THE ROCKETEER - Jet-Pack Adventures

 

THE ROCKETEER

Jet-Pack Adventures

Editors Jeff Conners & Tom Waltz

IDW Publishing Company

409 pgs

 

As a comic publisher, IDW was fortunate to land the rights to the late Dave Stevens’ great retro hero, the Rocketeer. In the past ten years they’ve done some truly wonderful mini-series by various creators; all who loved and respected Stevens’ work. Then years ago they took a major plunge by assembling a prose anthology entitled, “The Rocketeer – Jet-Pack Adventures.”  

The book features ten truly fun stories starting with “The Red, White, and Grey,” by Yvonne Navarro. In it, Cliff and Betty fly to the island of Catalina to spending a romantic getaway vacation. They end up staying at the mansion of the famous western writer Zane Gray. Among his other guests are four German ex-patriots said to have fled the Nazis regime and now living in Brazil. Still, there is something about them that Cliff is not comfortable with and so decides to do a little detective work on his own.  

Next “Nazis in Paradise” has Cliff discovering the hidden city of Shamballa for Howard Hughes and encountering a deadly Nazis agent determined to steal all the science found there. Echoes of James Hilton’s “Lost Horizons,” this is a fun story. This is followed by “Farewell, My Rocketeer,” by Gregory Frost in which Cliff finds himself somewhere in the Arizona desert uncovering a lost Aztec treasure. Simon Kurt Unsworth’s “Atoll of Terror,” has Betty and the Rocketeer battling flying monkeys on a distant Caribbean island. Can things get any weirder?  

In “Sky Pirates of Rangoon,” Cliff finds himself in Burma delivering ammunition to former Army Air Corp General Claine Chennault for his Flying Tigers allied with the Republic of China Air Force against the invading Japanese. Along the way he crosses path with a beautiful bandit aviatrix.  Then Nancy Holder brings him back to Los Angles in “Rockets to Hell,” the first tale pitting the Rocketeer against supernatural forces of evil. Luckily, he gets some help from a certain movie Tarzan. Staying with the Hollywood connection, Nancy A. Collins turns in “Codename : Ecstacy” wherein Cliff uncovers a nest of Nazis agents after they plot a scheme to kidnap a very famous movie star and steal her amazing invention.

Writer Robert Hood’s “Flying Death” has Cliff encountering a double from an alternate world who challenges for Betty’s affection while paving the way for a German invasion. In “Mask of the Pharoah,” Nicholas Kaufmann has Cliff helping a homicide detective solve a murder on a movie set where Betty is working. Little do they realized the killer is obsessed with ancient arcane Egyptian magic. The collection ends with Lisa Morton’s “The Rivet Gang,” having Cliff and Betty hunt down an all-female robbery crew.

Overall this is a solid anthology, though be forewarned, several of the stories are open-ended. I.e. there’s no solid resolution as the villains manage to escape making us wonder if there was a planned second volume that sadly never came about. One final kudo to artist Jay Bone for his wonderful cover and interior illustrations. They lots of fun to an already good book.