Zombies Of The Stratosphere!

Zombies of the Stratosphere is the third of the Rocketman serials from Republic. It was made at about the same time as a proposed television version of the series (more on that later) and stars the same guy as Rocketman. It's another invasion, this time from Mars and not content to merely take over the Earth, this time they have to destroy it to make way for Mars to assume its orbit.

Judd Holdren plays the Rocketman this time, and he's called "Larry Martin" and no mention is made of  "Commando Cody". He has the same team as last time mostly with Aline Towne repeating her role as girl assistant. They are asked to help with a potential alien threat, and they get right on it. Holdren got the nod because he'd already portrayed Captain Video in an earlier Republic serial. 

"Marex" (Lane Bradford) is the leader of the Martians, and he has another Martian named "Narab" with him played by a very young Leonard Nimoy. They land on Earth and immediately hook up with some thugs and an Earth scientist to plot the Earth's destruction. There's much running about, a lot of it in the water. In point of fact, this serial has a really aquatic theme with many of the cliffhangers involving boats or water of some kind. The Martians can hold their breath for a really long time, and they have their secret headquarters in a spot which require them to trudge under water, a neat trick if somewhat slow for the film.

Again, it seems that the plot depends on bank robbery for funding and there is a lot of that stuff, even a quasi-Western moment with some very unconvincing stock footage getting used. You sometimes get the feeling they forget about the rocket pack from time to time in this one. Or more correctly they just used old footage to save money. 

The big highlight of this one is the Republic Robot getting a call. He's in several chapters and it used by both sides. It's pretty incredible watching this lumbering hunk of metal take on the heroes and lots of fun.

(Poster for the feature version of the movie)

All in all this is a fun high-speed serial, but the speed of production shows in spots. Good fun.

This one is a hoot, an uneven hoot, but a hoot nonetheless. The story is ramshackle at best, but the aliens being rooted on Earth spare us trips to the Moon, though sadly those are replaced by a lot of time at the docks. There's a real planes, trains, and automobiles feeling to this one as they cobble together cliffhangers from the stock film shelf. We see a tank chasing a train which I recently saw in two Dick Tracy serials. The robot is good and is used with some wit and imagination as the story unfolds. Lane Bradford gets little credit, but I always find him a compelling presence on screen and that's certainly the case here as he is the rare main villain and not a henchman.

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Radar Men From The Moon!

Radar Men of the Moon is the second of the Rocketman serials and because it's in public domain, I've owned a copy forever. It's one of the very first movies I ever picked up on VHS.

It's probably in fact the first serial I ever owned aside possibly from Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. This one features the Rocketman again, but he's dubbed "Commando Cody" this time out.

George Wallace leads the cast this time with Roy Barcroft as the Moon leader Retik who leads an invasion of Earth and Clayton Moore (the Lone Ranger no less) as Graber the lead henchman who helps the Moon Men with their schemes.

This one offers up the Rocketman again with some of the same stunts repeated and it adds a rocketship which gets Commando Cody and his team to the Moon twice during the run of the serial.

There's much running around, lots of great fights, and some dandy high-pitched acting from all involved. The serial gets a little ragged with some time-wasting moves now and again and I was surprised to find out that Moon Men need to rob banks and whatnot to fund their invasions of Earth.

Lots of classic serial moments are in this one. Getting a copy is dead easy as practically every collection of serials offers this one. The atomic ray gun is a fun toy and while you never really feel these guys from the Moon really are a threat the battle is a hoot.

This continues to be among my favorite serials. Not because it's that good, it's weak in many respects, but the pacing and the sheer bravado of the story it tells is no-holds-barred. No doubt I have a lot of nostalgia for it, but also it's just amazing that we have a story of alien invasion, a trip to the Moon, sundry small-time hoodlums, and an awesome rocket pack in one yarn. The word for this one is "rip-snorter".

On a side note, I consider The Purple Monster Strikes to be in the Rocketman family of films. Mostly that's on account that once again we have a invasion threat and once again as in Radar Men from the Moon the attack is spearheaded by Roy Barcroft (the titular monster) all decked out in his Martian finery. There are scenes from this movie's finale that are used in the Radar Men from the Moon, hence they deck Barcroft again in a similar headpiece throughout. 

That movie was largely remade under the name Flying Disc Man from Mars. This movie attempts to take advantage of the flying saucer scare, but is a rather humdrum effort when all it said and done. The Purple Monster outfit is  used in this one as well. 

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Rocketman - King Of The Rocket Men!

