Marvel Two-In-One #63
Suffer Not a Warlock to Live!
The Thing, Starhawk/Aleta, Alicia Masters, Moondragon, Her, and the High Evolutionary are tracking down Counter-Earth, the Evolutionary's artificially created world that has recently been stolen by being unknown. They have finally tracked down the captors who are currently transporting the world in a special world-moving ship. When selecting a party to confront these world-captors, Ben refuses to let Alicia out of his sight, let alone have her face danger with him and stays aboard the High Evolutionary's ship while Starhawk, Her and Moondragon are teleported aboard the alien vessel.
There they are confronted by members of the gigantic Tarkus alien race and find that in spite of the aliens superior size, the heroes are easily able to defeat them. They are, however, unaware that Sphinxor, captain of the vessel, has a special surprise lined up for the invaders. He catches Ben, Alicia, and the Evolutionary by surprise when he teleports them aboard his ship and confronts them. The High Evolutionary then grows to gigantic proportions so that he may communicate with Sphinxor better.
Sphinxor explains that there is a big misunderstanding and the High Evolutionary calls off the battle in order to hear the explanation that Sphinxor has for them. Sphinxor explains that his people were contracted by the mysterious Beyonders to observe Counter-Earth and subtly manipulated Warlock which led to the events where Warlock seemingly killed the High Evolutionary. Believing the High Evolutionary to be dead, Sphinxor and his crew decided to take Counter-Earth to their masters. With his explanation completed, Sphinxor explains that now that the High Evolutionary is clearly alive again, that he should take the matter up with the Beyonders as to what they are planning on doing with Counter-Earth.
Intrigued at the proposition of meeting the Beyonders and figuring that perhaps they can solve the problems that plague Counter-Earth, the High Evolutionary agrees to accompany Sphinxor and his crew back to their employers, much to the Things chagrin. However, Sphinxor allows the heroes to try and resurrect Adam Warlock and transport Her, Moondragon, Starhawk, Ben and Alicia to Counter-Earth's surface. There, they try to resurrect Adam Warlock from his grave, however, while Her's power is sufficient enough to rise Warlock's body from the grave because his soul is trapped in the Soul Gem, the body is nothing but a soulless shell.
Heartbroken, Her returns the body of Adam Warlock to its grave and shrugs off Ben's attempt to console her before flying off into space for points unknown, leaving the remaining heroes to ponder Her's plight before returning back to Earth.
Recurring Characters
Thing, Warlock, Starhawk/Aleta, Alicia Masters, High Evolutionary, Sphinxor
Continuity Notes
Adam Warlock is stated to have died in this story, he seemingly sacrificed his life battling Thanos in Marvel Two-In-One Annual #2. In reality, his soul is presently trapped in the Soul Gem, but it is eventually released in a new body in Infinity Gauntlet #1.
Sphinxor mentions how he witnessed Warlock getting crucified, this happened in Incredible Hulk #177. Sphinxor has been observing Warlock since Strange Tales #178, and he takes credit for driving Warlock temporarily mad in Warlock #14-15.
This is the first mention of the Beyonders, who remain enigmatic for years. Fantastic Four #317-319 delves more into the mystery of the Beyonders which ties them to the Cosmic Cube, the Savage Land, the nether realm of Limbo, Subterranea and the alien world of Arcturus IV. It's finally revealed in New Avengers (vol 3) #33 that the Beyonders claim responsibility for creating the multiverse and that it is all part of a grand experiment on life.
The dates on Adam Warlock's tombstone read 1967-1977. The years on this tombstone should be considered a Topical Reference relative to the date of publication per the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616. Although the dates state that Warlock had been alive for 10 years, this is more reflective of the numbers of years of publications between his birth in Fantastic Four #66 (published in 1967) and his "death" in Avengers Annual #7 (published in 1977). As the Timescale is measured the actual period of time that has passed is two years of Marvel time. Publications released in 1967 fall under "year two" of the modern age and those published in 1977 fall under "year four". Based on the same timescale, it has been roughly a year between Warlock's "death" and this story.
