The Rocketeer
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Image:Rocketeer Adventure Magazine 1.jpg The Rocketeer is a comic book created by Dave Stevens, appearing in short installments over the course of 13 years, from 1982 to 1995. Beginning in Los Angeles in 1938, stunt pilot Cliff Secord finds a rocket pack which allows him to become the title character. The retro and nostalgic story and art were influenced by, among other things, movie and radio serials and the work of pinup diva Bettie Page. Stevens' work gained fans and critical acclaim despite long stretches between story installments.
The Rocketeer’s first adventure appeared as a backup feature to Mike Grell's Starslayer #2 from Pacific Comics in 1982. Four more installments appeared in various Pacific publications, and were later collected together by Eclipse Comics (ISBN 1560600888). The fifth chapter ended in a cliffhanger.
The story picked up again in the Rocketeer Adventure Magazine. Two issues were published by Comico Comics in 1988 and 1989, but the third did not appear until years later, published by Dark Horse Comics in 1995. All three issues were collected by Dark Horse as The Rocketeer: Cliff's New York Adventure (ISBN 1569710929).
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Film adaptation
The Rocketeer is a superhero film starring Billy Campbell and Jennifer Connelly. It was released in 1991 by Disney. The movie is set in Los Angeles in 1938, the time just before World War II as Nazi Germany was preparing to go to war. Numerous other topical elements from the time period were combined, including the Golden Age of Hollywood, mobsters and G-men, and the enigmatic Howard Hughes (played by Terry O'Quinn). The film involves the escapades of Cliff Secord (Campbell) after he and his friend A. "Peevy" Peabody (Alan Arkin) discover a jet pack. Secord also has to defend his relationship with Jenny Blake (Connelly) from being broken up by movie star Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton).
Music for the movie was written by James Horner. The film won a Saturn Award for Best Costume in 1991. It was one of the first movies directed by Joe Johnston, who later went on to direct movies such as Jumanji and Hidalgo.
Synopsis
The movie opens with Cliff flying a Gee Bee airplane in which he and Peevy have invested a lot of time and money ("Building that plane took ten years and every damn cent we had!"), in preparation for an upcoming race. Due to circumstances out of his control, Cliff is forced to crash-land the aircraft, ruining the investment. While this was going on, a chase between mobsters and pursuing G-men has occurred on the ground. A mysterious package hidden by one of the pursued is soon discovered by Cliff and Peevy. It contains a jet pack, apparently fueled by alcohol, and with a design that allows it to stay cool by quickly dissipating the heat of combustion.
Soon, Peevy constructs a helmet for Cliff to wear as he tries out the jet pack on his own. The helmet, which has a large tail-fin to allow Cliff to steer in flight, is an Art Deco design that reflects the time, though it isn't necessarily the most fashionable thing: When Cliff asks, "How do I look?" Peevy replies, "Like a hood ornament."
Peevy is instrumental in perfecting the rocket-pack's usefulness, as well as keeping Cliff in the air. During a shoot-out, the rocket-pack is slightly damaged by a ricocheting bullet, puncturing a fuel line. A piece of Cliff's gum seals the rupture.
Meanwhile, Cliff's girlfriend Jenny has been given a chance to appear in a Hollywood film starring actor Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton, in a parody of '30s movie star Errol Flynn). She is almost kicked off the set when Cliff shows up and bungles a shot, but she attracts Sinclair's attention; he is secretly working to get Cliff's jet pack for the Nazis.
A covert meeting with Howard Hughes reveals that he designed the rocket-pack; in the race against Nazi Germany to perfect a single-man flying machine. The rocket-pack is the prototype, the only working model. Mass-produced, it would be invaluable in the coming war. He demands the return of the rocket, but Cliff "isn't finished with it yet". Jenny has been abducted by Neville Sinclair.
Cliff and Peevy have several narrow escapes from the Nazis' Frankensteinish goon Lothar (Tiny Ron, in makeup to make him resemble character actor Rondo Hatton) and mobster Eddie Valentine (Paul Sorvino), whom Sinclair has hired to track down the jet pack. Eventually Sinclair is outed as a Nazi, at which point Valentine and his gang, like any red-blooded Americans, switch sides.
The last major scene in the movie is a fight on a zeppelin which eventually ends in the ship's fiery destruction. (In reality, only one zeppelin, the Hindenburg, has ever been destroyed by fire in the United States.) Aboard the zeppelin, Sinclair demands the rocket-pack in exchange for Jenny. Cliff reluctantly slides it over, but not before dislodging the bubble gum. Sinclair exits the zeppelin in mid-air, but with a damaged fuel line, the rocket quickly catches fire, careens out of control and explodes, taking Sinclair and the last four letters of the famous "Hollywoodland" sign with it.
Cliff and Jenny safely get off the zeppelin in time, and his relationship with her is secured. In the epilogue, Howard Hughes makes a gift of a brand new plane to Cliff and Peevy, to replace the one they lost at the start. At the same time, Jenny has a reward of her own — the detailed schematics of the rocket-pack which enable Peevy to rebuild the device with improvements.
Computer game
The Rocketeer was also adapted for a computer game for PC machines. Using digitized sound and 256-color VGA graphics, it consists of a sequence of several levels, each of them in different action style, and the story is carried between levels with comic book–style strips and spoken dialogue. Certainly more true to the original than the movie, and arguably the more successful adaptation of the two, perhaps the biggest problem the game presented was the high level of difficulty.
A different animal altogether is the other Rocketeer game, one for the NES. A side-scrolling platform jumping game closely based on the movie adaptation, it was derided by critics and players alike. A version also appeared on the Super Nintendo.
In 1988 Cinemaware company also published a computer game called Rocket Ranger based on a similar idea and probably inspired by the Rocketeer comics.