Missing Magnus

We will get back to Kit West. 
As is too frequently the case these days, my brain doesn't want to go there just now, and i'm tired of fighting it. 
So, meanwhile...

When asked about my all-time favourite Super Hero Team, it was always an easy answer - The Legion Of Super-Heroes. I just loved the mix of superheroics and science fiction. (And, yes - of course, that means that i was reading Marvel's 'knock-off' - the Guardians Of The Galaxy - from page one)

So, it's not surprising that i was a big fan of Magnus, Robot Fighter. Naturally, Russ Manning's, and later Paul Norris's, artwork certainly didn't hurt to draw me in. (No pun intended, really)

But, despite the high quality and personal preference, the series never did as well as it should have. With issue #29 they switched to reprints to save costs. Even in reprints, the book continued for another eight years of quarterly issues.

But, when they switched to the reprint format, there was already a story in the works which got tossed into the files and forgotten for years.

Fortunately, every now and again, somebody seems to go digging in the files. So here are the pencil pages by Paul Norris, written by Mike Royer, for the issue between #s 28 & 29 with a story called Programmed For Revenge -

page art by Paul Norris from Unpublished Magnus, Robot Fighter (drawn in 1969)

It Came From Command D! (King Kirby 080)

When Jack Kirby made the jump over to DC, i eagerly read everything he put out. But my favorite of the bunch was easily the kid from Command D - Kamandi: The Last Boy On Earth.
The King's wild take on then (and now again) popular Planet Of The Apes movies was its own world, separate from any constraints of sharing an active reality with other titles. This allowed Kirby to let his imagination run free and the joy of that freedom seemed to show in the work.
And none of that messing around for the big reveal that we've been on Earth all along at the end. Jack wants you to know right up front, on the cover -

But don't misunderstand - when i say it let his imagination run free, that doesn't mean he just scribbled down whatever came to mind. Kirby created worlds & mythologies whole cloth, and he knew far more of his worlds than he could share in the books. He once said that he had already lived his stories, and he knew where they were going long before we got there.
Kamandi was a fine example of this. In the very first issued, he mapped out where the book would go for the next 30 issues - literally!

The original map is the center image. Those little boxes are some of the splash panels over the next 28 issues to show story locations. Don't worry - they're all right below, in timeline sequence, so you can enjoy the Kirby goodness:

In issue #29, however, it seemed we had hit world's end...

No need to worry, though. Shortly thereafter, Jack just expanded the map:

I have not read any of what's been done with Kirby's creations in recent years. I wonder if the Kamandi Challenge takes us into any of these map areas? There's some for which i'd purely love to see what Jack had planned. I enjoyed participating in round robin challenges back in APA days, so i'll probably check that one out soon.

all page art by Jack Kirby & Mike Royer or D. Bruce Berry from Kamandi #s 1-32 (1972-1975)

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)