Adam Warlock is an artificially created human who was born in a cocoon at a scientific complex called The Beehive. The goal of his creators, the Enclave, was to create and subsequently exploit the perfect human. While in the cocoon, he became aware of his creators' plans for him. He awoke from the cocoon and rebelled. Having not had a childhood or parents, Warlock was lacking in maturity and restraint. He first met Alicia Masters, who was brought to the Beehive to sculpt his face, as he initially radiated so much light that a sighted person could not see through. She found him encased in a cocoon, from which he shortly emerged, destroying his creators that he hated so much, and teleported away. Warlock later came into conflict with the Fantastic Four and Thor; during his encounter with Odinson, he was killed when he attempted to force Thor's sometime paramour Sif to become his mate.

Adam was revived and his behavior improved when he met the being known as the High Evolutionary. Under his guidance, Warlock's life was given direction and purpose. Warlock also came into possession of the Soul Gem. The Soul Gem, one of the Infinity Gems, allowed Warlock to sense the souls of others and draw them into a dimension contained within the gem. Warlock was then transported to Counter-Earth, an attempt by the High Evolutionary to create a Utopian society out of the framework of the original Earth. Unfortunately, it had fallen under the influence of the Man-Beast, a wolf that had been genetically modified into humanoid form by the High Evolutionary. In the process of ending the Man-Beast's regime, Warlock's narcissism led him to another death, this time by crucifixion. Warlock used his powers to resurrect himself. Warlock, in recreating the resurrection of Christ on Counter earth, lead to the creation of an organized religion planet wide; this also was the first step toward Warlock’s "God Complex".

Traveling in the Hercules Cluster, Adam learned of the oppressive Universal Church of Truth that worshiped the Magus. Appearing to Adam, Magus revealed that they were the same being. In one alternate future (Earth-7528), the Magus used the soul gem to saturate Adam’s body with a beacon radiation that summoned the In-Betweener, inhabitant of the realm between fact and fantasy who took Adam to his domain, where he was driven mad. Emerging as the Magus, this Warlock discovered he had returned five thousand years into the past and began building his church. Aware of his history and fearing the Magus’ existence would deprive him of someday owning Adam’s soul gem, the mad god Thanos of Titan attempted to prevent the occurrence by plucking a young child, Gamora, from an alternate future and raising her to be Magus’ assassin. En-route to his destiny, Adam was imprisoned on the Church star ship, “the Great Divide” where he teamed with his fellow prisoners Pip the Troll and absorbed the soul of Captain Autolycus into his gem against his will. Later on trial on Sirus X the Church’s Homeworld, Adam absorb Judge Kray-tor’s soul. Thus unleashing of his soul gems vampiric appetites was possibly caused by Spinxor of the Ringshippers (a.k.a Prime Movers) of Tarkus in his first bid to prevent Warlock from interfering in his theft of Counter-Earth for mysterious Beyonders. Realizing that the gem was sentient, thirsted for souls and could not be removed, Adam sank into despair. Gamora joined Warlock and Pip on Homeworld, but Magus easily thwarted Gamora’s assassination attempt, then doused Adam with the beacon radiation. Gamora’s ineffectiveness forced Thanos to intervene, and the primal battle between Magus’ life-force and Thanos’ death-force allowed Adam to enter the Titan’s time portal and follow his kismet trail. Choosing the shortest path, Adam saw himself dying only months later and absorbed hid future self’s soul into the gem. The two timelines thus diverged and the Magus seemingly ceased to exist.