Who Is Adam Warlock’s Dark Alter Ego? Meet Adam Magus

Adam Warlock is one of the most complex characters in the Marvel Comics Universe. He was created by the Enclave in their efforts to establish a benevolent dictatorship but recognized this on time and managed to break free. Warlock was reborn and remade numerous times and established himself as one of the characters with enough power to affect reality itself. But, just like with any powerful character, Adam Warlock has a dark side, and this is what we will discuss today. Namely, Warlock’s dark future self. Let’s see who Magus is and how he compares to Warlock.

Magus is an evil version of Adam Warlock from the future created from In-Betweener, an agent of Chaos and Order to act as an embodiment of life to counter Thanos’ embodiment of Death. Numerous versions of Magus have existed over the years, but in general, he is always evil and always attempts to guide Warlock toward a path that would ensure Magus’ creation. Magus possesses almost all the abilities that Warlock has at his disposal, which makes him immensely powerful.

Now that we’ve given you a quick summary of who Magus is, it’s time to analyze it in more detail. If you’re interested in more, stay with us and keep reading!

How was Magus created?

Before we explain how Magus was created and his purpose, we must first explain In-Betweener’s role in all of this. In-Betweener is known to be a cosmic entity inhabiting a quasi-realm somewhere beyond the borders of the known Universe. He serves as a synthesis for major concepts of the Universe and is often named the polar opposite of Galactus.

In-Betweener is the Lord of Chaos and the Master of Order, and as such, he is tasked with maintaining balance when it comes to some aspects of the Universe. When Thanos resurfaced as a champion of Death, he brought into question the balance of the whole reality. This is where In-Betweener comes in.

In-Betweener captured Adam Warlock and brought him into his quasi-realm. He attempted to transform Warlock into the champion of life to oppose Thanos’ champion of Death.

However, what happened exactly is that Warlock was left in this quasi-realm for centuries. While the insanity and loneliness ate away at his spirit, he retreated into his cocoon but couldn’t escape.

He emerged from the cocoon as Magus, the dark future version of Adam Warlock, and he needs to make sure that Adam Warlock follows the same path that will ensure his creation and continued existence.

As soon as Magus emerged from the cocoon, he arrived at the planet where he was attacked. Using his cosmic powers, he proceeded to annihilate the population, and those who survived started to worship him as a god. Magus proceeded to raze worlds and conquer planets, and thus the Universal Church of Truth was born with Magus as its leader.

This version of Magus was defeated by Thanos, who found out about Magus’ plan, and to ensure his own victory and survival, he formulated a plan to destroy the future in which Magus was created and eventually stopped him.

There have been many versions of the Magus

The second version of Magus came into being when Adam Warlock used Infinity Gauntlet to expel both good and bad aspects of his soul, but he accidentally gave them corporeal forms. The evil half of his soul quickly gained consciousness and named himself Magus, and tried to seize Infinity Gauntlet for himself.

This time, Magus was stopped when Infinity Watch replaced the Power Gem with a fake depowered Power Gem, which resulted in Magus trapping himself within the Soul Gem in Soul-World. Being only half of Warlock’s soul, he was powerless there and in phantom form. He, however, manages to escape from Soul World but is stopped by Genis-Vell.

The third version of Magus was born when Adam Warlock accidentally merged with him while he tried to close the Universal Fault. In a desperate attempt to prevent the expansion of the Fault and safeguard his Universe, Adam Warlock had to use a spell that merged his unanchored timeline with Earth-7528, the only timestream he knew of with a stable and somewhat decent future.

Although he successfully stopped the spread of the Fault, Warlock was left weakened, creating an opportunity for the Magus to seize control of his body.

To counter this, Kang the Conqueror sent a group of Guardians of the Galaxy back in time, warning them that the Magus was consuming all potential futures. Kang provided them with a Cosmic Cube to aid in their mission. Star-Lord attempted to persuade Adam to regain control over his dark side but was unsuccessful.

They started fighting, and the Guardians seemingly lost Mantis and Cosmo along the way. Star-Lord managed to temporarily revert Adam’s transformation using the Cosmic Cube. However, the Magus proved unstoppable, leading Star-Lord to honor Adam’s request by ending his life as the only means to stop the Magus’ reign.

This was, however, staged by Magus as he managed to revive himself and unveiled his sinister plan to unleash the dark rulers of the Fault and transform the Universe into a Cancerverse-like realm. Magus would have been successful in his task if it wasn’t for Evil Mar-Vell, who confronted Magus to ask him whether Thanos was destroyed in this timeline, which was pretty much the only task this version of Magus had.

Magus said that he didn’t deal with Thanos yet, and Mar-Vell proceeded to kill him. Punishing him for his failure.

The fourth version of Magus was derived from the third version of Magus as the Universal Church of Truth managed to resurrect him in the form of a child.

How powerful is Magus & what are his powers and abilities?

Magus is immensely powerful, being half of Warlock’s soul, the dark half, he has more or less the same abilities as Warlock.

Magus has superhuman strength, speed, and durability. He can likewise encase himself in a cocoon, just like Adam Warlock, if the situation calls for it. Can manipulate several forms of energy and even time, and he can teleport himself across vast cosmic distances and even from separate future timelines.

After being trapped inside the Soul World, Magus gained additional abilities to absorb life force and to control the minds of others. Like Adam Warlock, Magus has cosmic awareness and other additional ultra senses.