Marvel has been the biggest force in comics for decades, putting out the bestselling comics of the last several decades. Marvel has given readers some amazing events, giving readers pulse-pounding superhero stories. The ’80s saw Marvel grow as a creative force as well, the stories buoying reader esteem into the 1990s. The decade of extreme isn’t perfect for Marvel, but there are some great ’90s comics. One of them is a book that many conisider Marvel’s greatest event — Infinity Gauntlet, by Jim Starlin, George Perez, and Ron Lim. The story of Thanos’s rampage with the Infinity Gauntlet is a comic that became an instant legend, a sensation that grabbed everyone who read it. Infinity Gauntlet came out in 1991, the year the bestselling comic ever X-Men (Vol. 2) #1 came out and brought millions of people to comics, with a lot of new Marvel fans picking up this book off newsstand spinner racks (spinner racks were the best).
Infinity Gauntlet is a story that re-invented the summer event book, introducing fans to the stars of ’70s cosmic Marvel like Adam Warlock, Pip the Troll, Drax the Destroyer, and Gamora and resurrecting Thanos. Jim Starlin was on fire with this book, and worked with two of the best artists of the 1990s to create a book that set the world on fire. It’s been 34 years since Infinity Gauntlet came out. In those years, we got the Marvel event cycle, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We got Thanos and the Gauntlet on the big screen. Infinity Gauntlet made a huge impression on the collective unconscious of geek culture, and is the coolest Marvel event of all time.
Infinity Gauntlet Had Something for Everyone
It’s hard to describe what it’s like to have picked up Infinity Gauntlet #4 first. Jumping into a comic mid story arc was very common back then for ’90s kids, and you just hoped that you could catch as catch can. Infinity Gauntlet #4 began with Namor, Thor, Iron Man, and Firelord flying at Thanos in mid-attack (drawn by George Perez). The bottom panel was Thanos smiling. It was the most hype thing ever, and the rest of the book didn’t disappoint, as the Earth’s greatest heroes got killed one by one. This was action unlike anything I’d ever seen in a comic book, and honestly, I still haven’t seen a lot of books like this one. Going back to the beginning of the book shows the craft that the creators put into it. Infinity Gauntlet is not a story about massive battles, although there are plenty of those and they are some of the greatest fights in comic history. There’s two halves to the book — the first three issues, which were slower and more story oriented, as we spent time with Thanos, Death, Mephisto, Starfox, and Nebula as the Mad Titan plays with the power of godhood, there’s Adam Warlock, Pip, and Gamora returning to life and setting their plan into motion, and the heroes of Earth dealing with Thanos unleashing havoc across the world. It wasn’t just people just disappearing, it was terrible disasters killing people, the heroes struggling to save as many people as they could, and often failing. The next three were the fights, as Warlock’s plan was put into motion, the heroes and the cosmic beings battle Thanos, and Nebula almost ruining everything by taking the Gauntlet. It’s perfect event book structure.
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What really sticks out about the book, and it’s something that was somewhat copied in Avengers: Infinity War, is that Infinity Gauntlet is mostly a story about Thanos. One can see that Starlin was partly using it as a way to reintroduce Adam Warlock to a new generation of fans, but it’s first and foremost a story about Thanos. The book gives us all the greatest hits (check out Thanos Quest too, it’s amazing) of Thanos — the lust for power, the nihilism, the love of Mistress Death — but it all leads to the most important revelation about Thanos. After the Gauntlet and the universe is taken from him, saved by Adam Warlock, Thanos is at his lowest ebb and Warlock reads him the riot act, revealing that Thanos’s entire nihilistic worldview is based on his lack of self-esteem. That Thanos always defeats himself. Imagine being an eleven year old new comic reader and reading that. It’s an amazing moment, and once you see it, you can’t help but truly understand who Thanos is. Starlin was redeeming — well, not redeeming exactly, evolving might be a better word — Thanos with this series, bringing his dearest creation to a new level as a character, one we get to see at the end of the book. This is what event books should be about — huge stories with bigger stakes and battles unlike anything readers have ever seen before and amazing character building drama. It is beautifully paced and magnificently drawn. Infinity Gauntlet is a perfect piece of superhero comic ephemera, a story that is still mindblowing all these years later.
Infinity Gauntlet Is a Story for the Ages
Infinity Gauntlet is something else, whether it’s your first event comic or your thousandth. There have been plenty of superhero stories, in all forms of media, that tried to be Infinity Gauntlet. Some of them got close. Some of them, like Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, try their best to be Infinity Gauntlet. And none of them can hold a candle to it. It’s a story about a self-hating nihilist becoming god, realizing he’s not worthy as he kills countless trillions of beings across the universe, losing godhood, and becoming a better person in the process. It’s everything you could want from a superhero comic event. It’s everything you could want from a superhero comic. It’s everything you could want from superheroes.
Infinity Gauntlet is the best of the best. The spectacle alone is worth the price of admission, but the deft character work make it a comic that can stand with the best of them. I can’t stress how amazing the art is. Perez draw most of the six issues, but left the book because he believed that he was going to be allowed to help write the book with Starlin. This wasn’t the case; Starlin had a plan and the two parted amicably, with Ron Lim coming onto the book, having worked with Starlin on Thanos Quest and Silver Surfer. Both artists knock it out of the park — Perez puts in an art homage to Crisis on Infinite Earths that is obvious to anyone who had read both — giving this book the imagery it needs to impress. It’s everything you could want it to be. It’s the coolest thing you’ve ever read, every time you read it.
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