Comics: Buck Rogers #1

By Lisa Fary

I got a pull list just for Buck Rogers, and now look what happened.

I generally don’t keep a pull list at the comic shop because I’m so fickle about comic shops. There are three different shops in the area and I want to bring my business to all of them rather than committing to one. I’m also fickle about titles – if it starts sucking, it get dropped from the reading list.

But, John and I get on really well with the people at the shop nearest our apartment. And they’re open late, which we’d like to support. So, I finally put a title on the pull list, Buck Rogers, based on the strength of Issue #0.

Issue one starts with Buck crash landing his New Challenger spacecraft on Future Earth. The story then switches to Past Earth, where Buck is preparing to test the New Challenger and its gravity drive, which he’s developed as a private enterprise.

I’m assuming that the gravity drive is what propelled Buck to Future Earth, but this issue doesn’t get that far. The Past Earth storyline stops with the military attempting to commandeer the gravity drive and arresting Buck for, well, being an aggressive twit. As he’s knocked out by the butt of a rifle on Past Earth, he wakes up on Future Earth, where he’s intercepted by Wilma Deering. There’s some back and forth as she tries to pull him from the wreckage and he keeps going back to get the gravity drive.

Then they get gotten by an eye-patch wearing, laser canon toting bear.

I wasn’t blown away by Buck Rogers #1. Didn’t even like it that much. The Past Earth story is clumsily shoved in the middle of the Future Earth story and has no parallel to it, other than Buck getting a bump to the head.

Which reminds me – the last thing Buck sees before passing out on Past Earth is a military woman named Ashley, who is the spitting image of Wilma Deering, only without the Nexus/ Tron jumpsuit. The next panel is Colonel Deering’s face on Future Earth as Buck comes to.

If this entire series turns out to be a coma dream. . .

It looks like the Past and Future Earth flip flopping will continue for a while, which is disappointing. The whole point of the character is to put a modern day guy in the future. Buck’s origin doesn’t take that much exposition – we should be able to learn about who he was on Past Earth through his words and actions on Future Earth. The sloppily done flash back (Buck back!) is so Lost. Too Lost.

I don’t even want to read the next issue, but I’m going to. It’s on the pull list now – it seems silly to cancel after a single issue. Oh well. At least I get 10% off.

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Lisa Fary’s early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl. She thinks diagramming sentences is a fun alternative to Sudoku.