Pre Code Classics Tom Corbett Space Cadet #2 HC

Pre-Code Classics: Tom Corbett, Space Cadet #2

by Paul S. Newman, Frank Thorne, Alden McWilliams (Illustrator)

November/ January 1954 -September/ November 1954 May/June 1955 September/ October 1955

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tom Corbett was the face of 1950's outer space science fiction, just as James T. Kirk and Luke Skywalker became in the following decades and as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers had been in the preceding ones. This second PS Artbooks volume is another nicely-producer sturdy hardcover with slick, richly colored pages. It collects the final four issues of the Dell version of the comic and the three issues that Prize Comics printed in 1955. The Dell issues all have a single long story and lovely cover paintings, whereas the Prize books each contain three short Tom Corbett stories and a variety of secondary-stories and single-page features including Captain Quick and the Space Scouts, Time Scope Scrapbook for Space Scouts (which was a history lesson), and a prose page of scientific "Space News." (The Space News stories weren't too dependable; the column in the third issue asserts that "...Jupiter is the largest of the planets with the exception of Mars..." ?!) The Prize stories themselves are of lesser quality that the Dell issues, I think, both the art and the writing. In the final two, Cadet T.J. Thistle has replaced Roger Manning aboard the Polaris, mirroring the cast change of the television program. The original advertisements for the final three are included, and they're a hoot-and-a-half in their own right; bodybuilding and television repair manuals, philatelic approvals, tricks and games, offers to sell salve and greeting cards, etc. In the stories, Tom Corbett, Astro, and Roger Manning are Cadets at Space Academy, training to become full-fledged members of The Solar Guard, the august group of heroes who keep the spaceways safe for law-abiding citizens. Captain Strong is their leader and advisor and is always seen puffing on his pipe no matter what planet they're exploring or what spaceship they're traveling on. It's a fun look back at how the future used to be!