Right On Target (King Kirby 081)

Over the years, Jack Kirby worked on a lot of westerns, as he did most every other genre. His best known work in the genre is probably his Kid Colt, Outlaw covers for Marvel in the early 60s, and Boy's Ranch, produced with long-time partner Joe Simon.
For me, the greatest western work from The King was, again, partnered with Joe Simon for their Mainline publishing company, and later Charlton - Bulls Eye. For primary evidence, allow me to submit the fabulously designed covers for the 7 issue run. #5 is probably one of my all time favorite designs for any cover.

Simon & Kirby were rocking the west with this series. If those covers aren't enough to convince you, let's go to issue #3 (as we so often do) and take a look at the lead tale. Let me say right up front, this should be a genre, not just something we get on very rare occasions, like here and Valley Of Gwangi.
But, moving right along...

Bulls-Eye - the cowboy equivalent of a superhero, from fashion sense to story encounters. Only seven issues, and Jack didn't draw as much as i'd like - sometimes just the splash for a story - but i just dug him. And Kirby seemed to have fun with him, as in this sketch:

Now, here - go have some fun and color that groove-tastic cover from #5 yourself:

BullsEye by Simon & Kirby (1954-1955)

Launching the X-51 (King Kirby 076)

One of Jack Kirby's Odder creations (which is saying something given some of the competition) is X-51 aka Aaron Stack aka Mister Machine aka Machine Man.

Over the years since The King unleashed our living robot hero, he's been all over the Marvel universe, even became a Watcher at one point. I suppose that's almost appropriate given X-51's origins...

Jack only did nine issues of Machine Man...

...but in that short time he was both creating wildly and asking questions, exploring potential issues. Not just within the stories, but in the letters-free letters column, as well. A decade before Star Trek: The Next Generation was lauded for exploring potential social ramifications for self-aware machine intelligence, Kirby was already asking questions. For example, here's his essay from the first issue:

Here's the introductions to the next few essays:

This one seems particularly relevant as we advance machine systems capable of dealing death & destruction autonomously. Heck, we even have robotic suicide bombers now!

But we still haven't gotten to the odd bits. The parts they can't talk about when they retell Machine Man's origins. The true why of the blurb

X-51, you see, evolved beyond his mere machine nature. He did so back before Machine Man #1, in the same manner our species was induced to evolve.
Trapped, bound, facing dismantlement... it happened...

...he encountered The Monolith!

Next issue, after pulling a Nick Cage...

...he makes his escape, and while hunted has a second encounter with The Monolith:

Beyond his evolutionary advancements, this encounter with the boy leads him to thinking more like a 'superhero' and he soon changes his alias from Mr. Machine to Machine Man. (This might also have been to avoid licensing issues with MGM & Kubrick)
So, they can't usually mention any of that stuff, since the first three issues of "Machine Man" were actually the last three issues of 2001: A Space Odyssey:

Jack turned a basically impossible assignment - adapt 2001: A Space Odyssey into an ongoing series - into both a wild, semi-psychedelic, evolutionary ride and a fairly serious probe at issues of the coming 30 years. (The King always liked to think 3 decades into the future) And he created another enduring Superhero in the process.

King Kirby - Always Amazing.

X-51 covers & panels by Jack Kirby & Mike Royer for 2001: A Space Odyssey #s 8-10 (1977) and Machine Man #s 1-9 (1978)

not to be confused with The 100 (King Kirby 068)

It seems customary to note the 100th post in a new blog, but here we are two thirds through the King Kirby 100. Confusion aside, how to mark the occasion while keeping the focus on Jack Kirby?
Y'know... The King had a few 100s of his own, his first way back in 1945:

Of course, it was monster covers in the 50s...

 ...even on the cowboy books:

But Jack also hit a #100 cover for the genre he and Joe Simon invented:

As you'd expect, superheroes returned in the 60s...

This is surely the #100 that thrilled me the most when it hit the stands. We were all waiting for the 100th issue of Fantastic Four, and man did that cover deliver the goods-

Oddly enough, his Captain America #100 was actually the first issue of Cap's solo title, picking up the numbering from Tales Of Suspense where he'd been sharing the book..

 Don't say that doesn't count - Jack was there 100 issues later for #200's cover, too:

A feat he managed to duplicate with the Fantastic Four:

There's a frustrating number of times when Kirby stopped drawing covers during the 90s, then returned just after #100. This list would have doubled in size were it not so. Scanning through his output to find these leaves me even more amazed at the sheer volume of work he produced. Consider that at his output rate, for 40 years he would have reached his 100th page about every 36 days. It seems like half the artists working these days can't turn out 100 pages a year. Jack Kirby was turning out 1000 pages a year for four straight decades.

And he ruled through Quality, not quantity.