The Space Odyssey franchise began with the landmark film 2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick, and the accompanying novel by Arthur C. Clarke.
In 1976, Jack Kirby produced an adaptation of the film, then continued the story in an ongoing comic book, both for Marvel Comics. The continuation, wildly tonally out of sync with the film, lasted ten issues. Mister Machine, the protagonist of the final three issues, was renamed Machine Man and spun into his own Marvel series, then integrated into the Marvel Universe. (In 2013, Sequart produced a book on Kirby’s comic-book series entitled The Weirdest Sci-Fi Comic Ever Made.)
In 1982, Arthur C. Clarke’s sequel novel 2010: Odyssey Two was released. A film version debuted in 1984, with a comic-book adaptation (also from Marvel) soon following.
Clarke went on to write two more novels: 1987′s 2061: Odyssey Three and 1997′s 3001: The Final Odyssey.
