This issue of Showcase features Space Ranger, the secret interplanetary superhero identity of Rick Starr. Except Space Ranger wears a see-through helmet, so his identity can’t be very secret.
Rick Starr is a bored blue blood, living some time in the future after humans have colonized other planets in the solar system (and met alien races). Space Ranger is fairly unambitious science fiction, but Edmond Hamilton’s scripts for the two stories in this issue are genial enough. Rick’s got a girlfriend who he doesn’t include on his adventures enough and an adorable little pink shapeshifting alien sidekick.
Space Ranger feels like most other pulp sci-fi, though Hamilton keeps it pretty chaste.
The first story involves a villain with a teleportation ray, the second a planet of robots out to conquer the solar system.
It’s oddly endearing, even if Bob Brown’s art isn’t particularly imaginative or even generally good.
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