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Post by aaronstack on Aug 9, 2024 3:55:09 GMT -5
 Why Machine Man? I first encountered Marvel comics in 1980, when my family moved to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, for my father’s work. A short walk from the hotel we were temporarily housed in brought you to the Post Newsagency, where you could buy the local newspapers and a broad variety of Australian, British and US magazines sent over by sea and therefore anything from a couple of weeks to several months out-of-date. And comics of course. Back in the UK I’d read plenty of comics, but almost exclusively humour and sport titles. But here were rows and rows of American superhero comics for me to choose from, all Marvel titles, all with the 40c price crossed out in biro (or sometimes, thick black marker) and replaced with ‘45t’ (PNG currency: 1 kina = 100 toea). To stop you standing there reading without buying, all the comics had two staples keeping the pages closed. I got quite good at extracting staples from comics with my fingernails without causing too much damage (to fingers or comics...). On that fateful February day, I chose Marvel Two-In-One #60 (The Thing and Impossible Man) and Marvel Team Up #90 (Spiderman and The Beast). I think I was going for maximum value – two heroes in each! – even though I had no idea who three out of the four cover stars were. Machine Man #13 was probably on those shelves, but it mustn’t have grabbed me. Some robot being smashed by a wrecking ball, big deal. I never considered buying another issue through to the end of its run. But at some point over the next three years, I found a copy of Machine Man #10. I might have picked it up at the local book exchange, or at one when we holidayed in Queensland, who knows, but by that point I was a voracious comics reader and ready to try anything, especially as this appeared to be a great starting-off point. ‘All New! All Different!" etc.  Coincidentally, on one of those Queensland holidays I picked up a second-hand copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey #5, one of my favourite comics ever and, not that I knew it then, part of the series which introduced (Mister) Machine Man. But I digress. As I'll get into in due course, MM #10 was a reset issue, the first post-Kirby issue. Machine Man's origin was retold, his powers redefined, and a villain established. I really enjoyed the issue. But there were no later copies to be found... ...until we moved back to the UK in 1984 and I discovered Odyssey 7, Manchester's pre-eminent comic shop. It still exists in 2024, located on the trendy and central Oldham Street, full of plastic tat and trade paperbacks. But in those days it was located slightly out-of-town, hidden away in a concrete shopping precinct in the University. It carried all the new releases and had second-hand bins to die for, where I picked up the other eighteen issues of Machine Man over a few months. There was something about Machine Man which appealed to mid-teen me: his quest to find out who he was, the outsider who could attempt to pass as human but was always given away by those tell-tale differences. OK, so I didn't have red and yellow lozenges where my eyes should be, or crazed Colonels and sociopathic Senators gunning for me, but some days it felt like I did. And the budding comics nerd in me was excited by seeing two giants of the art form, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, having a run on the same book. OK, so I could tell it was neither man's best work, but how often could you see two greats' version of the same character one after the other? Machine Man disappeared into the limbo of pointless guest appearances after his book was cancelled in 1981, a 4-issue miniseries set in the far-off future of 2020 notwithstanding, until 1999's X-51 heralded a most unexpected 21st Century renaissance. I stopped reading new superhero comics in 1991 so I've not read any Machine Man books from X-51 onwards. I thought it would be fun to go back right to the start and reread Machine Man all the way from his Mister Machine days in 2001: A Space Odyssey, through his own title and his wilderness years, and then explore X-51, Nextwave, and all that comes after that. I'd love it if you'd join me. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Aug 9, 2024 4:12:42 GMT -5
This should be a fun thread to follow. I loves me some Machine Man, as my complete run of the Kirby/Ditko series (including 2001 #8-10) plus the TPB of the DeFalco/Trimpe/Smith mini can attest. Many years ago, I'd toyed with a proposal for a limited series teaming X-51 with Madame Masque, Stingray, The Toad, and The Missing Link but it never got to the point where I'd have been comfortable submitting it. I mention it only as proof that he was and remains one of my favorite Bronze Age Marvel characters.
Cei-U!
Go get 'em, aaron!
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 9, 2024 4:14:41 GMT -5
This is the thread that CCF needs right now! Thank you!
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Post by Ricky Jackson on Aug 9, 2024 10:17:14 GMT -5
Great timing, as I just finished the original series yesterday. It is a fascinating book to examine, with the Kirby-Ditko split. Personally I preferred the Ditko issues--at times it felt like I was reading a lost Marvel Silver Age book--but they were not without their faults. But that may be recency bias, as looking back at the Kirby issues, I'm reminded there was some pretty cool stuff in those books too. Anyway, look forward to this thread!
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Post by Batflunkie on Aug 9, 2024 11:51:58 GMT -5
Remember getting this particular issue of Wizard back in the day that had an X-51 promo comic in the inside. Thought the concept/art was neat  |
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Post by aaronstack on Aug 11, 2024 2:26:12 GMT -5
Wow, and there I was thinking this would be a minority interest.
