Space Hero Saturdays ROCKETMAN "Venus Afire" / SPURT HAMMOND "Fiery World"

Apparently, People Being Unwilling to Take in Refugees is Not a New Problem!

In fact, it dates back to the 1950s, when this tale was published...or an unspecified future, where this story is set!

This tale from Ajax/Farrell's Rocketman #1 (1952) ignores some basic science, like the fact that the homeless Venusians would have to pass Earth's orbit to get to Mars!

Perhaps that's because this story originally-appeared a dozen years earlier, when science in comic books was at a somewhat more primitive state!

And, please, no jokes about the lead character's name...

When this tale, part of an ongoing Spurt Hammond series (which ran in Planet Comics from #1 to #12), appeared in Fiction House's Planet Comics #8 (1940), the artist was identified through Fiction House records as Henry Kiefer.

But as for who modified the art at the Iger Studios for re-use in Rocketman, we have no idea!
In addition, the other three Rocketman stories were modified and re-used from earlier Iger Studio-provided art for other features...and other publishers!

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Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3

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Space Heroine Saturdays / Baker Reading Room MYSTA OF THE MOON "Prison Break on Paladnor!"

The February Matt Baker Posts have been Space-Oriented...

...but our final one goes full-on SPACE OPERA...starring a beautiful woman as the protagonist!
Surprise!

Though he didn't create Mysta of the Moon, Matt Baker demonstrates a wonderful "feel" for the character!

Makes me wish he had a chance to do more stuff for Planet Comics!
This tale from Fiction House's Planet Comics #58 (1949), was the first of two consecutive stories he penciled, inked by long-time associate Ray Osrin.
The script was by ongoing series writer Ross Galun.

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Matt Baker

Art of Glamour

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Space Hero Saturdays PLANET COMICS "Buzz Crandall of the Space Patrol in 'I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets!' "

This strip started out as a typical Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers clone...

...but when eccentric (to put it mildly) writer/artist Fletcher Hanks took over as of Buzz's second appearance in Fiction House's Planet Comics #7 (1940)...well, let the apocalyptic craziness begin!

Just another Tuesday for Buzz Crandall, who, despite the "Space Patrol" in the title, seems to run a two-person operation with only his girlfriend to aid him!

Like the tales of Fletcher's other Space Hero, Fantastic Comics' Space Smith, these stories played with the fact that there werem't any "rules" to follow and took the concept of "anything goes" to dizzying levels!

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I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets!

by

Fletcher Hanks

Space Heroine Saturdays GALE ALLEN OF THE WOMEN"S SPACE BATTALION/GIRL'S PATROL/GIRL PATROL

Ever see spaceships with...propellers???

Well, here they are, in the premiere appearance of one of the longest-running Space Heroine strips of the Golden Age!

Gale Allen's introductory tale (by currently-unknown creatives) from Fiction House's Planet Comics #4 (1940) sets the series in an unspecified future where interplanetary travel is accomplished by spaceships with wings and propellers!

My impression is that it was conceived as a "day after tomorrow" war strip, but was re-scripted as a futuristic sci-fi series...without modifying the art to match the script!
Oddly, Fiction House's Planet Comics #5 (1940), with art by Bob Powell, revamps the vehicles to look like spaceships, but turns the strip Earthbound, as an alien invasion force with a foothold in Europe and Africa attempts to conquer the rest of Terra...in the year 1990!

You'll also note an alteration in the second tale of the "balance of power" between the sexes, as a suddenly-competent Jeff Allen rescues Gale!
The next story, in Fiction House's Planet Comics #6 (1940), also illustrated by Bob Powell, ignores the fact the aliens still have the female pilots hostage...

With Blaga Daru (temporarily) imprisoned, the series will take yet another turn, as you'll see in a near-future post!

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Spectacular Sisterhood of Superwomen

(Including Gale Allen!)

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Space...Hero??? Saturdays PLANET COMICS Cosmo Corrigan & Norge Benson

With North America currently caught in a deep freeze with major snow storms/blizzards...

...you can stay warm at home and read Fiction House's Planet Comics' two different characters starring in strips set on the frigid world of Pluto!

Unlike most of the deadly-serious features of the period, these strips played both series as sci-fi sitcoms, starring "heroes" who could best be described as "spacegoing slackers", or "galactic party animals"!

You can read the complete run of the first guy, Cosmo Corrigan, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Yeah, he only lasted three issues.

Cosmo Corrigan was apparently caught in a black hole and immediately replaced (like the very next issue) in Planet Comics by Norge Benson, who encountered a whole different group of Plutonians!

Norge was a somewhat less snarky (though no less humorous) version of the "Earthman on Pluto" concept shown in Cosmo Corrigan., mixing talking alien versions of both Arctic and Antarctic animals with total disregard to anything even remotely resembling exobiology (or continuity)!

But both strips were fun, and that's all that really matters!

Norge Benson managed to survive for twenty issues, all of which you can read by clicking HERE!

Tales Twice Told PLANET COMICS "Last Expedition"

In space, things are not always as they seem...

...as this story of the rescue of personnel from a science research colony aptly demonstrates!

This tale from Fiction House's Planet Comics #72 (1953) was illustrated by Bill Benulis, but the writer is unknown.

That's a pity, because Eerie Publications editor Carl Burgos thought the story was good enough to re-do almost 20 years later...as we'll see on Thursday!

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Mysteries in Space

The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics