second Guardians films), James Gunn is the only Marvel director to have shown an interest in the character. With Gunn moving on to headline DC’s superhero movie roster, putting his Guardians series behind him and completing the story of the original team lineup, his entire roster of characters is now potentially up for grabs. That means someone else will have to decide who to highlight in a future Marvel Cinematic Universe story starring the Guardians, and it may be up to them if Adam Warlock makes the cut. That makes volume 3‘s approach to the character appears to be a smart, carefully calculated move by Marvel.

From comedic to cosmic

Photo Credit: Jessica Miglio/Marvel Studios

The film introduces Adam Warlock as young and hapless, primarily a comic relief character. (Which doesn’t exactly set him apart from the rest of the Guardians cast.) He’s literally unfinished: We’re told that the film’s villain, the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), “popped Adam out of his cocoon of creation too soon,” which makes him malleable and a bit childlike. Adam almost has the power of Superman: he can fly, he doesn’t need any special gear to comfortably survive in the vacuum of space, he’s incredibly strong and fast, and while he’s clearly not invulnerable, he apparently heals very quickly. But in that first appearance, he’s a disgruntled, naïve, easily controlled git.

The events of the film begin to move Adam away from that direction, but with so many other more established, more central characters getting storylines and payoffs to earlier storylines, volume 3 doesn’t have much time for him. He gets the quickie shorthand equivalent of a standard traumatic superhero origin story, and then he’s done. Which leaves him in a place where Marvel Studios could continue to develop him into the kind of main character he’s become in the comics – or we might just never see him again. Gunn and Marvel seem to be keeping those options completely open.

For fans of the gold-skinned cosmic wanderer, a Silver Age Marvel character created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1967, it was fascinating to see how the MCU created elements that could potentially lead to a storyline with Adam Warlock, without committing to anything specific. And that could be because there would be a lot of complicated choices when it comes to translating one of the character’s comic book adventures into a blockbuster film, just like Marvel Studios usually does with its long-running legacy characters.

Is Adam Warlock a villain?

Image: Jim Starlin, Ron Lim/Marvel Comics

Adam Warlock starts on the rogue team in guard 3, but he has a long Marvel history as a hero. Sometimes he works with the Guardians of the Galaxy, sometimes with other characters. (He had a long streak with Hulk in the 1970s, when Hulk went into space.) More often, he works with his own team of traveling cosmic misfits. He had many smaller adventures, such as fighting space pirates or the High Evolutionary’s genetically modified wolf creature Man-Beast. But many of his greatest arcs involved his nemesis Thanos, either trying to keep the Infinity Stones away from him or working with him to protect the Infinity Stones from other forces.

As Adam Warlock’s longtime enemy and thematic opposite, Thanos was one of the villains that made the most sense for the hero in the Marvel continuum. Comic book legend Jim Starlin, who created Thanos, was also one of Adam Warlock’s greatest advocates and developers in his early years alongside Marvel writer-editor Roy Thomas. In their comics, Thanos was obsessed with (and romantically involved with) death while Adam Warlock represented life, and the two frequently clashed — except in stories where they had to team up to save the universe.

It’s hard to imagine the MCU bringing back either Thanos or the Infinity Stones, although in the franchise’s current time warp and multiverse exploration setting, pulling another Thanos into the storyline would be easy enough, and the Infinity Stones are natural with them eternal. But both were such a central part of the MCU’s fan-favorite story arc that a return to that well would risk undermining the MCU’s most famous and successful storyline – and it looked like Marvel was already out of ideas.

Among Adam Warlock’s other greatest adventures was getting tangled up with the Universal Church of Truth, a galactic organization originally focused on worshiping his other defining arch-villain, the Magus – and wiping out planets that refused to follow his example. And tapping into those storylines would bring its own big problems when it comes to playing with the story of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Should Marvel Get Religion?

