New Book Follows Berkley Grad's Comic Book Career

The education cartoonist Jim Starlin received at in Berkley has served him well, although probably not in the way his teachers imagined.

“As soon as I started developing the thought processes the nuns trained me for, I questioned what they were teaching me. The good education I got from there taught me to rebel from the very teachings they were trying to pump into me,” said Starlin, 61, a 1967  alumnus who lives in Woodstock, NY, with his wife, Sonny Lan.

A veteran of the comic book industry since 1972, Starlin has worked on Marvel Comics’ Warlock and Captain Marvel and DC Comics’ Batman, among others. The character Thanos, an evil godlike being, is his most famous creation. A variation on the mythical Thanatos – the personification of death and mortality – Starlin created Thanos at Oakland Community College in the early 1970s and later debuted him in an issue of Marvel’s Iron Man.

Starlin’s career is chronicled in the new coffee table book, Jim Starlin: A Life in Words and Pictures (IDW Publishing/Desperado Publishing, $49.99). Written by Starlin and edited by Joe Pruett, the book starts with Starlin’s beginnings in Metro Detroit and goes on to cover his love of comics, service in Vietnam, his break into the comics medium and more.

“I do a line of retrospective art books, and Jim seemed liked a natural for the treatment, so I asked him, and he said yes,” Desperado publisher Pruett said. “I then went about gathering artwork – some from him personally and some from elsewhere – and started putting the book together while Jim wrote the text. I'm pretty happy with the end product.”

Starlin pulled no punches in his narrative, talking about some of the creative differences he had with Marvel and DC through the years.

“Comics is the art form that I love,” Starlin said. “It’s a strange business model they’re run on. Quite frankly, a lot of companies in this business are trouble.”

Besides Thanos, Starlin’s also best-known for killing off Captain Marvel and Robin.

In 1982’s The Death of Captain Marvel, Starlin, who chronicled Captain Marvel in the 1970s, had the opportunity to kill him off. What was unique is that the hero didn’t die in battle, but of cancer.

“It was basically Marvel’s decision (to kill the character). I’d been off the book for years, and sales plummeted. Subsequent writers admitted they didn’t know what to do with it. They asked me to kill him ..." Starlin said.

“I really felt I put a lot into it. My father died of cancer. It felt right the whole way through. I knew it was a pretty good story, and sold better than expected. I made a lot of money off that book. Being the first American graphic novel by a major company helped, too.”

During his stint on Batman, Starlin killed Batman’s sidekick, Robin (this was the second character with that name since the original Robin, Dick Grayson, outgrew the role) in 1988. Fans disliked the second Robin, and DC held a telephone poll to determine whether he should live or die. The fans wanted the second Robin dead. The Joker, Batman’s archenemy, beat Robin to death. 

“To me, going off to fight crime with a teenage sidekick wearing primary colors while you hide in the shadows is not only a cowardly act, but a criminal act. I always had trouble with (Robin), and I lobbied (for his death) from the beginning,” recalled Starlin.

“(Superheroes) play life-and-death games all the time," he continued. "It only seems fair occasionally that someone doesn’t make it through to the end of the story. Norman Mailer once said all true stories end in death. Why shouldn’t it work that way in a fantasy situation, too?”

Al Milgrom, who graduated from Berkley High School with Starlin, became one of his regular collaborators. Milgrom edited The Death of Captain Marvel and later inked Starlin’s pencil sketches during several stints on a subsequent Captain Marvel title, among other projects.

“I’m always agreeable with Jim. We’ve always tried to look out for each other. We go back a long way,” said Milgrom.

“To me, he’s always a pleasure to work with. I like his pencils, always have," he said. "Not only is he a terrific creative guy – he has great story ideas and is a great artist – he’s also one of the most professional guys I ever met. He’s always on time. He can still draw with the best of 'em and gets it in on time.

"Few guys can do a monthly book these days, but Jim still can. That’s a real rarity in today’s business," Milgrom said.

"In that respect, he’s an editor’s dream: He’s a writer and artist who can get it in on time, and it’s good stuff. You can’t ask any more than that.”