This post was originally presented on November 8th, 2009. I present today, fourteen years later unchanged. 

I'll have to say that yesterday was one of the more remarkable days in my very long comics collecting lifetime. I've prowled countless comics shops over the decades, discovering unknown treasures and finding long-sought gems.

But I've recently become aware of an Innovation Comics series called Rocketman - King of the Rocketmen adapted from the vintage Republic serial King of the Rocketmen. I picked that up not that long ago at long last on dvd and only a few weeks ago got the last of the trilogy Zombies of the Stratosphere. I've long owned the public-domain Radar Men on the Moon as do most folks I'd assume. There's a collection of TV shows too that I need to grab, but time will solve that also.

The series is one I've seen before but I'll confess to not being all that thrilled by it. It seemed a quiet companion to the Dave Stevens epic Rocketeer. Those were striking covers, but I never glanced beyond them.

Anyway, I decide I want these four books. I find them online but while they're cheap I don't want to pay a lot for shipping if I can help it. I take a chance that the books might be in the back issues of my local stores. So off I go yesterday to find them, and I have darn good success finding issues #2, 3 & 4 of the series. But no #1 is to be found, just those three so I snap them up. I despair frankly, because I've been at this point many times, needing just that one issue to complete a set and not being able to find it at all. It's taken years in the past.

I resolve that despite costs, I will need to get it, as I'm not getting any younger. But I have one more store to check, and what do I find but #1 all alone. They have not another other issue of the series, just the one I need. And in no case did either store realize what they had. So, I bought every single copy in the whole local area yesterday, and one can only imagine how long they've been sitting in those long boxes waiting for me to come and fetch them home.

Chris Moeller is the artist and writer of these four issues. They are fully painted and the storytelling tumbles apart in places. It's a bit difficult to follow, but some of the scenes are very nicely rendered. I'm very glad though that I'd waited to read this until after I'd seen the serial itself, as the changes are interesting and the only work in contrast to the original.

These aren't expensive books, but the oddball kind that can be murder to find. I feel unusually lucky to stumble across a complete set so readily. Oh, and did I mention I got them all for well under their original cover prices. It was big fun, something I've not had in a comics shop in some time.

I now return you to the current day. It was quite fun reliving that special comic hunting moment. I don't chase comics much these days, but once upon a time with quite fun to do so. 

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King Of The Rocket Men!

This 1949 serial is a pretty entertaining movie. Much has been written about the more mature characters in this one, from Tristam Coffin a regular movie heavy who gets the nod as Jeff King, the hero and nominal Rocket Man of the movie to Mae Clarke who at forty seemed a bit old for the classic damsel-in-distress role. But while Clarke seemed a bit subdued throughout, I found Coffin quite good in his role as both scientist and action hero.

The plot is pretty standard serial, in that Science Associates is losing members to violent death left and right because of a shadowy villain named Dr. Vulcan. One scientist named Dr. Millard is seemingly killed but instead hooks up with fellow egghead Jeff King and they relocate to a cool cave lab where he pretends to be dead while King as himself and as Rocket Man (using the Millard invention of an atomic backpack rocket) tries to solve the mystery of just who is Dr. Vulcan. There's a young sidekick and the usual dame reporter. All the other scientists are suspects but as they themselves continue to be killed the list gets shorter and shorter.

The flying stuff is outstanding as Republic really knew how to do this as ably demonstrated years before in The Adventures of Captain Marvel. This is a pretty decent whodunnit and an above average actioner. The climax involves nothing less than the near total destruction of New York City and that actually tends to undermine the more down-to-Earth tone (pardon the pun) of the previous chapters. But taken as a whole I really like this movie serial, and have watched several times over the years. 

The serial was chopped down to feature length and released as Lost Planet Airmen. This title proved quite evocative and became at least in part the name of the folk-rock band Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen. More on "Cody" later. More on King of the Rocket Men tomorrow. 

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High Adventure!

Once upon a time comics like films were produced for a mass market and tapped into a host of different genres. One could find crime, horror, comedy, funny animal, and even superheroes. During the Golden Age the latter dominated the field and came to define it. But that was never all there was to it. When in the 1980's a multitude of independent publishers jumped into the new direct sales market a multitude of genres once again popped up, though as usual superheroes dominated the field. Many of those "Indies" were not all that good, feeding on enthusiasm over capability. But some were exquisite and possibly the most exquisite of the lot was The Rocketeer by Dave Stevens.  

