Thanos Gauntlet (The Infinity Gauntlet)
The Infinity Gauntlet (Thanos Gauntlet)
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The Infinity Gauntlet is an American comic book storyline published by Marvel Comics, consisting of an eponymous, six-issue limited series written by Jim Starlin and pencilled by George Pérez and Ron Lim, that was published from July to December 1991, and a number of tie-in books into which the storyline crossed over. Since its initial publication, the series has been reprinted in various formats and editions.
The roots of the series date to concepts developed in comics Starlin wrote and drew for Marvel in the 1970s, primarily Thanos and the Infinity Gems. Starlin returned to Marvel in 1990 as the writer for Silver Surfer volume 3 beginning with issue #34, assisted by Lim on pencils. Their storyline developed through the next sixteen issues and the two-issue spin-off limited series Thanos Quest before concluding in The Infinity Gauntlet. Fan-favorite artist Pérez drew the first three issues and eight pages of issue four before his busy schedule and unhappiness with the story led to him being replaced by Lim.
At the start of The Infinity Gauntlet, the alien nihilist Thanos has collected the six Infinity Gems and attached them to his gauntlet. With their combined power, he becomes like a god and sets out to win the affection of Mistress Death, the living embodiment of death in the Marvel Universe. When Thanos uses his powers to kill half of the living beings in the universe, Adam Warlock leads Earth's remaining heroes against him. After the Infinity Gauntlet is stolen by Thanos' villainous granddaughter Nebula, Thanos aids the remaining heroes in defeating her. Warlock ultimately obtains the Infinity Gauntlet and uses its power to undo the death and destruction caused by Thanos.
The series was a top seller for Marvel during publication and was followed by two immediate sequels, The Infinity War (1992) and The Infinity Crusade (1993). The story's events continued to be referenced in-story for decades. The Infinity Gauntlet remained popular among fans, warranting multiple reprint editions and merchandise, with its themes and plot elements adapted into video games, animated cartoons, and film, most notably the 2018 film Avengers: Infinity War and its 2019 sequel, Avengers: Endgame.
Publication history
Background
Jim Starlin introduced Thanos, a main character in The Infinity Gauntlet, in Iron Man #55 in February 1973. He developed the character as a villain in Captain Marvel, a monthly comic he wrote and penciled for Marvel Comics through July 1974.[1] This storyline became known as the "First Thanos War".[2] Starlin left Captain Marvel shortly after finishing the Thanos story.[3]
In 1975, Starlin began writing and illustrating Strange Tales, where he took over the story of Adam Warlock and made significant changes to the character and developed the concept of the Infinity Gems.[2] He reintroduced Thanos first as an ally, then as an opponent of the hero in a storyline known as the "Second Thanos War" that ran until 1977.[2][4] Because of their close publications dates, the two Thanos Wars are sometimes considered to be one storyline.[1] Both are considered "cosmic" stories and led to Starlin being known as a "cosmic" writer.[2][5]
Starlin quit his regular work for Marvel after concluding the Second Thanos War,[6] but occasionally returned for short projects like The Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel and creator-owned work such as the cosmic-themed Dreadstar through the 1980s.[7] He also did high-profile work for DC Comics, such as Batman and Cosmic Odyssey.[5] In a 1990 interview, Starlin described himself as the only writer who had been allowed to "play" with Thanos,[8] although other writers had scripted some tie-in chapters of the First Thanos War.[9][10]
George Pérez is a popular artist known for drawing comics featuring large casts. He came to prominence in the 1970s while working on Marvel's The Avengers before leaving the company to work for DC on comics such as New Teen Titans, Crisis on Infinite Earths, and Wonder Woman.[11] In 1984, Pérez entered into an exclusive contract with DC, which was later extended an additional year.[12]
Development
In 1988, Steve Englehart was writing Silver Surfer and one of his storylines involved the Infinity Gems and Mistress Death. He asked to do a follow-up story where Mistress Death uses Thanos to get revenge on her enemies, but editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco did not know who Thanos was. After the character was explained to him, DeFalco liked the idea so much he wanted to save it for a big summer crossover instead. At the time, he indicated he wanted to format it like "The Evolutionary War", a 1988 crossover spread across the annuals of several continuing series instead of being contained in a limited series.[13]
