The Rocketeer: Cliff’s New York Adventure (1988-95)

Cliff’s New York Adventure doesn’t feature any New York landmarks. No Rocketeer at the Empire State Building or Statue of Liberty. There’s a neat guest appearance by the Shadow (Stevens does a great job of dodging copyright infringement). It’s got a lot going on–there’s the resolution of the first story’s cliffhanger as Cliff confronts Betty on her way to Europe (she doesn’t have a very big role this time, though Stevens does have some wonderful panels with her).

Stevens’s writing is … well, he has the same annoying dialect in parts but not overall. Unfortunately, he kind of misses the boat on what he’s actually writing here.

See, it’s all about the past coming back and he doesn’t realize he’s created a heartbreaking story. He wouldn’t have had to change the plot (which is action-packed), but there’s such a clear lack of realization, it feels like the story just can’t fully work. The end, which doesn’t even feature the protagonist, attests this problem.

Stevens unintentionally reveals Cliff as shallow and callous. There’s plenty of opportunity to redeem him, but since Stevens apparently didn’t realize what he’d done, he doesn’t do it.

I loathe these stories, where something clearly unintended hangs me up and clouds the entire work for me. It’s difficult because there’s a lot to like about it (though it’s nowhere near as strong as the first Rocketeer adventure, the supporting cast is just too weak).

Maybe if Stevens didn’t draw so well, I wouldn’t be so effected.

The Rocketeer (1982-85)

I’d never read the Rocketeer. Back when I first learned about it, in 1990 or 1991, it was because Comics Scene had a feature on the movie. And I loved the movie (still do) but it never translated to me reading the comics. For a time, they were hard to find, but probably not back then. Though I don’t think there were any new Rocketeer after the movie… oh, there was one (thanks Wikipedia).

But anyway, even though I’m generally familiar with the story and some of the comic’s details, I’d never read it, until now.

Obviously, the art is beautiful. It’s hard to tell what Stevens liked drawing more–Betty or the Rocketeer. Only when he’s drawing Cliff’s adventures, out of helmet so to speak, is there any sense he wasn’t completely deliberate. It’s not just Stevens’s attention to detail, his panel layouts are amazing too. The comic’s always in motion.

The writing has some issues. Not many. There’s a lot of great stuff, like Stevens letting the exposition boxes do narrative chores (the rocket pack doesn’t get visually introduced when Cliff finds it, for example) or how Betty’s pretty much the only one with a lot of thought balloons, which turn the comic into a model’s self-reflections on how to properly navigate relations, romantic and business, with men.

However, Stevens writes the dialogue in a thirties Hollywood dialect, which distracts to say the least.

It’s a small quibble, however, and the Rocketeer is an excellent comic book.