Image: Gerry Conway, Herb Trimpe/Marvel Comics

As the MCU moves in a larger, messier, more cosmic direction with Phases Five and Six, it’s an open question whether Marvel Studios intends to deviate from the sort of at least marginally socially relevant storylines that emerged in the Captain America films, around current political debates about drone warfare, government surveillance of civilians and a thirst for adventure overseas. Given America’s current political divide around faith-based politics, there’s certainly a lot of potential for relevance in Adam Warlock’s storylines, which often revolve around faith and religion, both overtly and metaphorically. (In one of his first major arcs, the High Evolutionary sent Adam to Counter-Earth to try to get the populace back to moral and ethical living — and he was crucified and revived.) But Marvel also has every reason to shun religious comments or themes as much as possible, and to keep Adam Warlock from fighting oppressive churches and fanatical believers.

That’s not necessarily a problem. Like any MCU version of a Marvel character, Adam Warlock has already been significantly updated and changed for the screen – in guard 3his origin and creator have changed, as has his personality.

Also, that stone on his forehead appears to be purely decorative in the MCU. In the comics, it’s one of the Infinity Stones – the Soul Stone, which gives it the power to suck the souls out of opponents and make them a part of him permanently. It’s possible the whole idea could have been scrapped in a post-infinity saga MCU – not least it could make him feel too much like Vision, who also had an Infinity Stone on his forehead.

And while an Adam Warlock future in the MCU might seem unlikely, the way Marvel has freed or introduced some of its longtime teammates suggests that someone at the company wants him to have a future in the MCU. The end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

[Ed. note: Some very broad end spoilers for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ahead.]

How the MCU builds an Adam Warlock film

Image: Jim Starlin, Joe Rubinstein/Marvel Comics

Like so many longtime Marvel heroes, the comic book version of Adam Warlock has had various teammates over the years, but his core circle includes a couple of Guardians in the MCU original flavor: Drax the Destroyer and Gamora. Both falter by the finale of volume 3, featuring Drax, who looks like he needs direction and some new buds, and Gamora, who is at peace with her Ravager friends but is clearly free to roam the galaxy and do whatever nonsense she wants. Another longtime companion of Adam Warlock, Pip the Troll was recently introduced to the MCU in a post-credits scene from Eternals. Even ending Gamora’s relationship with Peter Quill could be part of this setup as she eventually became Adam Warlock’s love interest.

Another longtime ally of the character, Moondragon, never appeared in the MCU – but canonically, she has a romantic relationship with Mantis that ends Guardians Vol 3 by venturing into space to find herself and decide what she wants as a person. (Which would sound like an open invitation to a romantic arc if Disney weren’t so queasy about queer relationships of any kind.) Moondragon is also Drax’s daughter in comic book chronology, though that comes about through many plot twists and turns . t part of the MCU – at least not yet.

We can assume that any return to screen for Adam Warlock would change him quite radically from the Christ figure who repeatedly died to save entire planets in the Marvel Comics continuity and then was repeatedly resurrected. Whatever his MCU future looks like, it will take a creator like Gunn, one willing to champion more Adam Warlock out of interest in the character’s Marvel history and who has a meaningful vision for his place in the MCU . Or it requires remarkable fan enthusiasm for Adam, which seems unlikely given how minimalist his character and subplot are in this first outing. In a series as colorful and intricate as the Guardians movies, another anxious superguy trying to figure out who he wants to be and who he wants to be with doesn’t exactly tip the scales.

Right now, it seems Marvel is being wary of Adam Warlock – wisely, he’s not investing any significant resources into a character connected to the kind of cosmic space adventures that have mostly been a sidebar in the MCU’s Earth-centric adventures, but he’s also writing him not quite out. Be volume 3 Arc, who evolves from a childish, easy-to-manage, approval-seeking High Evolved minion to a Guardian of the Galaxy, mirrors the story of Rocket Raccoon without the same level of detail or emotional engagement. But it’s a full arc that leaves him with a completed story – or ready to take center stage in a future Marvel phase. Almost all the pieces for an Adam Warlock story are on the board. It just remains to be seen if anyone has invested enough to pick them up.