But some cynical folks have questioned this scenario. Why was it so important that we beat the commies? Really, could you just evade security and steal a rocket like that? What about the children?!!?
Oh, your poor fools. It's not as if Stan and Jack invented that scenario. Apparently, having to sneak away before the government smacked you down was a common part of the space program!
Let's go back a decade earlier, to the comic book adaption of the movie Destination Moon.. Congress has refused to fund the space race anymore, so the scientists have convinced patriotic industrialists that they must pay for the first moon launch!
Well, they get the money, and are almost ready to go, but...
But obviously, same scenario--we must beat the commies, and we've got to leave without permission!!
So the lesson is, be sneaky, don't wait for clearance or approval--just get in the damn rocket and take off early!! Half the time, you won't get turned into monsters!!
From Fantastic Four #1 (1961), and Destination Moon (1950), as reprinted in Space Adventures #23 (1958)
4 comments:
And those are pretty good odds!
Something fishy is going on here. In the third Destination Moon panel the balloon "We don't legally need permission" has been clumsily re-lettered. In the next balloon the "no actual law" part also looks fishy. Similarly, in panels 5 and 6 "we will get a court injunction" and "we don't need your permission and you know it" are also re-lettered. Hypothesis: originally the astronauts ignored the authorities and launched the rocket illegally, but the editor (or filmmaker or somebody) got cold feet and changed the law.
It's a Code Change before the Code even existed!
Smurf...the version I clipped panels from is the 1958 Charlton reprint. I don't have the 1950 Fawcett original, so while it's clear there's been some crude re-lettering, I can't say with certainty whether that's from the original or the (post-Code) reprint.
FWIW, in the movie, the government did refuse to let them test the atomic engine, as a response to massive public protests fearful of radiation. The line from the movie read "there's no law against taking off in a spaceship...it's never been done, so they haven't gotten around to prohibiting it. If we ask for permission, they'll find a way to block us, so we go now!" and a bureaucrat later shows up with a "court order forbidding them to take off."
That's the answer, all right. I didn't realize this was a post-Code reprint. I looked up the Fawcett original at ComicBook+ and it's as you say...in the original the guy in the jeep is waving an injunction and our heroes hurry aboard before the bailiff can reach them to serve it.
Interesting nuances in the first two panels. In the first, the phrase "...commission might DENY our request..." replaces "...the commission has just DENIED our request..." In the second panel, the guy on the left used to say, "Then we're stopped cold!" Yellow-Tie's reply "...before they decide to stop us." was originally "...before they can really stop us."
Keepin' it all legal, folks.
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