Because of his ties to the character, Starlin was invited back to Marvel to write the story.[14] Inspired by the work he had recently read from Wilhelm Reich, Carlos Castaneda, and Roger Zelazny, Starlin wanted to purposely add multiple layers to his characters instead of letting them be one-dimensional.[15] He started writing with the expectation that this would be the last Thanos story "at least for a while" and was midway through the story before deciding to make Thanos an antihero.[16] He began writing Silver Surfer with #34, cover dated February 1990.[7] To organize various plot and character points, Starlin made notes on 3-by-5 cards and pinned them to a large piece of plywood hung on his wall.[16]
His first four issues reintroduced Thanos and was seen as the first act of the new Thanos storyline. Initially, Starlin and editor Craig Anderson planned for the story to remain contained within the pages of Silver Surfer. However, Marvel had recently been purchased and the new owners mandated all intellectual property be exploited to maximum potential.[16][note 1] To capitalize on the excitement surrounding Thanos' return, the start of the second act was spun off into the two-issue limited series Thanos Quest, released in September–October 1990.[16][18] The plot then continued in Silver Surfer beginning with #44.[18] In Silver Surfer #46, Starlin reintroduced Adam Warlock and his supporting cast. He included these characters because the editors told him a different writer wanted to use them, and they would let him unless Starlin wanted to use them first. Starlin was not impressed by the other writer's work, so he wrote Warlock into his Silver Surfer story.[14][16] Again, Starlin and Anderson planned to conclude the story in the pages of Silver Surfer, but the sales of Thanos Quest were high enough to warrant another spin-off. After Silver Surfer #50, the plot moved to The Infinity Gauntlet.[16] Because of the time required to write the double-length issues of the limited series and coordinate tie-ins, Starlin had to leave the Silver Surfer series at #52.[19]
The editorial staff did not oppose Starlin's plans to kill major characters, which he believes was partly because Anderson did not share many of the details with his peers.[15] They did, however, limit which of "their" characters could have roles in the story. For example, X-Men editor Bob Harras only allowed Cyclops and Wolverine to appear. The rest of the X-Men cast were shown to have died off-panel or were otherwise omitted.[20] This hesitancy was due in part to the relative newness of summer crossover events.[16][note 2]
Early in 1990, Marvel writer/artist Jim Valentino learned Pérez's contract with DC Comics was going to lapse in August. He contacted Pérez by phone to see if he would ink a cover to Guardians of the Galaxy, a comic Valentino was currently writing and penciling. Pérez agreed, and Valentino told Anderson, who was his editor as well. Anderson passed the information to Starlin, who called Pérez and asked him to pencil The Infinity Gauntlet. After working out the terms with Starlin and Anderson, Pérez agreed to the job. In a 1991 interview, Pérez speculated that he was asked because Silver Surfer and Thanos Questpenciller Ron Lim was too busy.[12]
Although Pérez had been a writer as well as an artist at DC, he agreed to work from full scripts on The Infinity Gauntlet because he was not familiar with the current state of Marvel's characters.[note 3] From the start, Pérez found this to be "a little aggravating, unnerving" because of the limits it placed on him. Starlin gave Pérez a suggested layout with each script to use as a reference, but Pérez ignored them with Starlin's blessing. He exercised this freedom by giving some scenes more space, even moving some scenes to different pages.[12] Early in the collaboration, he asked Starlin to increase the number of characters appearing in the story so his return to Marvel would "knock fans' socks off".[21]
Before he had finished the interior art for the first issue, Pérez completed the pencils for the covers of the first four issues so they could be used as promotional material. However, some characters, like Thor and Quasar, were wearing outdated costumes on the cover of issue three and had to be redrawn, which frustrated Pérez.[12] Starlin, who wrote the scripts months in advance, also had to make minor adjustments to account for changes in these characters and the Hulk.[19]