This month the Dojo is taking a gander at The Rocketeer once again. I feel the need to read this delightful story every few years. This time I'm reading it in the "Artist's Edition" format which offers the reader a look at the original work done by Stevens. If ever a work in comics deserved this treatment it is The Rocketeer. The edition from IDW has all of the story created by Stevens over the course of many years and more than a few publishers. Stevens was a great artist, but not a fast one. 

And there have been in more recent years some intriguing takes on the classic Rocketeer character by some of the best talents in the business. I'm eager to read stories by the likes of Mike Allred, Paul Smith, Sandy Plunkett, Mike Kaluta, Chris Weston, Darwyn Cooke, Ryan Sook, Jay Bone and many more. 

And then you have The Rocketeer movie made by an offshoot of the Disney outfit. This was touted and positioned to be a blockbuster, but fell short of those expectations. Still, it's a movie with more than a few charms, and I don't just mean Jennifer Connelly. 

But Cliff Secord was not alone in those skies. 

Innovation Comics published the adventures of Rocketman in the 90's. This is an adaptation of the original Rocketman movie serial with perhaps a few changes here and there. But what about those original serials? 

If we're "Rocketeeing", we of course we need to take a fresh look at those famous Rocket Man serials. Also known as Commando Cody, the Rocket Man was featured in no fewer than four movie serials in the years when that format was losing popularity due to television in the late 40's and early 50's. King of the Rocket Men, Radar Men from the Moon, Zombies of the Stratosphere, and Commando Cody Sky Marshall of the Universe are the titles in question. In fact, the final one is something of a hybrid. But more when we get to it in a few weeks. 

I'm assisted this time by a book all about the Rocket Man serials and a bit more, including The Rocketeer. But that's not all. 

Whenever I dig out my Rocketeer, I also check in with the less successful Captain Gravity which was (I assume) clearly inspired by the Dave Stevens comic, right down to the flying hero in a vintage setting. 

Also, up for another reading is Alex Toth's legendary Bravo for Adventure. This top-flight adventure comic was created for the European market when Toth grew restless with the meager offerings in these United States. But one calamity after another kept the strip from readers' eyes for years until we got a glimpse in Warren's The Rook. 

And as long as I'm visiting old favorites, I feel the need to take another tumble through The Manhunter, the amazing bit of comics work by Walt Simonson and Archie Goodwin created for DC Comics in the 1970's. This is a story of adventure, gunplay, espionage, and more than a tinge of martial arts action. I get a notion to read it again every year or so. 

The Spirit was created by Will Eisner in the 1940's as something of an alternative to the classic superhero, though he was pressured to put a domino mask on his creation in the end. This is a properly celebrated strip which appeared in newspaper supplements and not the traditional comic book format. The Spirit was a man who came back from his evident death to attempt to bring some measure of justice to Central City. He does the best he can but finds many a comely damsel in his way as well more than a few pugnacious thugs. Getting to read Eisner's work in a raw form will be great fun. 

Doc Savage is the ultimate pulp hero who was incredibly successful in the 1930's and later in the 1960's when his adventures were published in handy paperback form with evocative James Bama covers. Doc as appeared in a feature-length movie and comics as well as traditional pulp yarns. But one place that Doc found some brief purchase was on radio when two of the classic novels (Fear Cay and The Thousand-Headed Man) were adapted in the 1980's for radio. 

If I can squeeze it in, I'd also like to read and review Doug Moench's own independent adventure series Aztec Ace. Ace is a time traveler but that said, there's a lot of that pulp atmosphere hovering over this potent and largely forgotten series from Eclipse. 

That reminded of another epic time travel saga from comic's Bronze Age, The Rook. It's been long enough, that I'd like to read them again, but reporting will be tight. 

It's almost impossible to discuss high adventure in pop culture without at least a mention of the vintage Hanna-Barbera cartoon classic Jonny Quest. This animation wonder developed by Doug Wildey (who was a mentor to Dave Stevens and the model for The Rocketeer character "Peevy") successfully tapped into the pulp adventure genre as well as the adjacent espionage culture of the time. 

And where would we be in pop culture without Indiana Jones. The Raiders of the Lost Ark was designed to evoke those vintage adventure serials of years gone by which had so informed George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. As you well know they just a made a new one and I have not yet seen it, but I am ready to watch the previous four once again. High adventure indeed! 

So, hang on tight to your bullwhips Dojoans. The danger and derring-do will be coming in hard and fast this month at the Dojo. I have may have overloaded my plate, but you have to admit all the entrees look tasty. It's a grand way to say goodbye to summer. 

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