Planet Comics

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title=Planet Comics


caption=Issue 53, March 1948; cover by Joe Doolin
schedule=
format=Anthology
publisher=Fiction House
date=1940 - 1953
issues=73
main_char_team=Gale Allen
Mysta of the Moon
Hunt Bowman
Spurt Hammond, et. al
writers=
artists=
pencillers=
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"Planet Comics" was a science fiction comic-book title produced by Fiction House and issued from Jan. 1940 (issue 1) to 1953 (issue 73). Like many of Fiction House's early comics titles, "Planet Comics" was a spinoff of a pulp magazine, in this case "Planet Stories", which featured space operatic tales of muscular, heroic space adventurers who were quick with their ray pistols and always running into gorgeous females who needed rescue from bug-eyed space aliens or fiendish interstellar bad guys.

As a comic book, "Planet Comics" was the foremost purveyor of good girl art in the comics, and is considered highly collectible by modern fans of comics' Golden Age. Each page of each story featured at least one large image of a very lovely female, attired in very little in the way of costume, and in particular displaying long, bare legs.

However, as with many other Fiction House comics, a number of the series developed by "Planet Comics" upped the ante by providing female heroines who handily defeated the space aliens and interplanetary bad guys, while needing no or little assistance from males. Cynics might have noted that this proto-feminist strategy in effect simply multiplied the number of lovely girls shown per panel, and insured that each and every panel featured at least one smashing spacegirl. Fiction House also employed a number of female artists to work on such tales, particularly Lily Renée, Marcia Snyder, Ruth Atkinson and Fran Hopper, whose art for "Mysta of the Moon" was often stunning.

Many well-known artists worked on "Planet Comics" stories over its 13-year history, including Murphy Anderson, Matt Baker, Nick Cardy, Joe Doolin, Graham Ingels, George Evans, John Cullen Murphy, George Tuska and Maurice Whitman.

Character listing

*Gale Allen – A voluptuous female space adventurer, who led her all girl "girl squadron" on wild outings
*Auro, Lord of Jupiter – Two different characters of this name appeared in Planet Comics. The first was essentially an outer space version of Tarzan. The second was a Flash Gordon-esque hero whose body is inhabited by the soul of an Earthman.
*Mysta of the Moon – A gorgeous female version of Captain Future, complete with robot sidekick
*Futura – Another smashingly lovely crusader for interplanetary justice
*Reef Ryan – A heroic space captain, who became part of the Space Rangers
*Hunt Bowman – Guerrilla-fighter against the evil, reptilian Voltamen, who have conquered earth in the 30th century.
*Spurt Hammond – Human defender of Planet Venus
*Flint Baker – Another athletic space hero, who became part of the Space Rangers
*Star Pirate – A Robin Hood of space, who looked very much like Starman
*Captain Nelson Cole – Officer in the Space Patrol
*The Red Comet – A space-explorer with superhero aspects
*Crash Parker – Space hero
*Buzz Crandall – Space hero
*The Space Rangers – Whose uniforms look very much like those seen on TV's Rocky Jones Space Ranger (1954)
*Mars, God of War – The ancient Roman God, causing violent mischief on other planets
*The Sorceress of Xalan
*The Mudmen
*The Medusa-Men of Mars – Tried to replace Mysta's hair with snakes. Resistance would mean that Mysta would become snake-food. However, they were defeated.
*The Two-Faced Monster of Planetoid Zero – Fought Flint Baker

Gallery

External links

* [http://www.comics.org/indexstatus.lasso?SeriesID=162 Index of "Planet Comics" issues]
* [http://www.tcj.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=466&Itemid=48 Female artists of Fiction House]
* [http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/stupidcomics75.html Humorous commentary on a typical Spurt Hammond story]
* [http://www.goldenagecomics.co.uk/index.php?cid=17 Download issues of Planet Comics]