First review coming later today. As 2001 #8-10 haven't to my knowledge ever been reprinted/collected my recaps of those might be a bit longer than usual. Hope no-one nods off halfway through.
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Post by jtrw2024 on Aug 11, 2024 4:36:15 GMT -5
I bought a Machine Man TPB a few years ago, but it only collects the main series, plus some guest appearances. I assume there's some sort of rights issue, but I really hope the 2001 series gets collected one of these days since I've never read these comics. Currently there's a Monolith sized hole in my collection, but I'll definitely be reading your reviews and following along once you get to Machine Man's solo series.
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Post by aaronstack on Aug 11, 2024 5:13:21 GMT -5
2001: A Space Odyssey #8
Cover: Jack Kirby/John Verpoorten The Capture of “X-51”
Writer/Penciller/Editor: Jack Kirby Inker/Letterer: Mike Royer Colours: Petra Goldberg Editor-in- Chief: Archie Goodwin We open deep in the bowels of a research complex with an out-of-control robot, X-35, having an existential crisis:  Several soldiers try to hold him down, with limited success. Flames don’t work either. Cutting to another part of the complex we meet Doctors Broadhurst and Haines. It seems that X-35's behaviour is typical of the ‘thinking computers in the form of men’ Broadhurst has been creating. He considers that they need more time to get it right, and meanwhile the best thing to do is blow up all the existing X-models. Handily, there’s an explosive device implanted in them all and Dr Broadhurst can set them off by remote control. Less handily it’ll take 30 minutes for them all to explode. Clearly Bluetooth hadn’t been invented yet. X-35 is the first X-model to explode, followed by all the rest, taking down most of the complex with them.  Did I say all the rest? For some reason X-51's detonator appears to be on a long fuse. We’re told that Dr Abel Stack has taken personal charge of X-51, to try and give it a human identity. Seems Stack has become quite attached to X-51, considering him almost his son. Broadhurst thoughtfully lets Stack know that his almost-son will be blowing up at some unspecified point in the next 30 minutes. We cut to Stack’s isolated lab-residence, where X-51 is getting fitted for a human face. The face covers the number on his forehead and is very lifelike, other than not being able to cover up his yellow/red robot eyes. Stack calls X-51 ‘Aaron’. Aaron calls Stack ‘Father’. Stack takes the ticking explosive device out of Aaron’s back and waits for him to put on a purple jumpsuit.  Stack gets Aaron to memorise a photo of himself, weirdly forgetting that his face is right next to the photo he’s holding up. Perhaps it’s a particularly good photo, one where the light catches his hair just so?  Stack takes Aaron outside and implores him to ‘cancel the gravity equation’ and fly far, far away. As Aaron does so, Stack ponders that perhaps he was too good at his job. Not good enough to work out a way to escape a loudly-ticking explosive device though, as we see he’s been holding it in his hand all this time. ‘It’ll detonate before I run fifty yards’, he soliliquises. Not even trying his luck, Stack stands there and lets the bomb go off in his hand.  Aaron flies to an unnamed city and decides that standing on a ledge several stories above the ground would be a good place to do some thinking. The cops are called, followed by the military. Confused and wondering why he’s being attacked, Aaron manages to hide in a cave. While he’s searching his memory banks for answers he’s discovered by soldiers with a sonic bazooka, which renders him unconscious. When he wakes up, X-51, tied to a bench in the research facility and his human mask removed, is confronted by the one-eyed Colonel Kragg. Kragg seems to have a chip on his shoulder re: thinking computers in the form of men.  According to Dr Haines he’s still the best security chief they’ve ever had, which makes me wonder about his predecessors. X-51, left alone, reflects on Kragg’s abuse, wondering why humans must hate and fear him.  As his anguished cries fill the chamber, a gentle sound heralds the Monolith. ‘In some strange manner’ the Monolith restores X-51's equilibrium and allows him to break free of his bonds. X-51 walks towards the Monolith...  BackgroundJack Kirby had professed his love for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey in the fan press in the late sixties, so it wasn't completely out-of-the-blue when a 70-page, Treasury-sized Kirby adaptation of the movie appeared when Jack returned to Marvel in July 1976. The adaptation got a mixed reception, but it was plain that a series had always been planned to follow the Treasury edition as 2001: A Space Odyssey #1 followed in September 1976 (cover dated December). For seven issues Jack followed concepts suggested by the movie, mainly to the befuddlement of readers. To be fair, when read in a block they make more sense, in a theme-and-variations way, but reading them month-by-month would probably have left most readers unimpressed. Maybe Jack was writing for the trade long before it became fashionable? Someone must have had a word with the writer/editor/penciler before issue 8, as the 2001 themes were sidelined for a more superhero-adjacent storyline, which would continue for three issues until the title's cancellation with #10. Thoughts
- The X-model's creator, Professor Broadhurst, has some pretty snazzy glasses with integral eyebrows.
 - The whole 'destruction in thirty minutes' is a weird plot device. If it's set off by radio waves, it'd be near-instantaneous. It helps X-51 survive long enough for Abel Stack to send him on his way though.
