Daily Archives: February 23, 2005

2001 – A Space Odyssey #8 [1977]

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Posted in Genre, Science Fiction.

For the final three issues of 2001, Kirby introduced X-51, starting with “The Capture of X-51”. Seems the government has been experimenting with machines in the form of men, but found that the X-Series of robots tended to become unstable and violent. Doctor Broadhurst activates the built-in self-destruct for the robots, and they all explode. All except X-51, the robot that Doctor Abel Stack took home and raised as his son, Aaron.

2001 - A Space Odyssey #8 [1977]

Stack has given X-51 a human face, and removed the self-destruct mechanism and sends him off before the bomb can explode, staying to face it himself. The army pursues Aaron, finally capturing him, and he’s held by Colonel Kragg, who’s bitter because a previous rebel X-series robot caused him to lose and eye. Kragg removes X-51’s human face, leaving him in his cell. Having an identity conflict, X-51 is suddenly confronted by the mysterious monolith and approaches it.

Fun start to what would be a rich concept for Kirby to explore for a dozen issues. It’s also a nicely dense story compared to many of the era, with only a single splash page, which led to a story with a lot of twists and details despite the short 17-pages he was given.

Mike Royer inks the cover and story.

Published 1977

Giant-Size Fantastic Four #2 [1974] – The Red Ghost and his Indescribable Super-Apes

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

The new story in this issue featured the Watcher, so the reprint in the back went back to the introduction of the Watcher in FANTASTIC FOUR #13 (1963), a 22-page story inked by Steve Ditko.

In this story, Reed re-news his determination to beat the reds to the moon (and Roy Thomas helpfully points out this was before the mid-1970s detente), and discovers a new energy source from a meteorite sample. Planning to go alone, Ben convinces him otherwise.

gsff2

I love these kinds of scenes, Ben stuffing Reed in a giant tube until he agrees to take them all on the mission.

Leaving exactly when the FF do is Ivan Kragoff, Russian scientist, who is going to the moon with a trio of trained apes. He’s also going with no shielding on this ship, hoping to replicate the FF’s cosmic ray experience from back in #1 and get powers. That actually works, and he and the apes get a variety of powers. The FF reach the moon first (with a glorious 1/2 page shot of the long dead city in the Blue Area), and face off against Kragoff, now known as the Red Ghost, and encounter the Watcher, who would of course become an important part of the FF mythos in later years. It’s almost surprising what a throw-away concept he is in this first story.

As usual at this point in FF history, the story is pretty creative, gradually getting better and more complex. The art is wonderful, with lots of innovative ideas and clever bits of storytelling thrown in. Ditko inks over Kirby are always interesting to see (this in one of just a handful of examples on the super-hero books). He brings a lot of his own texture to it, but seems to be very faithful to the pencils as well.

Published 1974