New Brevoort Formspring

>HI, Tom,

From what I can see, pretty much all of Jack Kirby’s Marvel Universe superhero work since Fantastic Four #1 has been reprinted, with one glaring exception – Machine Man. Now, I don’t know whether or not this is accurate, but I’ve read that there are issues with Marvel reprinting 2001: A Space Odyssey where he debuted, but would it be possible to reprint those issues with judicious editing-out of the Monolith, for example? (Yes, I know the purists would scream. Also, the Monolith, or at least a monolith, did appear in X-51 #12 – what’s up with that?) I’ve also read, and again I don’t know whether or not this is accurate, that Marvel no longer has the rights to the name Machine Man, which is why the X-51 series was named thusly. What about the nine issues of the original regular series, though? Is there any barrier to reprinting them? Could they be reprinted under an X-51 banner?

Cheers,

Daven >

No, you could not reprint the 2001 stories just taking out the 2001 elements.

No, there is no problem with calling Machine Man Machine Man. That series was called X-51 because somebody thought it might sell better with an X in its title.

And yes, we could reprint the first 9 issues of MACHINE MAN, but without the 2001 stories, this would be like having a collection that included issues #4-12. It wouldn’t be satisfying for anybody, really.