It’s A Snap: An Interview With Thanos and Infinity Gauntlet Creator, Jim Starlin

Jim Starlin has been a big part of the comic book industry for the past thirty plus years, and among his creations, such as Drax, Gamora, and Thanos, these comic characters come to life are taking the country by storm in the Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame films.

I had the opportunity to interview Jim Starlin and had quite an enjoyable talk with a man whose impact is still being felt today.

With the depth of story in the original Infinity Gauntlet storylines, do you think that the Infinity War and Endgame films captured the comic book concepts well?

Yeah, you never come in expecting a faithful page by page adaptation because, only a fool is going to figure a multimillion-dollar film company is going to adapt it faithfully, honestly, and completely.

Because I have worked in the (Hollywood) business before, on the peripheral edges, so I came in expecting many changes for a number of reasons, among them the fact that the (movie) Marvel Universe does not have all the characters that they had in The Infinity Gauntlet (comic series). So, right off the bat, I had to accept that there would be changes and to tell you the truth though I have been so pleasantly surprised at how faithful and how close they’ve tried to stay to the original story, as they move along. But there have been more changes in Endgame that there have been in Infinity War I stayed with a spirit and but Markus and McFeely and the Russos have done a terrific job with my books. I couldn’t be more pleased. I think they have a slightly different Thanos but he’s very recognizable from my  Thanos and Josh Brolin did a terrific job acting the character out and you know I’ve got no complaints.

Is there a difference in process writing cosmic stories like Infinity War and Dreadstar then on the street level stories during your Batman run?

Well, during the Batman run you know, there’s a much more grounding in reality. What I was reading at that time had a big influence  I was following Elmore Leonard while I was doing Batman and Andrew Vachss and a number of other people that were writing in that crime genre. And I was sort of grounded at that time and actually trying to clean up my act a little bit that I have not actually been able to continue on.  With the Cosmic stuff came back when I went into a less restricted lifestyle, and we’ll leave it at that.

Your stories are normally fast paced and high stakes in nature, did you find your time in the service influence this at all?

Well, everyday life, and in reading, and it just going through everyday existence, Logan Mailer once said only true stories end in death.  And these superheroes are dealing in games that are very high stakes and I have actually tried to bring a little bit more reality into them over the years and be more normal I guess. I know it’s entertainment so it’s going to be fast paced but at the same time, I want to be able to sneak in those more little in-depth things to make the characters a little bit more than the two-dimensional ones that are the norm. Yeah, I played with my own little formula along the way and it’s worked out pretty good, as far as I’m concerned. You know it’s worked really good and those responses have been pretty positive I figure I’ve hit some kind of right track here

A snap of the fingers is such a human gesture, what was the idea behind having Thanos use such an everyday action as the initiator to kill half the universe?

It’s also a very dismissive gesture. You go to Europe and some countries when you want to get a waiter you snap your fingers. And I always found that kind of rude but, you know it seems to be fading out its time goes on. But I just thought that he would not so much be contemptuous, but, sort of dismissive with everything other than himself that snapping fingers would just be the most natural gesture. I never gave it all that much thought. I’ve been kind of surprised at what a major element to the story that was once it came out, and the adaptations since then, it’s a personality thing I didn’t think would become such a big factor.

With the different adaptations of your characters coming to life in some way, is there one that is a favorite?

Well, they’ve all been different so it’s hard to say I have favorite ones and that, but you know Zoe Saldana’s Gamora has been very much what I envisioned. She’s probably what’s most faithful to what’s in the comic books. And Thanos  I’m blown away by what they’ve done with him. Josh Brolin’s study of the way somebody that huge would move and his delivery with some of his speeches I can’t imagine anyone else playing him at this point. Then Bautista’s Drax. With what (Director James) Gunn and Bautista came up with for Drax, they sort of came up with this unique character that’s a cross between the visual of the modern-day Drax and my version of Drax when he was brain damaged inside the Infinity Watch. so they come up with something completely different but at the same time all I can do is to delight in it because Bautista has such great sense of comedy timing that just about any scene he’s in, he rules so yeah it’s a mixed bag I am curious to see what they do with Warlock and Shang-Chi down the line. From what I understand we’ve got some surprises coming our way, I’m still hoping for Pip the Troll to show up at some point.

In your Batman run, was the KGBeast due to the Cold War and rumors to military experiments and such?

Well also then we had Reagan as president, and at that point, he looks like a terrific president compared in retrospect to whom we have currently. You know there were some things that were going on at that time that what against my views. So you’ve just a little bit of the Cold War winding down, and we tell this story as an epic struggle which is the kind of thing I like reading and writing about. So, from Thanos to Dreadstar are all epic struggles, and at the conclusion of the Cold War, that’s something caught my eye.

Just to make sure I have my character chronology correct,  Dreadstar came before Thanos, right?

