"Nothing else
makes sense. We've been worrying over
the wrong question. It's not the
where...it's the when."
--Anthony "Buck" Rogers
Truth or Dare
When I started collecting comics back in 1993 during the big comic
book boom, there were two major houses--Marvel and DC. That was pretty much it. You either liked
Spider-Man or Batman. Iron Man
or...Booster Gold, I guess. The Avengers
or the Justice League of America. On my
side of town, anyone who liked DC was a loser.
They just didn't know how to make exciting comics, or so my friends
thought, as I quietly hid my Green Lantern collection from their prying eyes.
Unfortunately, that whole one-or-the-other attitude carried
over into my second run at comic book collecting, which started with Brad
Meltzer's Identity Crisis. No matter what those eleven year-old kids may
think now, I became a permanent DC fan because of that book (I think a lot of people did).
When I paid a visit to my local comic book
store (aka "The Happiest Place on Earth") a few months ago, I spotted something completely different on their "just
in" shelf. It was the first Buck
Rogers trade paperback volume, titled Future
Shock, produced and released by Dynamite Entertainment.
My first reaction upon viewing Buck in his glowing, Tron-like suit was "I have got to see what this is
about." I paged through it at a
casual pace, noting Buck's humorous narration boxes and the attractive take on
Wilma Deering. Within a minute I had
reached the last page and decided that this was coming home with me.
This was the first time I had ever read or purchased a
Dynamite Entertainment title, and these guys should be winning every Eisner
award under the sun. While everyone's
out there arguing over Spider-Man's rogue's gallery (and frankly, who has time
to care about them anymore) and which Batvillain is going to take over Gotham
next (again, why should we care), Dynamite has been stealing all the glory from
right under Marvel's and DC's noses.
Don't believe me, eh?
Fine--I'll prove it to you.
The Gravity of the Situation
Volume One of Buck Rogers collects the first five issues of
the series, which introduces a new set of circumstances that, eventually, place
Buck where he needs to be--five hundred years in the future and with Colonel
Wilma Deering rescuing him from certain doom.
This Buck Rogers, along with his friend Craig McDonnell, has
developed a gravity drive that allows him to travel through space at Ludicrous
Speed. Basically, it takes all the
gravity from the surrounding fields and planets and pushes it in the direction
you're traveling, therein pushing you forward at speeds unknown.
Unfortunately, the military has seized Buck and Craig's
invention for a mission to intercept an impromptu Noah's Ark, en route to deep
space from Mars. While this wouldn't
normally be cause for alarm, a psychotic plague infected the researchers on the
red planet, making them kill each other and basically go ape-shit. One of these researchers took a strain of the
plague and, along with DNA from 50 other animals, launched it in this
"ark" before he died.
Buck's mission is to intercept this Ark of Doom and blast
the thing out of the sky before it causes any more trouble. And speaking of trouble, Buck engages the
gravity drive and totally overshoots the Ark of Doom until he disappears from
radar completely...and reappears five hundred years in the future, crash-lands
on Earth in his "antique flyer," and gets rescued by Colonel Wilma
Deering in a sexy trans-suit (which actually makes the noise
"biddi-biddi-biddi" when it's low on power--gotta give 'em credit for
that).
Over the next four issues, Buck and Wilma try to escape the
clutches of The Pack, a race of genetically engineered mammals who can speak,
walk on their hind legs, and interact with humans on all levels. They're also hunting humans for food like
wild game, which is not a pleasant thought, but it does hark back to the
science fiction writers of the golden age (if you consider The Pack and their
mission as a form of social commentary like I did).
Wilma proves that she is not some shrinking violet who needs
rescuing every issue--not only does she have looks, but she has brains and
combat skills to back them up. It's an
empowering female character in a genre mostly reserved for scantily clad,
sword-carrying bimbos and anime girls with clothes that shred like tissue
paper. I would like to congratulate the
Buck Rogers creative team for making Colonel Deering capable, confident, and
downright cool.
Once Buck and Wilma get a distress signal to their comrades
on Earth, Buck's gravity drive (left behind in his "antique flyer")
is commandeered and installed in the Starbuster, one of the Earth fleet's
rocket ships, so they can go rescue our hero and heroine. With the technology of the 25th century, the
drive finally works the way it was supposed to, catapulting the Starbuster from
Earth to Mars in a few panels.
Personally, I think all they needed was a really good electrician.
Volume One wraps up with the Earth Flight Troopers storming
The Pack's vessel. Deering and her team
go to rescue any human captives, while Buck goes to gum up the engine
room. I don't intend to give it all
away, but he calls his plan "Operation: Hot Lunch." As Deering puts it to one of her Flight
Troopers, "I don't get it either," but you will by the end of this
book, along with a great many other things about Buck's past on Earth, his
present, and where things are headed in the future.
The Men Behind The Curtain
I had never read Scott Beatty's work before, but I was
familiar with the name. I am now proud
to call him one of my favorite writers because of his work on Buck Rogers. The way he cuts from past to present and back
again, the way Buck's narration is often interrupted (or completed) by
present-day dialogue, and the clever humor injected at the right moments are
what made me keep reading this book till it was over...and left me craving for
more. That's the sign of a great book,
and since the next trade paperback is still available, I don’t have long to
wait.
The art team of Carlos Rafael (pencils and inks) and Carlos
Lopez (colors) knock this thing right out of the park. To paraphrase Buck, "This is like the
stuff I read in comic books and novels."
While giving everything a 21st-century edge, Carlos and Carlos also
manage to keep the 20's and 30's feel of Buck intact as well, and it's really
something to marvel at. The glow on the
Flight Troopers' suits is very reminiscent of Tron, and at the same time, is something altogether new. The atomizers are very retro and also very,
very cool (I'd like a six-pack of them to go, please). The covers by John Cassaday, especially the
covers for issues one and two, really stand head and shoulders above the rest
due to his art and Lopez's coloring.
Dare I say "Dynamite does it right"?
Simon Bowland's letters are not a problem and they don't
clutter up the panels. Those are my two
complaints about letterers, and as long as they pass those two criteria,
they're in good shape. The other thing I
noticed about Simon's letters was the font he chose for the Pack's leader
characters, who walk around in rotund, bulky mech-suits. Because it was thin and lightly colored it
was a little difficult to read, but this is really just nitpicking.
And finally, when you put everything together, you have a
slam-bang sci-fi action comic book that has totally rebooted Buck Rogers for a
new generation of fans while keeping the old fans happy (I know it kept me happy, at any rate). The one thing I did notice about these first
five issues is the breathless pace they run on--every issue ends on a
cliffhanger, daring you to turn the page and keep reading. You just can't put this thing down until you
run out of pages, so be warned--once you start reading Buck Rogers: Future Shock, you won't want to stop...and that, my
friends, is actually a good thing.
