2001, A Space Odyssey #1
"Beast-Killer!" kicks off with a primal moment as the monolith guides a prehistoric hunter to forge a spear, then leaps forward to a future mission where an astronaut meets a deadly alien creature. After the creature kills one of the crew, the survivor, Woodrow Decker, is mysteriously transported to a quiet countryside—only to age rapidly and be transformed by the monolith into a new kind of life, a 'new seed' meant to journey among the stars. Written and illustrated by Jack Kirby, with inks by Mike Royer and colors by G. Roussos, this 1976 Marvel issue features Kirby’s cover pencils and John Verpoorten’s inks, all in a 30-cent comic that blends ancient origins with cosmic destiny.
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The issue starts in the distant past where the monolith instructs a hunter on how to craft a spear and then shifts to the future where two astronauts discover an alien ruin. One of the astronauts is killed by a creature, but the other, Woodrow Decker, is transported into a pastoral countryside by the monolith. Here he rapidly ages until he dies and is converted by the monolith into an embryo-type creature referred to as a 'new seed' to explore the galaxy.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).