No, Thanos was my first creation. I think of Dreadstar and Thanos as my children. As I have not dropped any progeny of my own I tend to think of these characters as my offspring and the two of them are you know are obviously my most popular at this point. Now Thanos was in my first full-length actual comic up at Marvel Iron Man (starting with )#55 and Dreadstar soon came along, at least not until another five or six years is when the Epic line was coming up. And I started out with the Metamorphosis Odyssey, in Epic Illustrated and in the fifth episode Dreadstar pops up. I always intended him to be the main character, I just delayed his appearance for a little while, taking some dramatic license. Basically, he went off on his own after that. Now, we’re reprinting it all at Ominous here I think he’s going to have a whole new life again.

And what are your thoughts on the Thanos Copter?

Well, you know the story behind that they had the Spidey Super-Stories for kids and I understand it’s just become one of the most popular memes out there right now. You know when you’re working for somebody like Marvel and you create somebody, you have to accept the fact that other people are going to come around and do things with a character that may not exactly do what you had in mind, and I think the best example of that is probably the Thanos Copter. There have been a few other things, I remember talking to Mark Waid some time ago and he was writing Quasar and he had this Quasar fighting an X-Men villain, and  at the last moment they couldn’t use the X-Men villain and so they just threw in Thanos and when saw it I wondered why didn’t they just put a big red splat on the cover I mean there’s no way that Quasar could go toe-to-toe with Thanos or even five minutes. Eventually, years later I ran into Waid and he said I’m really sorry about that whole thing but I had no control over it, it was stuck in the last moment and I’m really embarrassed. But the Thanos Copter is the best one along those lines.

Is there any merchandise that you own, based on your characters, that when you look at it, amazes you?

Well, Side Show (collectibles) did this Thanos statue, which probably weighs 50 pounds. I  went down and did a promo video for it at the time. And they had to ship it to me much later because it was in production in  Korea or wherever they make the statues and paint them up. And when it did show up my wife happened to be out of town, so I took a couple of pictures of the statue sitting there at the dining room table having dinner with me later watching the presidential debate and I threw those up on Facebook and everybody got a kick out of them.

But I think my favorite is one that came out a couple of years ago an Infinity Gauntlet oven mitt which was the first piece of merchandise they made. It was found out later on it burst into flame anytime you got it around anything hot, so they recalled it. So, it’s probably the most rare piece of Infinity Gauntlet merchandise out there. I also thought that the thing burst into flames is very appropriate. Some of those merchandising stuff I have to scratch my head about. Supposedly there’s this thing going around where you put Thanos’s face into your email and I kept thinking why would you want this guy showing up in your email that’s not a good sign.

Do you have any new prose novels coming out?

Yes, “I’m the best” we just released,  “Mind Games” an illustrated version of this graphic novel that I wrote and there are three more novels following it. I call it a Trilogy with a prequel but I injured my hand about three years back so doing he illustrated versions of the other three novels is just not going to happen because I can’t draw that well anymore. So I’m finishing that up and I’m currently working on novels that make up the Good Boys Trilogy or the Hardcore Station trilogy as it’s called. And as soon as I get that polished off I think we’re going to do text versions of that possibly as a hardcover thing to start off with, then probably at Ominous then probably find more of a mainstream publisher after that. And then do the paperbacks and what have you down the line. Yeah, there’s an epic story coming down the line within prose from me within the next year. There will be an announcement coming down the line from me. But, there is nothing official yet but it’s coming that’s the thing with this business there’s always things in the works but you can’t talk about it until it’s actually happening, until contracts are signed and all that so we just try to keep her mouth shut until the meantime.

With Avengers: Endgame wrapping up the first ten years of Marvel movies, with it incorporating concepts from your works, do you feel that this is the best send-off for these films?

You are in for a very satisfying experience. It’s spectacular, it’s an emotional rollercoaster, it’s a tremendous wrap up for the last twenty movies that they have made. This is a conclusion, they’re not running an end credit scene for this movie at the end,  because this is a nice little place for it to come to a conclusion. It will be all new after this. I’ve got to tell you I walked out of there and happened to run into the Russo brothers and screenwriters Markus and McFeely afterward and quite frankly I was tongue-tied and all I could say was I love it. I don’t know how I can articulate it better than that. It’s very dense and I really have to see it maybe two or three more times. One, because of the terrible sound system we had in the auditorium we were at. I missed a few lines here and there, but I just felt it was a great wrap up to what they’ve been doing for the last ten years once you see it, you’ll see what I mean. I’ve been looking up the movie reviews and I haven’t seen a bad one on it yet so I think they hit all the cylinders just right this time around, you’re in for a treat.

I would like to thank Jim Starlin for taking the time to chat with me and share some of his insider knowledge with us!

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