Chapter 16 January 1949Planet Comics #58

If the previous installment of the Futura Saga recommended safety glasses when reading then full-body armor is required for this one!

In the earlier chapter that introduced the Space Pirate Queen Yrina, I maintained that Futura and the pirate are not all that different and may have easily followed different paths in their respective struggles to survive in the wild and woolly space lanes. Planet Comics #58 (January 1949) is a good example of Futura making the kind of decision that would realistically land her on a Most Wanted Criminal list for a reason other than the current case of mistaken identity.

On the run and trapped within the black market arms bazaar Futura offers as a distraction to her pursuers the kind of destruction one would expect from the criminal Yrina and not a displaced executive secretary. In the 1994 film Clerks some of the characters discussed the film Star Wars. They posited the idea that it was doubtful that everyone who was killed on the Death Star was an enemy combatant and that thousands of poor, working schmoes also met their deaths when the ship exploded. A lot of the staff that died were just contracted techs and pump-jockeys who just wanted jobs and to feed their families.

Planet Comics #58 (January 1949)

Planet Comics #58 (January 1949)

The bad-guys still don't seem to communicate

among themselves much because they

continue to let Futura within arms reach of

pointy things, guns and chairs. This is such a

basic error in tactics when going up against

Futura that one would speculate a galaxy-wide

alert would be broadcast like a Kansas tornado

warning just in case some pirate or corrupt

government official happened to cross paths

with her.

It is with this issue that the story seems to find

direction and becomes larger in scope. Some of

the old comic book science fiction tropes are

discarded and the tale becomes something that

could later be called Heinlein-esque. This is

something of a shame because there are not

that many entries left in the Futura Saga. The

state of the comics industry would bring in a few

short years a close to many of the classic comic

book titles that had been in publication for

decades.

Planet Comics

was a science fiction comic-book title

produced by Fiction House and issued

from Jan. 1940 (issue 1) to Winter 1953

(issue 73). Like many of Fiction House's

early comics titles, Planet Comics was a

spinoff of a pulp magazine, in this case

Planet Stories, which featured space

operatic tales of muscular, heroic space

adventurers who were quick with their 'ray

pistols' and always running into gorgeous

females who needed rescue from bug-

eyed space aliens or fiendish interstellar

bad guys.

Planet Comics #1 (January 1940)

Planet Comics was considered by noted fan Raymond Miller to be "perhaps the best of the

Fiction House group," as well as "most collected and most valued." In Miller's opinion, it

"wasn't really featuring good art or stories... in the first dozen or so issues," not gaining most

of "its better known characters" until "about the 10th issue." "Only 3 of its long running strips

started with the first issue... Flint Baker, Auro - Lord of Jupiter, and the Red Comet."