{"id":3354,"date":"2014-11-14T10:00:04","date_gmt":"2014-11-14T15:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=3354"},"modified":"2022-05-26T18:40:40","modified_gmt":"2022-05-26T22:40:40","slug":"pulp-comics-the-rocketeer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2014\/11\/14\/pulp-comics-the-rocketeer\/","title":{"rendered":"Pulp comics: The Rocketeer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>The Rocketeer<\/strong> is an original comic-book creation of the late artist-writer Dave Stevens<\/strong> (1955-2008). While Stevens is mainly know for his many well-done comic-book covers and illustration work, this series, which combines movie serials, action adventure, and more, is just as well-known and loved.<\/p>\n

Sadly, during its time it has had a very checkered publication history, having been published at one time or another by about a half dozen different publishers. And while the character is more based on rocket-pack wearing movie serial characters, there are some various obvious pulp links as well.<\/p>\n

Stevens was only able to create two Rocketeer stories. The first was published from 1982-85. Four installments of the story were published in various comics from Pacific Comics before that company went under. Then Eclipse Comics published the final part of the story, then reprinted the whole story in a complete collection in both trade paperback and hardcover.<\/p>\n

\"PacificThe second story, known by most as “Cliff’s New York Adventures,” was published with two issues from Comico in 1988 and 1989 before that company went under. Finally, Dark Horse Comics<\/a> published the third and final issue, and put out a collected edition. Since then, IDW Publishing<\/a> has put out a single collection of both stories in 2009, in a regular and deluxe edition.<\/p>\n

The first Rocketeer story introduces us to Cliff Secord<\/strong>, a down-on-his-luck racing pilot and barnstormer in 1938 Los Angeles. He finds a rocket pack and decides to put it to use, with the help of his friend Peevy<\/strong> (based on artist Doug Wildey<\/strong>), and the annoyance of his girlfriend and pin-up model Betty<\/strong> (based on pin-up girl Bettie Page<\/strong>). But soon the associates of the rocket pack’s inventor come looking for it. Unnamed, they are clearly “Monk” Mayfair<\/strong> and “Ham” Brooks<\/strong> in what is the most accurate (except for giving Ham a monocle and mustache) portrayal of them. The unnamed Doc Savage<\/strong> also makes an appearance at the end, but the helmet he wears obscures who he is. At the end they allow Cliff to continue to use the pack, and Peevy is sure the inventor is really Howard Hughes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The second story has Cliff in New York trying to prevent his girlfriend from going on a European trip with a sleazy photographer. While there, he gets involved with a mysterious Mr. Jonas<\/strong> for whom he is asked to serve as a temporary pilot. Clearly this is The Shadow<\/strong>, using the name of his dead-letter drop (B. Jonas<\/strong>) as an alias.<\/p>\n

In 1991, Disney put out a Rocketeer movie. While more or less faithful to the original, there were changes. They made Howard Hughes the actual inventor of the rocket pack, and had to change Cliff’s girlfriend from a pin-up model to a would-be actress. Have to make it family friendly.<\/p>\n

In 2011, IDW started doing new Rocketeer comics. These have been done as short-stories and self-contained mini-series, several of which have kept the pulp links. We first got two series of four issues each of Rocketeer Adventures<\/em>. These contained short eight-page stories and pin-ups.<\/p>\n

\"TheNext was the four-issue mini-series The Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom<\/em>, that pitted Cliff against Doc villain John Sunlight<\/strong>, with a cargo of dinosaurs from Skull Island (King Kong<\/strong>). There is also a former “graduate” of Doc’s upstate “college” as well.<\/p>\n

Then another four-issue mini-series The Rocketeer: Hollywood Horror<\/em> mixed in Lovecraftian horror, along with Nick and Nora Charles<\/strong> and a return of Doc and his associates (still unnamed).<\/p>\n

And the most recent series was the four-issue The Rocketeer & The Spirit: Pulp Friction<\/em> that teamed up the Rocketeer with Will Eisner<\/strong>‘s The Spirit<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

All of these series have been collected into hardcover, but don’t know about any paperback collections.<\/p>\n

The most recent development is The Rocketeer: Jet-Powered Adventures<\/em> just out from IDW that has prose stories. Haven’t gotten that one yet.<\/p>\n

The Rocketeer is a great character. I was worried the new stories would not be the same spirit as the original, but they have been enjoyable as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rocketeer is an original comic-book creation of the late artist-writer Dave Stevens (1955-2008). While Stevens is mainly know for his many well-done comic-book covers and illustration work, this series, which combines movie serials, action adventure, and more, is just as well-known and loved. Sadly, during its time it has had a very checkered publication […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan looks at pulp comics: The Rocketeer. #comics #pulpmags http:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-S6","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[18,14],"tags":[788,110,897,109],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-3354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comics","category-review","tag-dark-horse-comics","tag-doc-savage","tag-idw","tag-the-shadow"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2014\/09\/the-rocketeer-large.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-S6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3354"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14275,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354\/revisions\/14275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3354"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=3354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}