Planet Comics

Planet Comics
Cover to Planet Comics #53 (March 1948). Art by Joe Doolin.
Publication information
Publisher	Fiction House
Format	Anthology
Publication date(s)	January 1940 – Winter 1953
No. of issues	73
Main character(s)	Flint Baker and the Space Rangers Gale Allen Mysta of the Moon Spurt Hammond et al.

Planet Comics was a science fiction comic book title published by Fiction House from January 1940 to Winter 1953. It was the first comic book dedicated wholly to science fiction. Like most of Fiction House's early comics titles, Planet Comics was a spinoff of a pulp magazine, in this case Planet Stories. Like the magazine before it, Planet Comics featured space operatic tales of muscular, heroic space adventurers who were quick with their "ray pistols" and always running into gorgeous females who needed rescuing from bug-eyed space aliens or fiendish interstellar bad guys.

Planet Comics #1 was released with a cover-date of January 1940, and ran for 73 issues until Winter 1953. Initially produced on a monthly schedule, issue #8 (Sept. 1940) saw it slip to a bimonthly title, which it held until the end of 1949. From issue #26 (Sept. 1943), "Planet Comics was cut to 60 pages," resulting in the merging of two strips: Flint Baker and Reef Ryan. Issue #63 (Winter 1949) began a quarterly release schedule, but #64, #65, and #66 were ultimately released annually, dated Spring 1950, 1951, and 1952, respectively. Issue #67 (Summer 1952) got the comic back on its quarterly release schedule, but the title only lasted a further seven issues, with its last (#73) again delayed for over a year, following issue #72 (Fall 1953).

Planet Comics was the foremost purveyor of good girl art in comic books of the period, and is considered highly collectible by modern fans of comics' Golden Age. It specialized in colorful and lurid stories of interstellar action, ingenuous and attractive heroes and heroines, breezy dialogue, and the “barest smattering of sense and substance” (Benton 1992, p. 27). Its covers usually featured a beautiful, scantily-attired spacewoman with long bare legs being menaced by a frightful alien monster, while a sleek, heroic spaceman comes to her rescue.

Sometimes, though, Planet Comics reversed this formula: both covers and stories occasionally provided heroines who handily defeated the space aliens and interplanetary villains with little or no assistance from males (the comic was also seen as a fantasy title). Cynics might have noted that this sex-equality strategy in effect simply multiplied the number of lovely girls shown per panel, and insured that each and every panel featured at least one smashing spacegirl.