Space Force Saturdays ROCKY JONES: SPACE RANGER "Velocity X"

"Warp drive" didn't begin with Star Trek...

but lightspeed (or faster) travel was a rarity in 1950s' tv science fiction, where rockets dominated the skies!

Of all the 1950s Space Heroes we present here, Rocky Jones seems closest to the most famous tv Space Hero of all--Capt James T Kirk!

While the credits for this story from Charlton's Space Adventures #15 (1955) list Ted Galindo and Vince Alascia as the artists, there's enough difference from the other stories credited to them for me to believe it's actually Alden McWilliams.

Rocky Jones will return in the near future...

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Rocky Jones: Space Ranger Collection

Featuring Six Three-Episode Compilation Movies

(That's almost half the TV series in one set!)

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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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Visit Amazon and Buy...

Rocky Jones: Space Ranger Collection

Featuring Six Three-Episode Compilation Movies

(That's almost half the TV series in one set!)

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Reading Room BLACK MAGIC "Cry for Help!"

Most comics fans know Prize's Black Magic series as...

...one of the Simon/Kirby team's best projects.

But, as you can see from this non-S&K tale, there was more to it!

The S&K team's tenure ended when the book was cancelled with #33 in 1954, due to the mass cancellations of horror comics caused by the "Seduction of the Innocent" hysteria generated by Fredric Wertham.

When the book was revived as a Comics Code-approved sci-fi title with #34 in 1957, Joe Simon returned as editor, but the ongoing partnership with Kirby had ended and Jack didn't participate in the new version.

Simon and Kirby would reunite, briefly, at Archie to co-create The Fly and Double Life of Private Strong, but they wouldn't work together again until the duo co-created a new version of The Sandman for DC in 1974.

This particular story, by penciler/inker Ted Galindo and inker Bill Draut is from the final issue...#50 (1961).

Note: Didn't the son's "future self" say he had found the frozen dinosaur two years earlier?

But he also said he was from 1970...ten years in the future.

So, unless my math is really off, the son wouldn't find the dinosaur for another...eight years!
How did he find it now?

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Simon and Kirby Library

Horror!