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

“Victory is Sacrifice”. Truer words were never spoke. It can be quite a sacrifice to read Captain Victory sometimes. While obviously I’m a big fan of Jack Kirby (for those of you who haven’t picked up on that yet), no one can do 25,000+ pages of comics and hit every time, and I’d say this special is one of those rare mis-steps (I do like some other CV stuff, of course).

Normally I’d recount the plot of this issue here, but I’m not sure that’s possible. Something about PFC Egghead inventing a time-travel device that takes some of the crew back to an Dumas-inspired France where there’s a bomb of some sort. There’s also something about Egghead playing the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I dunno, look at the art.

That is a pretty cool gargoyle, and some of the other art in here is nice. It’s just all very strange. Plus it’s the first issue printed on upscale paper stock, and there were still some bugs in the system, so that looks weird.

25-page lead story plus three pin-up/profile pages on different Ranger sections and how they might have inspired Earth myths. All that and the cover inked by Mike Thibodeaux. The text page by the publisher mentions the unpublished MIDNIGHT MEN book that Kirby was working on with Roger McKenzie (Kirby was supposed to do the 48 page first issue before another artist took over the series).

Published 1983

Two vintage Kirby stories, plus other neat stuff, in the first issue of this reprint series from a decade ago.

The first Kirby story is “What Lurks on Channel X?” from JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #73 (1961), inked by Dick Ayers, previously covered in another reprint from FEAR #5.

Next up is “I Fought the Molten Man-Thing”, 5 pages inked by Steve Ditko, from TALES OF SUSPENSE #7 (1960). It features a pilot, Frank Harper, who loses his nerve after an emergency landing. Taking a tropic vacation to recharge, he witnesses a volcano eruption out of which a creature of lava emerges.

He leads the creature to an airfield, where he puts it straight in the path of a wind-tunnel, where the intense cold forces it back and it retreats to the volcano. Apparently he reasoned that there must have been a creature under the lava that needed extreme heat to survive, and would retreat from the cold. This also restores his self-confidence so he can fly again.

It’s a bit of a quickie, so nothing is really fleshed out, but the Kirby/Ditko combination always looks nice. I especially like the third panel of the page above, with Harper leading the Man-Thing away from the village to the air field. Unfortunately this reprint isn’t from the best source material, so a lot of the finer line-work vanishes. Reportedly Marvel is planning a reprint of the early TALES TO ASTONISH, which would have a lot of nice Kirby and Ditko work, hopefully they’ll be able to reconstruct them better than this (I know some of the original art from that era still exists, I’ve seen a lot of them in auctions, but I don’t know about those specific stories).

Also in this issue, two Ditko solo reprints from the same era, a weird brand-new Ditko pin-up page and a Kyle Baker monster cover.

Published 1993

“Were dinosaurs as smart as men? If their kind was known on Earth for 750 million years, one of them was bound to have learned something!”

Thus begins the second adventure of T. Rex Devil Dinosaur and his young companion Moon-Boy. As this issue begins, they almost fall into a trap of spikes in a pit laid by the Killer-Folk and their leader Seven Scars. They escape that but then are caught in a rockslide which buries Devil and knocks out Moon-Boy. Moon-Boy is taken to serve as a sacrifice in the cave of Long-Legs.

Devil soon manages to dig himself partially out when he’s confronted by an iguanodon.

A short battle follows, and the victorious Devil uses his sense of smell to track where Moon-Boy has been taken. Moon-Boy is tied up as a sacrifice to a giant spider when Devil bursts in with a burning stick from the flaming forest, rescues Moon-Boy, crushes Seven Scars and forces the rest of the Killer-Folk into the cave of Long-Legs to meet their fate.

It was a rough life back in the dawn of times, and DD was clearly a take no prisoners type. This is a really fun comic, especially the way that Kirby draws Devil, with a lot of personality, and how he emphasizes Devil and Moon-Boy’s mutual loyalty to one another.

Mike Royer inks the 17-page story, Frank Giacoia inks the cover and Kirby provides a text page titled “There Were Giants in Those Days”.

