The Secret of Jemma’s Alien World

It has been a few weeks since we got to see exactly what happened to Jemma while on the other side of the obelisk and sadly we are still no closer to answers about the planet or the things on it. That was until Silas Lesnick over at superherohype.com put together a crazy little theory about the planet and why that episode may have been a love letter to legendary comic book artist and writer Jack Kirby.

Back in 1976 upon Kirby’s return to Marvel, he delivered a comic book adaptation of the events taking place in the universe of 2001: A Space Odyssey. This comic series was important for many reasons, most significant of which was the introduction of the character X-51 also known as Machine Man. But what about the similarities between this comic series and Jemma’s mystery planet. It isn’t an exact match (these things never truly are) but the most obvious similarities include: a tentacle monster, hidden caves beneath the planets surface, an astronaut with the initials W.D., and a giant mysterious monolith that can transport people through space. Whether it was intentional or not the similarities are too close to ignore. So the question is, did the writers intentionally use ideas from Kirby’s story or were they using common science fiction tropes to create a planet of their own making. I choose to believe they were paying homage to Kirby, one of the founding fathers of Marvel. What do you think?

Check out Lesnick’s original article here.

Then don’t forget to watch last weeks Agents of SHIELD After Show before next week.