The Groovy Agent's Birthday Comics, Part 5

Hey-ho, daddy-o! Welcome back down Memory Lane. Since I took yesterday off, today's a two-fer! Can you dig it?

Let's enter a time-warp for a minute and check out the 2001: A Space Odyssey Treasury Special I got for my birthday in 1976. A 1976 comicbook adaptation of a movie released in 1968 based on a short story written in 1948 but not published until 1951 about the year 2001...being blogged about in 2008. If a giant black hunk'a space rock shows up in my living room, I won't be surprised if my thirteen year old self jumps out of it! Whoa, wotta trip!

If I remember correctly, Marvel timed the release of this Jack Kirby masterpiece to coincide with the network television debut of Stanley Kubrick's classic on NBC, but I can't remember if the stunt worked. Seems to me that the comic adaptation came out a few weeks sooner than the movie. Anyone out there know for sure?

Personally, I'm one of those Philistines who don't "get" Kubrick, so I liked the comic better than the movie. Besides, you can read a comic at your own pace, zipping through dull parts and slowly savoring the cool stuff (and with Kirby on the art, you know there was some mind-boggling full and double page spreads in those 80 pulse-pounding pages). With a movie, you're bound by the director's pacing. Plus, the comic had no ads (unlike the televised movie).

I went for quality over quantity in 1977 for my 14th birthday, and got one of my all-time favorite comics, DC Super-Stars # 17. I've mentioned this comic in passing before, and I'll probably mention it again (and again!). Not only does DCSS #17 have the classic origin/debut of Paul Levitz, Joe Staton, and Bob Layton's Huntress (daughter of the Batman and Catwoman of Earth-2, no less!), but Denny O'Neil and Mike Grell re-told the origin of Green Arrow and Jack C. Harris, Juan Ortiz, and Bob Smith added a new twist to the origin of the Legion of Super-Heroes. 52 pages of some of DC's greatest heroes, brimming over with top-notch writing and art, wrapped up under a stunning cover. Y'gotta admit, Teen Groove had great taste!