Published 1978

Reminder dinofans, keep an eye on the PalaeoBlog for the history of dinosaur comics by Steve Bissette, sure to come to Devil eventually, and other science fun.

This is a favourite issue of KAMANDI for many readers, myself among them. Following their involvement in the Bulldog/Leopard wars, Kam and Ben come across a flying figure that’s neither a bird nor a plane. Before they find out more they find a giant comic strip mural carved in stone, telling the story of how the great hero “Mighty One” saved the world during the Great Disaster, creating the Landbridge between North America and Europe. It turns out the gorillas of this region have passed along the legend of Mighty One, distorting it along the way, and do things like fire themselves off catapults with a cry of “Up, Up and Away”.

(and I never noticed before that the “Demonstration Course” has a giant DC logo)

Kamandi is especially interested in the legend, and convinces Ben to compete to prove he’s the Mighty One, competing on such trials as moving a giant stone called the “Daily Planet”. In the end Ben wins the rights to Mighty One’s suit, which one of the gorillas tries to claim but Kam rescues, insisting it be left for the inevitable return of the real Mighty One.

As I said, a favourite from this series, as well as one of the best Superman stories from the era (certainly among those that don’t actually mention Superman…). The giant comic strip mural on the double page spread is spectacular, and the whole thing shows a great understanding of the character.

Long time Kirby assistant Steve Sherman is credited with suggesting the idea for this story, and D. Bruce Berry inks the cover and story.

Published 1975

This 7-page Kirby Ayers story is reprinted from STRANGE TALES #99 (1962). Apparently after several failed attempts at making robots, an inventor named Morgan finally came up with a decent design in 2090. The robots worked fine (oddly the tasks we’re shown them doing are vacuuming and directing traffic) but were feared by people and outlawed. Morgan sends them off a cliff, but secretly keeps one alive, hidden under his house, for the day when humanity can accept the robots.

Then one day aliens secretly land in a cool looking ship…

These aliens apparently don’t do well with confrontation, as they gas the city and sneak in, hoping to steal the robot, copy his design and use their robot army to invade Earth. Unfortunately for them, the creature remains loyal to humanity and steadfast in his insistence on obeying Morgan’s order to stay underground, delaying the aliens enough that the gas starts to wear out. The cowardly aliens blow up their ship and themselves rather than be detected by the humans, leaving the robot damaged and dying on the street. Morgan assumes that the robot had disobeyed his orders to stay hidden and humanity was right to distrust the robots. The robot dies with a tear in his eye, with no one knowing of his sacrifice for humanity.

Definitely one of the highlights of the Kirby/Ayers monster stories, this is a very well drawn and touching story.

As usual for Marvel Monsterworks, you can check out the MonsterBlog for more on this story.

Published 1972

Machine Man is still in the sanitarium, receiving the visual of the distress call, projecting an image of a ship plunging into a distant star while one of the patients channels the verbal distress call. While MM begins to work on a space-time bridge for a rescue, the army, led by Colonel Kragg home in on MM’s location.

MM starts the device built to the alien’s specifications, but finds out that it was designed to exchange them for the alien, and almost gets sucked into deep space.

MM manages to escape and redesigns the device for a straight rescue, even though the alien makes it clear that he doesn’t care who is sacrificed for his sake. The alien arrives, proving to be a robot named Ten-For, a Holocaust Specialist First Class. Just then the army attacks, mistakenly locking in on Ten-For instead of MM. Ten-For partially disables MM and goes off to attack the army, while Doc Spalding attempts to help MM, who has just realized that “Holocaust Specialist” probably means bad news.

A decent story, with some nice visuals. Ten-For is a bit over the top this issue, but would prove to be an interesting villain in the issues ahead.

Mike Royer inks the 17-page story, and the Kirby Checklist credits John Verpoorten with the inks on the cover.

Kirby also writes a text page, “The Unexpected Robot”, speculating about how man will react to competition from robots like MM in the future.

Published 1978

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.

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