It's clear the underwater tank's crew are unfamiliar with rocket ships!
But the SpaceHawk strip was set in the future, where the entire solar system (including Earth) utilized advanced technology! The previous story offered no indication that SpaceHawk was in the 1940s instead of his own time, but this tale from Novelty's Target Comics V2N3 (1941), showing an American fleet of battleships with smoke-spewing engines, and crewmen of an underwater tank who don't know about rockets, is a pretty clear indication our Space Hero is now in the "present day" (1940)! BTW, the fact the underwater tank exists isn't proof the series is still in the future! Pop culture (including comics, pulps, movies, and radio shows) showed both the Allies and Axis using advanced weaponry during WWII (as shown HERE and HERE)! In review the remaining SpaceHawk tales, we see our hero remains Earthbound for the remainder of the run, thus, he's no longer a "Space Hero"!. So it is with a heavy heart that we'll be discontinuing his adventures after one final appearance two weeks from now!
It's hard to believe the Comics Code Authority OKed this rather violent and vicious tale!
But, apparently, having "funny" animals do it to each other renders the violence acceptable!
The identities of the writer and artist(s) of this tale from Charlton's Tom Cat Comics #4 (1956) have been lost to the mists of time, which may be just as well...
..of a Bronze Age b/w magazine story we already ran!
Illustrated by Golden Age journeyman Rafael Astarita, this tale appeared in Avon's Strange Worlds #4 (1951) and was reprinted in IW's Strange Planets #9 (1959).
It was then re-illustrated, with only minor changes to the script (including a re-titling), in Eerie Publications' Strange Galaxy V1N8 (1971) as we showed on Tuesday.