That’s the problem with power-mad Titans like Thanos; you don’t have anybody to tell you, “Master, I think this is a very bad idea and I can’t support you.” Because you know what would usually follow: “AAAAAARRRGHHH!”

If there’s any complaint, it’s that we have to contend with yet another of Jim Starlin’s cosmic ninnies manipulating our lives, who never lifts a finger to intervene one way or the other. We also have a Warlock much preferable to the one given in his 1999 miniseries, one who’s finally able to appreciate and return Gamora’s affections, a lady he’s known through several incarnations.

From the first page our old friend Adam Warlock has been given to madness. The next five issues are spent charting how he got to that point. We might as well call this another regeneration, ala Doctor Who, since he keeps crawling into his cocoon and coming back to life. Before anything else, the mad Titan warlord, Thanos, almost dies in the hatching of a black hole. Now that’s one hell of a way to open the series. Starlin seems to have a fondness for motif, though he bends the laws of physics for the purposes of the plot.

His old friend Pip the Troll discovers Adam’s cocoon stuck in an intergalactic insane asylum. This is delivered to Thanos, who is forced to recruit the psychic Moondragon to probe Adam’s sleeping consciousness. By the end of the first issue we know at least that this is not the true Thanos, but four of his illegitimate clones, guiding the Universe towards oblivion. But who is the mysterious mystic bookending these stories?

The villains, all variations of Thanos, are a blend of android, clone and mystical dopplegangers, whatever the hell that means. And we haven’t met the fifth child, the Omega, a being gifted with the genetics of Galactus, which even the mad Titan admits was “a severe lapse of judgement”. But like all bad projects, once he got started it was a challenge he couldn’t resist.

Infinity Abyss was a limited series written and pencilled by Starlin and published by Marvel Comics on a bi-monthly basis, from August to October 2002, and was the last series I had read featuring Adam Warlock to date. Adam Warlock follows us throughout the series, a bleeding head in the margins providing the necessary narration. He’s back to the butch look he had when he was only known as Him.

Ever since the Infinity Gauntlet and the follow-up series, The Infinity Watch, every comic book Starlin did in the 90’s had to have an ‘Infinity’ Something tagged onto it. Jim Starlin pulls together a stellar cast, a near-reunion of the Infinity Watch, consisting of the usual suspects: Dr. Strange, Gamora the adaptive daughter of Thanos, Moondragon  the daughter of Drax the Destroyer,  plus Genis, the son of Mar-vell who became the second Captain Marvel, and…Spider-Man?

The story introduces us to yet another abstract being, Atlez, a nice enough fellow. At least he doesn’t seem hellbent on meddling/ screwing with ordinary people’s lives. He just does his job securing reality, but I think we’ve had enough of these jokers f—ing with the cosmos already. My god, there’s Eon, the Stranger, Chaos and Order, the Tribunal, Eternity and Infinity—AAAUUGH! Just how many more of these interdimensional busybodies are we going to have to contend with?

The time has come for Atlez to surrender his throne to a new flesh and blood abstract. This is a role carried on by representatives of various races since the age of dinosaurs on Earth. Atlez called to Adam two years ago with the knowledge meant to be imparted to his successor, Atleza. However the information was too much, resulting in Adam’s confinement in his cocoon in an asylum for two years. It was also Atlez’s efforts to find “alternate means of salvation” that also accidently revived Thanos’ errant incarnations, who are only good at bringing about universal oblivion.

The heir is Atleza, a cosmically precocious human child who is just adorable, and more articulate than the average two-year-old. Other events in the Marvel Universe have been delayed by Atlez’s heir, and if the child is not brought forward immediately, our reality will cease to be.

Adam narrates this tale as he assembles the usual cast of heroes. Thanos’ failed genetic experiments, titled the Thanosi, are based on Marvel’s mightiest figures; X is modelled on Professor Xavier of the X-Men; Armour, on Iron Man; Mystic on Dr. Strange; Warrior on the Gladiator; and Omega on Galactus. You thought ONE Thanos was bad? Try FIVE.

In defending little Atleza in a tag team battle with Dr. Strange and Adams on one side, and the Warrior and Mystic on the other, Adam is forced to steal Warrior’s soul. Therein lies the cause of what brought Adam to the brink of madness—which requires another pep talk towards the finale from Thanos to snap him out of it: “Adam, you are deluding yourself into self-destruction! THINK!…What copy has the power and clarity of the original? None! So your struggle against Warrior’s insanity is one you can win! For his spirit is but transferred data and not true personality!…Muster your will and you can triumph over his shallow convictions! For they are nothing compared to my own much darker depths!”

“Darker? How much darker?” Adam asks.

“Trust me, you do not want to know! Now GO!”

The final colossal battle is ultimately only a diversion; in the end Omega is left on an unstable planet where Thanos’ entire battle fleet blows him to the oblivion he craves. All in all for a universal Armageddon series this was a enjoyably compact adventure with a thankfully limited cast of characters, leading to a satisfactory conclusion. We can rest easy knowing reality is safe in the hands of little Atleza. In the end she has Adam and Gamora to guide her toward maturity. In the final panels we see Atleza spinning atoms, while Adam is finally able to share the affection he’s owed to Gamora.