Seeing as he plays such a key role in the Infinity Stones saga in the comics, Marvel fans have been calling for Adam Warlock to feature in the MCU for years. While the Russo brothers prepared us to not expect him in Avengers: Infinty War, though, it looked like James Gunn had plans for him anyway as he was teased in the post-credits scene of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
However, Gunn’s shocking dismissal from Guardians Vol. 3 means that we’re once again unsure as to whether the one known as Him will make his big screen debut anytime soon. And we’re not alone in that, as legendary comic book writer Jim Starlin – who penned The Infinity Gauntlet and The Infinity War storylines – has admitted he’s “not in the loop” enough to know for certain about Adam Warlock’s cinematic future.
“At the time we’re recording this, the third Guardians movie is on indefinite hold. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I have my suspicions who they’re going to use for a director, but I’m not in that loop, so my guess is as good as anything you read online.”
That said, he does have “high hopes” that Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige will make use of the character at some point later down the line. Whether Gunn’s script for Vol. 3 comes to fruition or not.
“So how much of Gunn’s script remains, how much of the game plan using Warlock in this movie and maybe down the line, you know, Marvel has their own master plan that supersedes all the movies. Feige is basically the captain of that ship, so I don’t know what he has planned, but I have high hopes that we’ll see old Adam coming to life.”
According to Guardians 2, the MCU version of Adam is a creation of Ayesha, queen of the Sovereign – an artificially-created super-being engineered to get revenge on Star-Lord and co. That’s pretty different from his origins in the comics, so the folks at Marvel can go wherever they want with that.
Maybe Gunn’s original treatment of the character could still go ahead if, as reports say, the script for Vol. 3 is used for filming. Or perhaps he could turn up in another cosmic Marvel movie coming in Phase Four? Whatever the case, we imagine that the studio has some kind of plans for Adam Warlock as he’s simply too important a character to keep off the big screen.
