Chapter 19 July 1949Planet Comics #61

Planet Comics #61 introduces a few new villains

who serve as the impetus for Futura's battle for

freedom. The series is in high gear for the next

several issues, though it admittedly reworks

some elements of the Brain-Men of Pan-

Cosmos. Futura is still on Oceania but is pulled

into a secret city ruled by tyrannical decapitated

heads that are on life-support. Again, Futura

surprises the heck out of the fiends that rule

their petty kingdoms by fighting back, something

that lord and ladies just don't expect from a

subservient and frightened class of subjugated

peoples.

The Futura Saga has a mere three issues remaining until it comes to a conclusion. Many of the long-running series featured in Planet Comics come to a close within the following year and Futura was among the first. Changing consumer tastes and market expectations meant the end of many of the decades-long running serials. The Comics Code Authority and nascent Silver Age style of storytelling that was perfected at DC Comics in the early 1960s meant that anthology collections of disposable one-off stories were to become the norm.

Planet Comics #61(July 1949)

Planet Comics #61 (July 1949)

Among the Fiction House titles it was Planet

Comics that would prove the most adaptable to

changing tastes and evolved with more success

than the Western or Jungle-based tales but

being unable or unwilling to compete with other

forms of entertainment that was gaining ground

the entire Fiction House line of books would

soon become another casualty of the fickle

retail market.

Planet Comics

was a science fiction comic-book title

produced by Fiction House and issued

from Jan. 1940 (issue 1) to Winter 1953

(issue 73). Like many of Fiction House's

early comics titles, Planet Comics was a

spinoff of a pulp magazine, in this case

Planet Stories, which featured space

operatic tales of muscular, heroic space

adventurers who were quick with their 'ray

pistols' and always running into gorgeous

females who needed rescue from bug-

eyed space aliens or fiendish interstellar

bad guys.

Planet Comics #1 (January 1940)

Planet Comics was considered by noted fan Raymond Miller to be "perhaps the best of the

Fiction House group," as well as "most collected and most valued." In Miller's opinion, it

"wasn't really featuring good art or stories... in the first dozen or so issues," not gaining most

of "its better known characters" until "about the 10th issue." "Only 3 of its long running strips

started with the first issue... Flint Baker, Auro - Lord of Jupiter, and the Red Comet."