Post by Gilberto on Nov 19, 2011 8:44:09 GMT -5
I read "Armageddon 2419 AD", the novel that introduced Buck Rogers. It actually appeared as two separate pulp stories (in Amazing Stories magazine, I think).
"Buck" isn't Buck yet here, his name is Anthony (not William, as the Gil Gerard show later says). He is frozen by atomic chemicals and wakes up five hundred years later. He's not a zeppelin pilot like in the Buster Crabbe serial or an astronaut like Gil Gerard, but he is an aviator of some sort in every incarnation.
I'm also reading a collected volume of the original comic strip, which is written by Rogers' creator Philip Nowlan (and where he is first dubbed "Buck" after movie cowboy Buck Jones).
The novel has some cultural insensitivity in that it focuses on an empire of savage Mongolians (feeding on the building fear of Eastern powers of the time). This is retracted somewhat at the end by the revelation that the Mongolians are not actual Asians but aliens who came to Earth at the end of the twentieth century and took over Mongolia. This is explained practically on the last page of the book and seems tacked on as sort of an apology (in fact it may have only been part of the 1962 novel, which admittedly underwent some editorial revision).
Like John Carter, Rogers is not shy about splitting bad guys from neck to nuts. Wilma is a pretty strong female character for the time, but she faints a lot.
The comic strip is full of cultural insensitivity, including stereotypes of Asians, Navajo Indians - in what startling panel, Buck reflects: "It was white of that redskin to let me keep my jumping harness" - but the strip employs stereotypes of all kinds. Buck runs into half breeds in the desert that are prototypical redneck hill mutants (transformed into radioactive mutants in the 80's TV series), and after becoming an outlaw for rescuing Wilma against orders Buck hooks up with a gang of actual cowboy outlaws, so the cultural stereotypes are more a sign of the times than an actual intent to offend.
Buck was the original comic strip action hero, paving the way for other strips like Flash Gordon and the comic book superheroes that would rise in the next decade, all of whom became legends of the talking pictures when movie serials became the rage.
I'm not sure where the world of comic books, superheroes, or the world in general would be without Buck Rogers.
"Buck" isn't Buck yet here, his name is Anthony (not William, as the Gil Gerard show later says). He is frozen by atomic chemicals and wakes up five hundred years later. He's not a zeppelin pilot like in the Buster Crabbe serial or an astronaut like Gil Gerard, but he is an aviator of some sort in every incarnation.
I'm also reading a collected volume of the original comic strip, which is written by Rogers' creator Philip Nowlan (and where he is first dubbed "Buck" after movie cowboy Buck Jones).
The novel has some cultural insensitivity in that it focuses on an empire of savage Mongolians (feeding on the building fear of Eastern powers of the time). This is retracted somewhat at the end by the revelation that the Mongolians are not actual Asians but aliens who came to Earth at the end of the twentieth century and took over Mongolia. This is explained practically on the last page of the book and seems tacked on as sort of an apology (in fact it may have only been part of the 1962 novel, which admittedly underwent some editorial revision).
Like John Carter, Rogers is not shy about splitting bad guys from neck to nuts. Wilma is a pretty strong female character for the time, but she faints a lot.
The comic strip is full of cultural insensitivity, including stereotypes of Asians, Navajo Indians - in what startling panel, Buck reflects: "It was white of that redskin to let me keep my jumping harness" - but the strip employs stereotypes of all kinds. Buck runs into half breeds in the desert that are prototypical redneck hill mutants (transformed into radioactive mutants in the 80's TV series), and after becoming an outlaw for rescuing Wilma against orders Buck hooks up with a gang of actual cowboy outlaws, so the cultural stereotypes are more a sign of the times than an actual intent to offend.
Buck was the original comic strip action hero, paving the way for other strips like Flash Gordon and the comic book superheroes that would rise in the next decade, all of whom became legends of the talking pictures when movie serials became the rage.
I'm not sure where the world of comic books, superheroes, or the world in general would be without Buck Rogers.
