2001: A Space Odyssey (comics) American comic book. The story is a close adaptation of the events of the film, but differs in the fact that Kirby incorporated additional dialog from two other sources: the Clarke/Kubrick novel and a copy of an earlier draft script of the film that included the more colloquial-sounding version of HAL 9000, as originally voiced by actor Martin Balsam before Douglas Rain took over. In addition, the comic narrative captions describe the characters' thoughts and feelings, a significantly different approach from that taken by the film. The treasury edition also contained a 10-page article entitled "2001: A Space Legacy" written
2001: A Space Odyssey (film) artist.") John Simon felt it was "a regrettable failure, although not a total one. This film is fascinating when it concentrates on apes or machines ... and dreadful when it deals with the in-betweens: humans ... "2001", for all its lively visual and mechanical spectacle, is a kind of space-"Spartacus" and, more pretentious still, a shaggy God story." Eminent historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. deemed the film "morally pretentious, intellectually obscure and inordinately long ... a film out of control". In a 2001 review the BBC said that its slow pacing often alienates modern audiences more than it did upon