Chapter 4 January 1947Planet Comics #46

In a 1939 issue of John Russell Fearn published the science fiction pulp story The Golden Amazon. This story was unusual for the period in that a woman was the protagonist/antagonist. War-orphan Violet Ray is the The Golden Amazon, a woman mutated to be a superior being.

However unintentionally, Violet Ray was a Wonder woman prototype complete with a Steve Trevor-like husband with whom she subjected to an almost Sabine relationship. Her superiority and beauty was such that any man was forced to submit to her.

Violet was very different than Princess Diana of Paradise Island. She did not intend to bring peace to the world through loving example. Instead she chose to bend "Man's World" to her will and achieved safety for herself and her progeny through violence. She was, to wit, a female version of every science hero of the pulp era.

The story was successful enough to spawn a series of novellas featuring the character and her descendants. Would that the legacy of Wonder Woman received as much attention as the lineage of Superman. One of the interesting artifacts of Planet Comics is that often women were the focus of attention as something other than a victim. Of the covers, quite often the female was the aggressive heroine of the scene battling robots or rescuing the hapless, handsome, man from danger.

Planet Comics #46 (January 1947)

Planet Comics #46 (January 1947)

In this issue the artistic format of the story

telling is becoming less creative and begins to

resemble the standard layout for a more

economic style of comic book. If I have a

critique of the Futura series it is the seeming

"hiccup" in story telling at this point. After only a

few issues the kidnapped secretary from Earth

is abruptly promoted from lab-animal to the

warrior-queen leader of the rebellion. A bit

sudden for an unknown quantity who's only

previously demonstrable skills were the

operation of a typewriter.

Later, after what I call the "Magic Sword of

Destiny" arc concludes the story of Futura

reboots after a fashion and takes on a more

logical progression of her journey through

hostile space. It was as if the creators had a

long story planned but were under the

impression they had to wrap it up quickly, then

got the news they would be hanging around for

a while like the other Planet Comics serials.

Planet Comics

was a science fiction comic-book title

produced by Fiction House and issued

from Jan. 1940 (issue 1) to Winter 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.

Planet Comics #1 (January 1940)

Planet Comics was considered by noted fan Raymond Miller to be "perhaps the best of the

Fiction House group," as well as "most collected and most valued." In Miller's opinion, it

"wasn't really featuring good art or stories... in the first dozen or so issues," not gaining most

of "its better known characters" until "about the 10th issue." "Only 3 of its long running strips

started with the first issue... Flint Baker, Auro - Lord of Jupiter, and the Red Comet."