Commando Cody

Yesterday, I told you about the lack of cookies in the 35th century and how I was going to rectify that in my next book. It got me to thinking about what other stuff that I love that I never squeezed in. The first thing that came to mind was Commando Cody and his jet pack. This is not Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen, the country rock group responsible for Hot Rod Lincoln. No, Commando Cody was a black & white, serial action hero from the 50s who was closer in spirit to Iron Man. Here is a brief description of him from my first novel ever entitled Future Past which shockingly is not science fiction but actually a romantic novel:

Commando Cody was my all-time favorite childhood hero. He was a fellow who strapped a jet pack on his back and flew around chasing bad guys. What made him special and what let me relate to him was that he was ordinary. He wasn’t a superhero, just a hero with some really cool technology. He had no special powers, just his wits and fists. In theory, with that jet pack, anybody could fly like him. I spent countless hours imaging just that. I would build little models of him out of plastic building blocks that came long before Legos. I’d fly them around. I built replicas of his spaceship and I’d fight aliens and bad guys in my mind.

Actually, I did sneak a little bit of Commando Cody during Junior's "birth scene" in The Ark Lords:

Rei and Rome turned to look where MINIMCOM was pointing. A large white ship was descending from the sky but it did not look like any spaceship either of them had ever seen before. It looked like an elongated bullet, all white, with stubby wings at the rear and a sharp, needle-like antenna sticking out the front. To Rei, it looked like something out of a bad science fiction movie. It circled around twice before landing right next to MINIMCOM, the starship. There was a whoosh and a popping sound and an all-white livetar appeared.

Here is a picture of Commando Cody's spaceship, in negative, used to represent the clone ships produced by Planet OMCOM in the middle of The Milk Run:



So what is the point of all of this? I love the idea of a jetpack and people flying around. I even loved Disney's The Rocketeer which was an homage to Commando Cody. I don't know why they never made a sequel. Anyway, don't you think they should have jetpacks and fly around the city in the 35th century? I do so I think in the next book, I'll sneak in a Rocket Man or two of some sort.