The Golden Age of Space

This is one of those topics that make me smile - the Golden Age of Space. This concept was conceived back when people had little to no understanding of the real rigors of space travel and scientific understanding was poor. Other worlds bred incredible cultures, a rich variety of alien civilizations grew but required human input and empathy, and the flora and fauna ripe for hunting and civilizing influences. Little did humanity actually realize that space was disease and danger wrapped up in darkness and silence.

However, the ideas that came about from space being a fun way to spend an afternoon brought about some wonderful titles from people who imagined that Alpha Centauri was no less difficult to get to than Johannesburg. And although the bulk of these titles fell out of favor, they do tend to come back as retro-appreciation and even in some cases, modernized to catch up to our more cynical times.

JOHN CARTER - by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and brought back to life by Alan Moore in the second volume of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He's a good ole Southerner who has been transported to Barsoom (the name Martians give their own planet). Because of the lighter gravity of Mars, he is much stronger and tougher than its native inhabitants - whether they are the hulking many-armed savage green Martians or the naked and voluptuous randy red Martians with whom Carter tends to mate, go figure. What is cool about the John Carter stories is not only were they written by Burroughs to begin with, but the fact that he took the time to expand upon the Barsoom universe - developing many races, cultures, and habitats that flesh out the Martian experience despite being as fantastical and grounded in science as a H.P. Lovecraft story. There is always talks of a John Carter movie and it could be fair to say that Avatar by James Cameron is inspired by it. John McTiernan and Jon Favreau have made attempts, but it looks like Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo and Wall-E) is the current option holder. If that's the case, then John Carter will be a CG flick.

GULLIVAR JONES - I would never have heard of him if it weren't for the fact that he too was included in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as a fighting compatriot for Carter on the battlefields of Mars. Sort of like Carter's much less successful kid brother, Jones didn't always get the girl or defeat his enemies. In this sense, he could have been developed as a much more complex character if anyone felt the need to take his stories and develop them further. Roy Thomas and Marvel Comics gave it a stab (they probably could not get the rights for John Carter) in the 1970s but that didn't last long. It was only Alan Moore who brought him back and only as a bit player.

FLASH GORDON - I think most people remember blonde football player god Sam Jones wearing that red tanktop fighting Max Von Sydow, who himself was majorly slumming it as Ming the Merciless to a soundtrack by Queen. Actually, I think everything was red in that movie. First published in 1934, there was a TV show broadcast in 2008 on the Sci Fi channel which thankfully didn't last long. The porn movie, Flesh Gordon, probably nailed (no pun intended) the idea of Flash Gordon the best - garish, cheap-ish, kind of racist, but overall something that you absolutely could not take seriously. However, there is a current Flash Gordon title written by Brendan Deneen which understands the overall Flash Gordon sensibility probably should only exist on the pages of comics.

BUCK ROGERS - most of us probably remember this as the Gil Gerard TV show where everyone wore skin tight white flightsuits and that stupid robot Twikki walking around with no purpose whatsoever - the show itself was a rip-off of Flash Gordon. He was originally created in 1929 by John Flint Dille and was named after Dille's dog. Conveniently falling into a coma, former air corps veteran Rogers wakes up in the 25th century to fight for advanced civilization humanity with some 20th century gusto against the "Mongol" hordes, which again makes for some pretty nasty racist metaphors - particularly as Buck Rogers grew in popularity during the Cold War versus the Red Menace. Dynamite Comics brought him back in 2009 with a completely new and unique visual style as part of the current theme of bringing space retro-back.

ADAM STRANGE - created by Gardner Fox in 1958, Adam Strange was DC Comics' version of John Carter, with similar origins but instead of Barsoom, the planet in question was Rann. He had his peak in the Cold War with simplistic stories but was brought back in a big way in 2005 during the Rann - Thanagar War, a precursor to the even larger Infinite Crisis crossover event. He was updated, given a real personality, and made a staple character in the DC scheme of things - eventually teaming up with Animal Man and Starfire of the Teen Titans against elements of Jack Kirby's New Gods.

AETHERIC MECHANICS, MINISTRY OF SPACE and IGNITION CITY - it seems a little wierd that Warren Ellis jumped on this genre but he did indeed with these three titles, starting with 1) Aetheric Mechanics, a steam punk space-age Victorian adventure starring Sherlocke Holmes and James Watson, 2) Ministry of Space, which ran in the mid-2000s and 3) Ignition City, which is still ongoing. I include a panel page of Aetheric Mechanics rather than a cover shot as its the inside artwork that is more impressive.

I'll focus on Ministry of Space and Ignition City as they were less a presentation of ideas like Aetheric Mechanics and more actual narratives - Ignition City focuses on pastiches of characters of Dan Dare, 2001, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and many more source materials. Basically, Earth has closed off space travel and its many astronauts and space explorers are now vagrants drinking their lives away in the last remaining space park, trying to figure out why it all happened and cut off from the truth. In contrast, Ministry of Space shows the high age of space exploration from the UK's point of view - as it races to the reaches of astral colonization and imperialism against other superpowers.