"Can we get off of this windy building now?"

Rocketeer Adventures #3

IDW Publishing (July 2011)

EDITOR: Scott Dunbier
COVERS: Alex Ross (shown) & Dave Stevens
DESIGN: Robbie Robbins
PIN-UPS: Stephanie Buscema & Joe Chiodo

Three more adventures, and all of them very good in their own way. I’d even call this the best of the series based on that fact as I have no major complaint about any of them.

“A Rocketeer Story” with Ryan Sook on all duties, turns the table on the usual Cliff/Betty situation. Betty is appearing in her first talking picture when the theater is taken over by robbers. Cliff, late because of car trouble, has to don the Rocketeer gear to stop them. A good short story.

“Heaven’s Devils” is written by Joe R. Lansdale with Bruce Timm on art and plot duties. Actually, it more like an illustrated pulp novel, which is how the tale is written and set up on the page. Cliff is working as a stunt pilot on one of Betty’s movies when the payroll is robbed. When the crook makes the mistake of kidnapping Betty (of course), the Rocketeer is off to the rescue. It’s a great pose story.

The final tale,” Junior Rocketeers”, has a bunch of kids who figure out the Rocketeer hangs out at Peevy’s hanger (although unaware of Cliff’s identity, and arrive to become his sidekicks. However, they accidentally tip the bad guys to Rocketeer’s base of operations. All while the girl member of the team is told she can’t be a pilot because she’s a girl (and it’s the 40’s). I wonder why nobody but the girl realizes the bad guys are bad guys (are all the boys really this stupid?) but it still ends up being a good story.

All three are great short stories while in previous issues you’d have at least one story that needed to be longer. My compliments to the creators in this issue, and hopefully the next issue will get this right as well.

Related articles

Posted by on July 28, 2011 in Today's Comic and tagged , , , , , , , , .

Leave a comment

Leave a comment