Jim Starlin Iconic "The Death of Captain Marvel" TPB "1st Edition" Cover Original Art (Marvel, 1994)
Captain Mar-vell dies in what's perhaps the most poignant book in comic history, Marvel's first graphic novel, The Death of Captain Marvel. Since then, Marvel has kept Captain Mar-vell dead now for over 40+ years and it was unheard of for a cosmic super-hero like Mar-vell to die, especially from something so relatable to us as human beings, a disease like cancer. Starlin's own story hits home for the title as he wrote the novel based on the loss of his own father from cancer pouring everything he had into the art and story. It still remains one of the all time classic stories of our time, and Starlin's both writing and drawing Marv-vell at the end was only fitting.
The TPB "1st Edition" cover to The Death of Captain Marvel pencils and inks by Jim Starlin, is a true masterpiece of original art. The original cover, which played homage to Michaelangelo's "Pietra", (also a masterpiece of art), depicted Death holding Mar-vell, but the 10 heroes shown in the background are in their mightiest form; Thor's hammer out, Hulk's ready to smash, Cap's shield out, Spidey in a web shooting pose etc. It's said that Starlin created this alternate cover (image left) to show the same A-List heroes, with the exception of swapping Colassus for his creation Drax (more fitting), in an entirely different scene, in which you feel each hero's heartache and grief by Mar-vell's side as he passed on to the afterlife. Thus, this alternate cover depicts grief and sorrow throughout, with no hero at their mightiest.
The roots of the "Death of Captain Marvel" began two decades before Jim Starlin produced this cover. In Captain Marvel #34 (1974), Starlin ended his brief but highly memorable run on the title that began with #25 by exposing Mar-Vell to a nerve gas called Compound 13 while fighting the villain Nitro. The nerve gas initially caused Mar-Vell to collapse. While he appeared to recover, we learn in "The Death of Captain Marvel" that the nerve gas gave Mar-Vell cancer, which eight years later led to his tragic demise.
Other than the original cover image and a reprint of Captain Marvel #34, as mentioned above, this TPB cover was the only original alternate cover used for the title. SInce then, this alternate cover has been used in nearly every reprint for the title, whether it was The Life & Death of Captain Marvel Ultimate Edition as the cover in 2019, or the "End Page" to the most recent Death of Captain Marvel HC Gallery Edition, in what we've counted it's been used in at least 6 different editions over the last 30 years. In a lot of ways it's now a cover that's almost synonymous with the original cover from 1982.
If you're like me, collecting comics from the early 90's into the 2000's, this was the cover you were more than likely introduced to. First off, I was 3 years old when the original cover was released, but I've heard from older collectors, even then it was hard to obtain, always sold out and was a pretty penny shortly after it's release. Not to mention the original book was in large format, not on the comic spinner racks so to speak. This TPB cover was in comic format, and was the first version ever to hit the rack and was an almost reintroduction to this storyline in the 90's. At a time for me where I dealt with my own loss of a parent within that same year of this release, this version of the book I grabbed onto, and was something I could relate to at a young age.
It's also public knowledge that the original cover (Pietra version) was retouched (re-inked) by Bob Mcleod sometime in the 90's when the marker inks severely faded, just as a lot of the interior pages had. Re-inking / altering a piece after publication is frowned upon by collectors, especially not in the hand of it's creator in this case. Though the original cover still exists, it's been altered from its original state, which means this cover (right), is now the only existing original art cover for The Death of Captain Marvel unaltered in it's original form. A truly stunning cover that is held dearly in our personal collection.