Saturday, June 29, 2024

Space Force Saturdays ROCKY JONES: SPACE RANGER "Space Infantry"

With the school year over and kids off to summer vacation...
...lets look at the never-revealed school days of the newest space hero in our line up, Rocky Jones, Space Ranger!
Sneaky little SoB, ain't he?
Wonder if he had a classmate named James Tiberius Kirk?
BTW, the character's Space Academy days were never shown on TV.
The series, set in 2054, started with him already an officer!
Scripter of this never-reprinted, totally-original tale from Charlton's Space Adventures #15 (1955) is unknown, but the art is by Ted Galindo, a journeyman artist who did work for Charlton, Prize, and Gold Key from the mid-1950s to mid-1960s.
Oddly, Charlton didn't give Rocky Jones his own title, as most publishers did with licensed characters, but inserted him into the already-established Space Adventures comic for four issues (and gave him the cover each issue).
The tv series itself was a weekly filmed series, not a live videotaped daily series like Captain Video or Tom Corbett: Space Cadet, giving it a slightly "slicker" look (and better special effects) than most of the competitors.
It was syndicated, and ran for 39 episodes over two seasons.
All of the eps are three-part stories and were re-edited into feature-length films which were released to syndication in the 1960s, after the series had ended its' run.
Almost all are available on DVD and two of them, Crash of the Moons and Manhunt in Space, were roasted on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Rocky Jones will return in the near future...
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Thanx for posting!