Biography

October 9, 1949 · Detroit, Michigan, USA

James Patrick Starlin

5′ 9″ (1.75 m)

I've always used my work to examine what is currently going on in my own life. It's cheaper than going to a shrink. "The Death of Captain Marvel" was a great way of working through my own father's death. When I finished with Captain Marvel I had turned him from a warrior into a mystic. Adam Warlock was a mystical messiah - where to go from there? Decided to reverse course and turn him into a suicidal paranoid/schizophrenic, which was the way I was feeling at the time.

I'm a firm believer that in-depth subjects can be better handled in a fantasy setting. ... Let's face it, traveling to some far off land is a terrific way to break the mold, to do something different. Isn't that why we go on vacations?

I've made more money in novels than I did in my entire career in comics. The few years I did novels, they paid off so well, I don't have to be a slave to doing comics. But I'd rather do comics than novels. If I wanted to do it just for the money, I'd run off and do another novel. I just don't have the juice for it. I'm really not interested in it. It's a love for what this medium is.

On Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): With all the hype I expected to be a bit disappointed. It just couldn't be as good as everyone was predicting. And they were wrong. It's even better than everyone said. It just might be Marvel's best movie yet.

As big as an elephant is, a whale is still larger. Everything's relative. Even gods have their spot on the food chain.