Jetta
Entry updated 20 March 2023. Tagged: Comics.
US Comic (1952-1953). Three issues (numbered #5-#7). Standard Magazines, Inc. Artists Dan DeCarlo, Fred Eng and Joe Edwards; scripts by Joe Archibald and Dixon Wells. Each issue had five strips (though one was only a page or two) and one two-page text story.
With the popularity of Archie Comics – about the life of normal American teenager Archie Andrews and his friends in the town of Riverdale – it is not surprising that other comics appeared with their own versions of Archie, some being female. Jetta was one such, but with the novelty of being set in 2052; admittedly it was a 2052 remarkably like 1950s suburban, small town America – but there were Robots, anti-grav belts (see Gravity), jet-packs (see Flying), flying cars and much futuristic teenage slang (see Linguistics): "What d'ya say space pigeon! Let's get the ol' hot saucer an' beat sound to Nick's blast-in." "You're cookin' with super-atomic radiation, Arky."
The plots are romantic comedy, based around red-head Jetta Raye and her boyfriend Arky, who attend Neutron High School. A classmate is Gizmo, inventor of gadgets (see Inventions) such as a "youthifying machine" (see Rejuvenation), though its effects are short lived. One time Jetta and another girl talk to two boys from Planet X via a video screen and agree to meet for a date: however, the heads of the lads from Planet X are attached to the same body (see Aliens) and they flee in disgust at the sight of two one-headed women.
Jetta had three stories in each issue. The other regular strip was "Zoomer", featuring a teen of that name and his girlfriend Atomica; they are fairly forgettable, though one mildly interesting tale sees the pair Time Travel back to the 1950s to discover daily chores were even harder then. In one of the shorter strips Space Cop Kelly pursues two criminals into a time ship (see Crime and Punishment; Time Machine), which then starts up. As it goes back in time the three change too, their language, behaviour and attire matching the era they are in, until they land in the stone age and a club-waving Kelly chases the two out of the ship, all wearing animal skin.
DeCarlo would go on to work for Archie comics: though the series had begun in the early 1940s, it was DeCarlo's perky style that would shape it for subsequent decades – the visual similarities ironically making Jetta seem part of the same universe. [SP]
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