Dark Horse Comics’ graphic novel The Rocketeer: Cliff’s New York Adventure collects the three issues of Rocketeer Adventure Magazine by Dave Stevens. The first two issues were published by Comico Comics in 1988 and 1989 and the third by Dark Horse in 1995. The story picks up after the the events of the previous volume, with Cliff Secord, the Rocketeer, traveling to New York City to stop his girlfriend, Betty, from boarding a ship bound for Europe. Not a great one for romance, he manages to cause more trouble than help, but he ends up working for a man named Jonas (really Lamont Cranston, the alter-ego of the Shadow) to stop a murderer who’s killing carnival workers.

The story has all the pulp adventure fun of the first Rocketeer story, with more of Stevens’ allusions to the 1930s and 1940s. Though he never identifies Jonas as the Shadow, fans of that era’s stories will recognize him. The killer, Lothar, is based on Rondo Hatton, a movie star from the period. As in the first volume, Stevens bases Betty on Bette Page. Further, flashback sequences of Cliff’s youth living and working in the carnival draw heavily upon Tod Browning’s 1932 film, Freaks. The 1991 Disney film, The Rocketeer, drew upon the first book so this story will be completely new to those familiar with the character from that movie.

The success of this character and his lingering place in popular culture ensured that his stories would continue beyond this final volume from Stevens. Following Stevens’ passing in 2008, IDW Publishing collected the entire series in 2009 before beginning various Rocketeer miniseries in 2011, with the sixth IDW miniseries appearing in 2015. ( )

unique cover. ( )