During production, Pérez was also pencilling War of the Gods for DC Comics, a Wonder Woman miniseries he described as a "highly stressful" project.[22] When he began to fall behind schedule on both projects, he wanted to quit War of the Gods but was contractually bound to complete it.[21] Partly because of this stress and partly because he had become used to writing as well as drawing, he became overly critical of Starlin's scripts for The Infinity Gauntlet. Specifically, he felt Starlin's story could be told in fewer pages.[21][22] His lack of enthusiasm caused him to work slower, and he began to fall further behind schedule.[22] In a 1994 interview, Starlin claimed Pérez was also acting at the time, and that it was a bigger contributor to the scheduling problems than the comic workload.[23]
When it became clear Pérez would not be able to meet the deadline for the fourth issue, DeFalco asked regular Silver Surfer penciler Ron Lim to complete issue #4.[21] DeFalco suggested to Pérez that he let Lim finish the rest of the series, and Pérez agreed. Pérez understood the decision, and later said he felt Lim should have been the artist from the beginning. He inked Lim's covers for the remainder of the series to show he bore no ill will to the change.[22] Although Marvel's management had feared sales would fall with Pérez's departure, sales rose with each issue Lim penciled.[16]
To replace Pérez, Lim had to leave his regular work on the monthly Captain America title. He cites Pérez as an influence and found it "nerve-wracking" to supplant him. Furthermore, the large cast made it the most challenging book he had done at that point in his career. Still, he said it was "fun" to work on the design aspect of The Infinity Gauntlet.[24]
When he saw sales figures for The Infinity Gauntlet, Pérez realized he probably lost "tens of thousands of dollars" in royalty payments by leaving the series. However, he was glad he left when he learned a sequel was in development. Like Starlin, Pérez had begun the project believing it would be the last Thanos story, but management asked Starlin to write a sequel midway through The Infinity Gauntlet.[12][22][23]By then, Starlin had already conceived follow up concepts and knew it would be a trilogy.[23]
Publication
Marvel's marketing department "mega-hyped" the event in the months leading up to its release according to journalist Sean Howe.[25] One aspect of the promotion was sending direct market retailers a kit that included a letter explaining details of the series, a sign to put by their cash register, and a poster 18 inches wide by 36 inches tall.[26] Marvel's promotional magazine Marvel Age featured a cover story on Thanos Quest and a Starlin interview in issue 91 (August 1990), followed by a 7-page preview of The Infinity Gauntlet #1 in Marvel Age #99 (April 1991). The limited series was the cover feature on Comics Interview #94 in March 1991, which included an 8-page interview with Pérez, and Starlin was interviewed about the series in Comics Scene #19 in June 1991.
Marvel initially planned to release a new issue every two weeks, but deadline problems caused it to be released monthly.[19] Issues had cover dates between July and December 1991. Each one was available in both comic specialty stores and newsstand outlets, which included supermarkets and department stores. Although the cover artwork was identical, the edition sold in comic stores featured additional artwork celebrating Marvel's 30th anniversary in place of the barcode found on the newsstand edition.[note 4] Each issue was 48 pages and cover priced at $2.50 at a time when the average Marvel comic was $1.00 and 24 pages.[28]
Tie-ins
To emphasize the connected nature of Marvel's comic books, some ongoing series starring characters seen in The Infinity Gauntlet had contemporary issues showing the main plot from a different point of view or explored consequences of certain events. These issues featured a triangle in the top right corner of their covers with the text "An Infinity Gauntlet Crossover". These tie-in issues did not impact the plot of the limited series and could be skipped by readers without creating plot holes.[16] Doctor Strange#36 was set after the events of the crossover and featured a triangle with the text "An Infinity Gauntlet Epilogue".
Unlike other crossovers such as Secret Wars, Crisis on Infinite Earths or Armageddon 2001 (the competing 1991 crossover from DC Comics) which featured tie-ins from a large majority of their publisher's comics, The Infinity Gauntlet only had tie-ins from titles which were obviously connected to the event or from series which needed a boost in sales.[29] According to Pérez, Marvel's stance toward the tie-ins for its low-selling titles was "do it or else."[30] Starlin remained hands-off when the tie-ins were plotted. He let interested writers look at his plans and choose for themselves which elements they wanted to use. He felt this was the best way to do it since he was unfamiliar with the current state of many of the characters, and had never even heard of Sleepwalker before.[
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