Comics does not need to mean superheroes. In America, it mostly does, but in the rest of the world, there’s more variety. French and Belgium comics don’t tend to have superheroes. In manga, they’re rare. Modern American comics have, since the ’60s, been mostly superheroes. In the past, however, there was much more variety in the sort of stories comic books could tell. There were westerns, crime, horror, film noir and, as in this collection, science fiction.
Buy Atlas Comics Library No. 3: In the Days of the Rockets!In the Days of the Rockets! collects 12 issues of ’50s science fiction comics published by Atlas comics: Six issues of Space Squadron and six issues of Speed Carter, Spaceman. And they are so much of their era it’s hard to know if there’s much more than archival value to these things.
As science fiction, they read largely like someone who’s not read any science fiction but is trying to wing it. In the Space Squadron issues, space seems to have an atmosphere, and isn’t much different that more sky. There’s no real extrapolation of science that was the intent of most science fiction authors at the time. Everything here is ridiculous. Which is a little odd, since the series positions itself as a kind of historic document.
These issues all are written as if they are set in the far-flung world of the year 2000. They tell of the exploits of Jet Dixon, but they also have “historical” stories, about the fictional early explorers of space, and the exploits of the goofiest named comic book hero I’ve ever seen, “Blast” Revere. He ends up as Jet’s boss, and the father of Jet’s love interest, but that’s just all the soap opera stuff.
Space Squadron is drawn by several artists, but the one who sets the tone is George Tuska, who draws fairly stiff characters, and his aliens are all dull variations on humans. The stories are almost all about encounters with these alien races, and either with a reconciliation, or the Space Squadron committing mass genocide. Always justified, of course.
The second half of this collection, Speed Carter, Spaceman, is much more entertaining, and for the first few issues much better drawn. It has essentially the same character dynamics, but is more action packed, dynamic, and significantly more violent. The format for both series is essentially the same: two or three current stories, one or two historical stories, and a two-page prose story in the middle of the comic. These prose stories are so much throw-away that three of them are repeated between the two comic series.
In the Day of the Rockets! is an interesting historical archive. This is the first time these stories have been reprinted. As pure entertainment, the Speed Carter stories are orders of magnitude more fun than the stodgy Jet Dixon stories. Joe Mannely’s art is worlds better than the earlier artists. It has more energy and a scrubby, almost underground feel to it.
All the stories have some sense of genre confusion. Sometimes there are incongruous aspects of horror because that was what was popular at the time. And they have a kind of Cold War American exuberance that seems naïve now.
Atlas Comics was the precursor to Marvel Comics. Stan Lee was certainly somewhere in the building when these comics were being created. This handsome collection, released by Fantagraphics, is the third in a series reprinting comics that have, I believe, never been collected before since their original print runs. This volume is comprised of photographic reproductions of the original comic. They have not been recolored, and so look like the original comics, with the limited resolution and color reproduction available at the time. There are also some contemporary advertisements included, for atmosphere.
Atlas Comics Library Vol. 3: In the Days of the Rockets! has been released by Fantagraphics.
