Thanos Creator Jim Starlin Cuts Ties with Marvel Comics

John F. Trent |

Dec 21, 2017

Legendary comic book writer and artist Jim Starlin revealed he has cut ties with Marvel Comics over a dispute with Tom Brevoort, Marvel Comics Senior Vice President of Publishing and Executive Editor.

Starlin first revealed his distaste with Marvel Comics in an interview with CBR:

Thanos is the property of Marvel Entertainment. And with the movies on the horizon, Big Purple is about to enter the rarified classification of being a cultural icon, a character bigger than the comic books, writers and artists that birthed him.

Marvel Editorial has made it clear they want fresh takes on the Titan, so who am I to argue with them?

It’s been fun, Big Guy. Go out and have an interesting and entertaining life after.

However, it wasn’t just distaste. In a Facebook post which now appears to have been edited, Starlin laid out the specific details on why he will no longer with Marvel Comics. Cosmic Book News captured Starlin’s original explanation:

Just to set the record straight, Marvel Comics didn’t pull me off any books, they just made it clear they weren’t interested in using me on any of the tie-in series to the movies or regular series. Even though I lobbied heavily to write the Thanos on-going that task was twice given to other writers, which is Marvel Editorial’s right to do.

What I objected to and what will be keep me from doing any further work for Marvel Editorial was Tom Brevoort approving a plot for the current on-going series, which was pretty much the same as the Thanos story arc in the graphic novel trilogy Alan Davis and I have been working on for Tom for close to the past year. He had 200 pages of script and 100 pages of pencils on this project when he gave the green light to a strikingly similar plot. The on-going will be in print before the graphic novel trilogy. To avoid spoiling anyone’s enjoyment of these two stories I will not be summarizing the striking similarities.

At first Tom denied giving his approval to the plot. When that turned out to be false, he switched to claiming there was nothing similar about the two plots. When that didn’t fly he changed his story to it was all an accident. These changes of excuse and other bits of procrastination ate up a month, by which time the current Thanos on-going art team was too far along for anything to be done about the situation. Too bad for me. So I am moving on.

And, yes, Marvel Entertainment has treated me very well and generously. Them I like.

In a follow-up Facebook post, Starlin reiterated his beef with Marvel Comics and not Marvel Studios.

Starlin’s upcoming trilogy with artist Alan Davis which begins with Thanos: The Infinity Siblings arrives this February.

Starlin notes he has submitted the scripts for all three books and Alan Davis is already working on the art for the second book.

Here’s the official solicitation:

Jim Starlin and Alan Davis return in the first volume of a new trilogy! The Mad Titan has everything he ever wanted — but satisfaction is not in Thanos’ vocabulary. When a temporal distortion on Titan draws his attention, he finds the purpose he’s been searching for: saving himself! An old enemy lurks in the far future, and it will take the combined wits of Thanos, his brother Eros and time-travel master Kang the Conqueror to stop it — and save the Multiverse. But there are other players in this cosmic chess game — and Thanos may find himself outmatched! What lies ahead for the so-called Avatar of Death? 112 PGS./Rated T+ …$24.99 ISBN: 978-1-302-90818-8 Trim size: standard

If I was DC Comics I would be actively reaching out to Jim Starlin to bring him on board. I’m sure there’s a Big Bad in the DC Universe he could do really well with.