Unlimited Series
If one were to go to a convention and ask about Marvel’s Dune, Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Empire Strikes Back comics, they may indeed be given issues of Marvel Comics Super Special. Or, they may be given issues of the series that Marvel made adapting these films, sometimes in three- or four-issue runs, sometimes as part of an ongoing.
Unlike the Super Specials, these comics were indeed comics, through and through. They came adorned with the standard Marvel logo, they were interrupted by house ads for Spider-Man and the Hulk, and they usually featured at least one bit of grandstanding by Stan Lee. Sometimes, these miniseries were merely reprints of the Super Special, just resized and broken up into several issues.
But other times, they were created to be read as monthly comics within the Marvel Universe, and here’s where things get weird. One of the most infamous examples was the Star Wars ongoing, which actually hit stores before the movie arrived in theaters. The first few issues more or less follow the script of the film (with some elements that were cut from the movie, including Darth Vader uttering the word “Sith” long before anyone does so on screen). But from there, things get weird, as creators Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin get to play around with the characters after the events of the film, adding their own weird creations, like the green-furred rabbit Jaxxon.
Jack Kirby‘s adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which began a year earlier in 1976 goes even further. While Kirby more or less follows the same basic plot of the Stanley Kubrick film, along with additional material from the Arthur C. Clarke novel and an earlier script, he adds his own elements, tracing interactions with the monolith through time. From these stories comes X-51, a self-aware android who eventually takes the name Machine Man and fights alongside the Avengers.
Marvel’s Godzilla comics were even more brazen. Instead of copying any of the movies, the series immediately placed the King of the Monsters into the Marvel Universe, and created a unit of SHIELD called the Godzilla Squad. As soon as issue #3, Thor and Hercules appeared on the front cover, duking it out with Godzilla.
Forgetting How to Adapt
Fun as these interjections are, they do create problems for people concerned with continuity. Now that Marvel and Star Wars are both owned by Disney, guys like Jaxxon can appear again, and Marvel’s deals with Toho and IDW (who has the main licensing rights for Godzilla) allow them to reform the Godzilla Squad again. But Machine Man can only gesture toward to that time he was brought to life by a towering black object, and he certainly can’t mention his cousin, HAL 9000.
