The Essentials is a series of large collections of comics that Marvel puts into a big book. One unique feature of these Essentials, is that the comics are now published in black and white. I don’t think that was a great move, but reading it in black and white is still enjoyable. This collection brings together a lot of Warlock comics, as well as issues of other series in which he appears.

The collection mainly deals with his adventures on Counter Earth and the rise of the Magus (Which leads into the Thanos arc that concludes the collection. On his adventures in Counter Earth, he meets alternate versions of other marvel characters like Reed Richards and Dr Doom. In this world, they never obtained supernatural abilities and Dr Doom was a good person. Warlock had to find the Man Beast and stop him from corrupting more and more people. The President definitely didn’t make things easy, but a group of teenagers allied with Warlock to help his cause.

After Warlock left counter earth, he found out about the Magus whose evil had been spreading across the cosmos. Warlock knew that he couldn’t stand a chance in a battle with the Magus at the time, but he went to go challenge the Magus, meeting up with Gamora, Thanos, and Pip along the way. The best part of this arc was easily Thanos’s battle against the Magus. Both of these titans wielded immense power and Warlock felt pretty outmatched against them.

Finally, Thanos revealed his ultimate plan and Warlock had to band together a group of powerful allies to stop him. The Avengers naturally came to take down Thanos and his vast army of alien ships. If their might wouldn’t prove enough, they had backup in the form of The Amazing Spider Man and the Thing.

Warlock made for a pretty good main character. He definitely goes through a lot of development during the course of these comics. At first he’s a pretty optimistic person who’s ready to help the humans overcome evil. Eventually during the Magus arc, he starts to have some pretty serious doubts about the whole thing. He went insane and his gem started to have a will of its own. After he finished with the Magus, Warlock now has a very convoluted mind. He could remember things that occurred in the future and past which hadn’t happened anymore due to time travel, but he also remembered what did happen. Not to mention that both things overlap at some points including Warlock’s battle against himself.

It’s only natural that all of this got to him and Warlock lost all of his cheerfulness and optimism. He withdrew to himself and became a pretty mysterious individual. During the final comics he’s in a state of rage and is ready to avenge the lives of his friends at the hands of Thanos. Warlock initially never used his gem unless he had no choice, (Since the gem steals a person’s soul, meaning that they will never get to pass on to the next world) but eventually he starts to use it more and more. In the final comics he had begun to use it without hesitation and had a fierce battle with Thanos. Warlock is finally able to experience true peace at the end of the collection and his journey was over.

Along the way Warlock met with other fighters including: The Hulk, The Avengers, The High Evolutionary, The Collector, and Spider Man. For the most part they all looked pretty good. Spider Man had a pivotal role in saving the universe and that window of opportunity was opened by the Avengers. The Collector gave Adam Warlock an incredible fight (Which may have been disastrous for Warlock if the Gardener hadn’t stepped in) and the High Evolutionary kicked everything off with the creation of Counter Earth. From the main characters, Pip the Troll was the only one that I especially disliked. He’s not my type of character and he’s not the best sidekick that a guy could have. He makes a lot of jokes and talks tough, but it can only get a character so far.

Overall, the Warlock collection is pretty good. Granted it’s not the most exciting comic collection out there, but it is pretty solid. Their is a lot of cosmic action in the 2nd half and you’ll meet some high tier villains like the Star Thief, Thanos, and the Magus. The plot is also pretty interesting and I’d recommend this collection to all comic fans.

Overall 7/10