I attended the NASFIC science fiction convention in Buffalo last month, and one of the panels I was on discussed Science Fiction in 1960s DC Comics. A couple of the topics were the superheroes Adam Strange and Space Ranger, but we didn’t talk abou them a lot. I just wanted to put down some of my random thoughts here.
Both heroes were supposedly created circa 1957 when DC editor Julius “Julie” Schwartz held a meeting about creating two “spaceman” characters, one set in the present day, the other in the future. Adam Strange was the present-day one and Space Ranger the futuristic one.
Of course 1957 didn’t offer many opportunities for “spacemen heroes” (although Dell comics at the time tried, with Drift Marlo, Space Detective; I think it ran for only 2 issues). They got around this with ingenious idea of having the titular Adam being hit by a “zeta beam” from the planet Rann, which brought him to the planet, where he promptly met Alanna, daughter of the scientist who created the Zeta beam. Alanna was beautiful and cool and immediately fell in love with Strange, with whom she had various science fictiony adventures. Adam was, by training, an archaeologist, which you wouldn’t think (Indiana Jones to the contrary notwithstanding) would be the right background for that sort of adventuring. But Adam quickly acquired a jetpack and a weird finned helmet so he could fly around, and a handy ray gun, and they off and running. The Zeta beam kept him on Rann for a short time, after which he faded back to Earth. Somehow he was able to figure out where and when the Zeta beam would strike next, and part of the fun of each story opening was seeing how he managed to be on the spot for the teleportation. (For some reason, the ray from Alpha CEntauri was able to target earth from light-years away, but had trouble reliably hitting within a thousand miles of the right spot)
It didn’t hit me until recently, but with his jet-pack and finned helmet, Adam Strange was probably more of an influence on the look of Dave Stevens’ Rocketeer than Commando Cody was.
It also never struck me as a kid, but Adam Strange walking around in public on Rann with his jetpack and finned helmet was just as conspicuous and outre as he would be walking around that way on Earth. And how come nobody else on Rann seemed to always be wearing a jetpack? But the adventures were cool and science- and logic-based. And Alanna took significant part in the adventures, even though she had second banana status and needed more rescuing. But it was the sixries, not the future.
Space Ranger , I didn’t realize at the time, was probably stolen from Isaac Asimov’s “Lucky” Starr, Space Ranger series. (I didn’t hear about them until years later) – in both a wealthy do-gooder with the last name “Starr” acts as a “Space Ranger” (obviously the concept was taken from the Lone Ranger, who was, in turn, inspired by the Texas Rangers). Like the Lone Ranger, neither Starr was really alone – eachhad a diminutive sidehkick. In Space Ranger’s case, this was the alien Cryll, who had a bal-shaped body and pinched-pouting mouth and was the color of a school eraser. He was a shape-shifter, who could assume the shape of any animal in the universe. Space Ranger had a ray gun that could shoot multiple beams, and had a headquarters in a hollowed-out asteroid.
Like Adam Strange, Space Ranger never seemed to be embarrassed that he was walking around in a weird costume while everyone else, aliens included, wore street clothes. His resembled yellow pajamas with red piping, and featured a fishbowl helmet
The helmet made no sense, because it didn’t cover his whole head, so it wouldn’t be able to keep air in. Maybe it had an invisible force field that did this, because he was frequently shown wearing it without discomfort in space.
Cryll
Eventually, they had a couple of stories where Adam Strange’s descendant met Space Ranger. Even later on, stories about both sets of heroes got a lot darker. Gimme the old 1960s science-based plots.
