Rocket Kelly
Entry updated 8 January 2024. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1945-1946). Fox Feature Syndicate Inc. Artists include Alec Hope, E C Stoner and Al Zere. Script writers include Betty Burrows, Al Jones and Ted Small. There are 2-3 Rocket Kelly stories per issue, accompanied by one or two other long strips, mostly non-sf/Fantasy but including one-off appearances by two very minor Superheroes: Illuso, a magician given Magic abilities by a Tibetan lama, and The Puppeteer (the name relating to his civilian job, not his powers), who has a talking white-headed raven. Each issue also had a few 1-2 page items: humorous strips, text stories and non-fiction pieces. The other comics mentioned below were similarly a mixed bag of genres, though The Green Mask was originally dominated by superhero strips
Rocket Kelly's publishing history was typical of many minor comic characters of the era, flitting between different comic titles and sometimes getting one of their own. He first appeared in The Green Mask #10 (1944), where Captain Patrick Kelly, a World War Two pilot, and his gunner "Wacky" are forced to make an emergency landing, only to be captured by Burmese locals sympathetic to the Japanese. In an adjoining cell is another prisoner, a dying engineer who gives them a pair of Rockets to attach to their plane, so enabling Kelly and Wacky to escape (their captors being extraordinarily lax). This story is taken up in The Bouncer #11 (1944), and continues until #14, with the rocket-powered plane being the only sf element; there is also a white ruler of a Burmese tribe who later, for reasons unexplained, appears as nurse Sue Andrews (and are confirmed to be the same person). At the end of #14 a stray bullet hits the plane's control panel and it flies off into space carrying the unconscious Kelly, Wacky and Sue. The story is then taken up in a two-part tale in an unnumbered issue of Everybody's Comics (1944): the plane reaches the planet Selura (see Space Flight) where thanks to the thick atmosphere it "floats easily" down to the surface. Awakening, the trio meet humanoid Aliens who are the outcasts from "an intelligent yet somewhat cruel" civilization that, in response to various crises, undertook "unceasing research, uncounted experiments and the most delicate operations" that "brought the true Selurian to the acme of their existence" (see Genetic Engineering). These superior beings live on the planet's outer ring, with the outcasts – "the sad results of scientific failures" – sent to the planet's surface to be exploited (see Dystopia). Kelly, in the guise of a corpse returned for examination, gets to the outer ring and shoots a couple of the guards – "We are doomed! We are no longer conquerors." – which ensures there will be productive peace talks. The story then continues in All Great Comics (1945, unnumbered issue), with Kelly, Wacky and Sue (as a stowaway) going to the planet Elastica to investigate reports of a plan to invade Selura (see Invasion; Imperialism). They are immediately captured by the rubbery Elasticans and Kelly is ordered to repair the defective Spaceship intended for the invasion; he does so, then crashes it with all the troops inside (only he, Wacky and Sue have parachutes).
The series then moves to Rocket Kelly and is rebooted: set some time after World War Two, Kelly, Wacky (now re-named Punchy) and Sue (re-named Diana from #3) are working for Kelly's Scientist father and have a red spaceship which can be powered by the Sun. The first story in #1 concerns a Professor working on a self-reproducing spore at an isolated laboratory – but only his pet ape is appearing on the video screen, so the trio are sent to investigate: they find the professor dead. Kelly photographs his retinas, arguing the murderer's image might have been "retained by the dead man's eyes" (see Urban Legends). And indeed it has, enabling them to identify the killer – who recklessly frees the spore: it begins to grow, its increasing size jeopardizing civilization ... however, Kelly is able to de-oxygenate it with a blue Ray from his spaceship. Other stories include a Mad Scientist who, prosecuted for his murderous experiments with Time, seeks revenge by prematurely ageing everyone on Earth; another villain uses two bomb-filled Trojan Horses to have his revenge on a scientific institute, only to die of a heart attack when Kelly foils him; another scientist has Robots takes over Mars in a trial run for conquering Earth (though called robots they seem to have human heads, so might be deemed Cyborgs); atop the Andes is a prehistoric Lost World – presumably influenced by The Lost World (1912) by Arthur Conan Doyle – where the locals have "learned the transmutation of species", resulting in trees with the heads of Dinosaurs; they also plan to destroy civilization by releasing a plague of giant insects. Two of #4's plots are deliberately silly (see Humour): in one a rhyming weatherman creates a giant glacier in an attempt to rule the world, but Kelly's spaceship lifts it into the sky to be melted by the Sun; in the other, living alien musical instruments, led by the piano-shaped Minstrel of Death, play their "melody of madness" (see Meme; Music) to force everyone to dance themselves to death (fortunately Punchy is tone-deaf). #5 has a story about the descendants of Genghis Khan surviving in an Underground Burmese City, but its most notable feature, given the era and medium, is a sympathetically portrayed Asian scientist.
There is also a Rocket Kelly story in The Book of All-Comics (1945): this has Kelly, Whacky (sic) and Sue arriving on Selura as if for the first time (and with the red spaceship). The planet's social structure seems to be different to that in Everybody's Comics (no mention is made of an elite living on the outer ring). The story involves an underground city whose leader blames the new arrivals for recent misfortunes; they are freed by a dwarf who realizes they are being used as scapegoats. The locals' command of English is explained: every so often Selura approaches Earth, which creates a cyclone – and in 1700 one carried a sailing ship to Selura (the same thing had apparently happened with Kelly's spaceship). An unnumbered issue of The Bouncer (1945, sometimes referred to as #10, but published after #13) has two Rocket Kelly stories: one continues the aforementioned story, with the spaceship, having departed the city, now arriving in "the Atom World of Selura" (presumably another region of that planet), ruled by evil scientist Dr Malik, who keeps the secrets of Nuclear Energy for himself. Kelly puts a stop to that, then establishes Communications with Earth. The other story pre-dates all those already mentioned, as Kelly is in Java during World War Two and his air plane does not yet have rockets.
The scientific literacy of US comics of this era was usually bad, but Rocket Kelly is notably so (see Scientific Errors); the tales themselves, though sometimes built around a moderately interesting or amusing conceit , are poor at best. Irritatingly, the Selura stories in Everybody's Comics have some reasonable worldbuilding but then do very little with it. [SP]
links
- Comic Book Plus
- Grand Comics Database
- Comic Book Plus – The Bouncer
- Comic Book Plus – The Green Mask
- Comic Book Plus – The Book Of All-Comics and Everybody's Comics
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