Futura - Chapitre 22

Planet Comics #64

Chapter 22

Spring 1950

Planet Comics #64 (Spring 1950) marks the finale to the Futura Saga. It took far longer to get there then I originally planned but the Planet Comics issues I was seeking are pretty rare and hard to get a hold of. Fortunately there are friends and other resources that allowed me to fill in the gaps in her story. This issue is one of those online copies floating around.

Futura's tale began in Planet Comics issue #43 in July of 1946. Secretary Marcia Reynolds is Planet Comics #64 (Spring 1950)

kidnapped from Earth and enslaved for medical experiments by the Brain-Men of Pan-Cosmos.

She escapes, a bit too easily in fact, and steals a ship intending to head back to Earth.

Unknown to Marcia Reynolds, now called Futura by her captors, her escape is being carefully monitored to measure her suitability for inclusion into the Pan-Cosmos genome.

Forced into situations that test her mettle, Futura evades her intended fate and gains allies, makes enemies and is a central witness to the fact that messiahs can be dangerous to your health. As her story continues, Futura becomes a wild card and her presence as a destabilizing threat to the status quo could not be tolerated by those in power. Fortunately for Futura the fragmented leaders of occupied space are corrupt, lazy and not used to rebellion from their cowed populace. Futura meets every challenge, fighting back ferociously and without hesitation.

For Futura does not just defeat an opponent, no. She utterly destroys an enemy by erasing their entire culture leaving them without a power base. What remains when she is done renders them in a state where they are no threat for the foreseeable future. While this tactic is not necessarily the action of a hero it certainly is that of a leader of nations. This Geo-political approach on a galactic scale is something that having recently emerged from a devastating World War the readers of the day could easily identify with.

Planet Comics #64 (Spring 1950)

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 bugeyed 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."