“Battle On A Very Busy Street” opens with Doc Spaulding helping Machine Man get rid of the inhibiting cylinder that Ten-For placed on him last issue, and then going off to find the alien Autocron. Along the way Machine Man has a crisis on identity when he hears how the soldiers talk about stopping the machines, leading to an internal discussion with the spirit of his creator/father Abel Stack.

Regaining his faith in his own identity, Machine Man goes after Ten-Four, planning to return him through a dimensional warp, only to see Ten-For has taken hostages and is summoning more of his race.

Very good issue, moving the story nicely, and there’s some especially good Kirby scripting in the identity crisis scene and some nice bits of humour.

Mike Royer inks the 17-page story and Frank Giacoia inks the cover.

Published 1978

This issue contained two Dick Ayers pencilled Sgt. Fury stories, one reprint from #11 and one new story about D-Day. The Kirby content is a quick reprint of the first SHIELD story from STRANGE TALES #135 (1965), just a year after it was first published.

It’s a great origin story, a very tight 12-pages of Kirby/Ayers art which establishes the now Colonel Fury as he’s recruited to lead the international law enforcement efforts against the forces of Hydra. Although having his doubts about his own qualifications given the super-science realm and international scope of SHIELD, he quickly proves himself by foiling a sabotage attempt and taking charge in the confusion.

Lots of the key elements of the series are introduced, like the Life Model Decoys, the cool air-car (with the flipped tires), the Helicarrier and of course Hydra! Immortal Hydra! Cut off a limb and two more shall take its place! Man, I always love that Hyrdra salute, especially with the visual.

I also always liked that Tony Stark shows up in here, but with absolutely no reference to Iron Man. That works well to establish the series firmly in the Marvel Universe, but sort of off to one side, where it works best (while Fury also works well as a supporting character in other books).

Published 1966

This 13-page Kirby/Ayers story is reprinted from 1961’s JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #67. For the reprint, Gruto is recoloured from red to green (though oddly not on the cover, which takes the monster image from the Ditko original cover and redraws the human figures completely).

In this story, a reporter needs to come up with a big story to save his job. As fate would have it, he and his girlfriend happen across the crash landing of an alien ship containing Gruto.

Gruto has lost his memory, and the reporter decides to take advantage of that to pretend Gruto is the harbinger of an alien invasion, in order to make the story bigger. His lies eventually lead Gruto to be attacked and flee, when he finally regains his memory it turns out he was from an enlightened race send to share their secrets with Earth, but now he deems humans unworthy. The reporter loses everything, including his girlfriend.

Fun story with a nice turnaround on the conventions, and of course the usual great Kirby/Ayers artwork. Some odd captions in the narration, like this one from when the reporter is called into his editor’s office: “Thirty-five fearful steps later I reached the door of doom”. Very unlike most of the stories, I wonder if this was written by someone other than one of the regulars (I think Larry Lieber scripted most of the Kirby stories of this era).

Published 1971

After first adapting the movie for a tabloid format special, Kirby launched a monthly series to explore some of the ideas of the movie with his own unique flavour.

The first half of the story goes into the prehistoric past and explores the life of “Beast-Killer”, an early man who was given an evolutionary push from the mysterious monolith, gradually making more and more sophisticated weapons to aid in his hunting. We then leap forward to the exciting future of 2001 and astronaut Woodrow Decker, whose ancestor was Beast-Killer, in the asteroid belt.

Decker and another astronaut are stranded on an asteroid with various mysterious artifacts and a strange beast. Decker is then taken by the Monolith on a cosmic journey, ages rapidly and turns into a “New Seed”, one of the flying space babies from the end of the movie, going off to explore the cosmos. Pretty much a straight variation of the story from the movie, fortunately Kirby would inject more of his own ideas in future issues. This one does have some great artwork, in particular the prehistoric stuff (a great peek ahead to his DEVIL DINOSAUR run).

Kirby also provides a text page, “The New Seed”, where he talks about a few of the ideas that the mysterious concept evokes in him and that he plans to explore.

Cover and story inked by Mike Royer.

Published 1976