- Speaking of which, it's always bugged me that Dr Stack doesn't work out some way to be a long way away from the bomb when it goes off. Even a grenade gives you time to throw it into the tray of a passing truck or something.
- Aaron's metal mask (it's mentioned that it's welded on) later appears to be cloth or at best some sort of soft plastic.
- If Dr Stack wants Aaron to fit in with the public, why a purple jumpsuit? Also, what is that logo and (spoiler alert) why does it disappear halfway through the next issue?
- Colonel Kragg appears to be a cross between Nick Fury (eyepatch, rank) and General Ross (obsessive hatred of central character). He does become slightly more nuanced as time goes by, but he's depressingly one-note here.
- Aaah, the monolith. Just in case you were wondering if this story had been published in the wrong comic, the big black deus et machina turns up on the last page.
- Overall a pretty exciting issue and a fun origin story. It rattles along with plenty of action and establishes the main characters and the main theme of the series - what makes a man a man?
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Post by kirby101 on Aug 11, 2024 8:26:48 GMT -5
I was not befuddled, I enjoyed the shear imagination and creativity Kirby showed in this series. I think, contrary to the criticism that Kirby could only create new ideas and then abandon them ( Icctrombone  ) What we see is Jack not finishing a story in 2 or 3 issues. In this book, in The New Gods, in The Eternals, we see Kirby with a grand overall plot, that could take a few years to get through. He did not forget what he was writing, he was working in a grander scale. Unfortunately, Editorial interference and cancellations prevented him from seeing his ideas through. (an illustration of this is Captain Victory is the Grandson of Darkseid.)
Mister Machineman  was a character built on the themes he was working with when he created Silver Surfer and Him (Warlock), an artificial being that gains it's humanity. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 11, 2024 8:57:22 GMT -5
Great start, aaronstack ! I never read the original run of Machine Man, and as a fan of the 2001 comic I wondered about the transition. It's actually a pretty interesting twist, as the monolith's mission seems to help prompt sudden evolutionary changes in particular species; but since evolution is not directed, it makes sense that the monolith would also favour offshoots like artificial intelligences. X-51 would then be "the next step in human evolution" just as much as Dave Bowman was. You saw it here first, gents: Stan Lee created Machine Man!!!  |
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 11, 2024 10:01:41 GMT -5
I was not befuddled, I enjoyed the shear imagination and creativity Kirby showed in this series. I think, contrary to the criticism that Kirby could only create new ideas and then abandon them ( Icctrombone ) What we see is Jack not finishing a story in 2 or 3 issues. In this book, in The New Gods, in The Eternals, we see Kirby with a grand overall plot, that could take a few years to get through. He did not forget what he was writing, he was working in a grander scale. Unfortunately, Editorial interference and cancellations prevented him from seeing his ideas through. (an illustration of this is Captain Victory is the Grandson of Darkseid.)
Mister Machineman was a character built on the themes he was working with when he created Silver Surfer and Him (Warlock), an artificial being that gains it's humanity. Ha, This wasn't a put down to Kirby's imagination, it was an actual praise. Kirby was an idea machine. |
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Post by kirby101 on Aug 11, 2024 10:12:13 GMT -5
Ha, This wasn't a put down to Kirby's imagination, it was an actual praise. Kirby was an idea machine. I know, I was just having a laugh. I know you admire Kirby almost as much as Leifeld. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 11, 2024 10:16:22 GMT -5
Ha, This wasn't a put down to Kirby's imagination, it was an actual praise. Kirby was an idea machine. I know, I was just having a laugh. I know you admire Kirby almost as much as Leifeld. Just to be clear, I like and respect what Liefeld has done. He beat the odds, of being cast away when he was no longer the "hot" artist. No sad stories for him connected to the exploitation by the big two. |
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Post by kirby101 on Aug 11, 2024 11:36:03 GMT -5
I know, I was just having a laugh. I know you admire Kirby almost as much as Leifeld. Just to be clear, I like and respect what Liefeld has done. He beat the odds, of being cast away when he was no longer the "hot" artist. No sad stories for him connected to the exploitation by the big two. You do know I was playing with you. see the big smilies? |
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 11, 2024 12:06:06 GMT -5
Well, obviously, the whole project was run by the government for the GI Joe Adventure Team.......  In the Jack Kirby Collector, someone once proposed a game, where you collected the boldly printed dialog text from Kirby's stories. They do tend to create these sort of "beat haikus." From the samples above: Won't First Life Last
Scrapped Yours! Mad Thinking Form!
People! Endless Ants! |
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) What we see is Jack not finishing a story in 2 or 3 issues. In this book, in The New Gods, in The Eternals, we see Kirby with a grand overall plot, that could take a few years to get through. He did not forget what he was writing, he was working in a grander scale. Unfortunately, Editorial interference and cancellations prevented him from seeing his ideas through.
was a character built on the themes he was working with when he created Silver Surfer and Him (Warlock), an artificial being that gains it's humanity.
