Comic Strip Review: Jet Scott Volume 2 Script by Sheldon Stark, Art by Jerry Robinson
Quick recap: For a few years in the early 1950s (1953-1955) comics legends Sheldon Stark and Jerry Robinson tried their hands at a science fiction newspaper comic strip. The United States Government had a Department of Scientifact that investigated unusual occurrences, with one known field agent, Jet Scott. While sometimes the “science” was incidental to the story, the strong writing and excellent art made the strip popular with the small audience that saw it. Unfortunately, the syndicate bungled the job of getting Jet Scott into nationwide newspapers, and it eventually folded. See my review of Volume 1.
This volume contains the remaining half of the run, starting with “Frozen Forever” in which a food scientist has found a method for freezing matter indefinitely even in extreme heat, and even more impressively, if that matter was alive, thawing it out entirely safely! Too bad his greedy brother wants to steal the formula and freeze the smart one out of the family’s frozen food business–permanently! Jet and beautiful assistant Hilda, naturally, are threatened with a permafrost fate. Chilling.
The last story is “Sabotage on the Set.” Jet is called in as a science consultant on a movie about the history of aviation. This doesn’t last too long, as the film studio, Gateway Pictures, is having a series of accidents and production mistakes that are sending it deep into the red. Mr. Scott quickly realizes that these are no accidents and investigates to find out who’s behind Gateway’s woes. Very little science here, but a lot of fun with thinly disguised versions of Hollywood celebrities like Greta Garbo and Hedda Hopper, and a Cleopatra spectacular that’s gone way over budget, foreshadowing the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton movie a few years later. In true Hollywood fashion, Jet Scott ends the story and series by flying off into the sunset.
Also of particular interest to me was “One-Voter Election.” Due to an unlikely series of events, a gubernatorial election comes down to a special vote that will be held in the small town of Lallypoosa (it keeps being called a “county” in the story but is clearly just a town.) The voters of Lallypoosa are fiercely partisan and always vote evenly along party lines, except Grandma Posey who’s the one “undecided” voter in town. So it’s a question of which candidate can swing the elderly woman’s vote. Jet Scott gets pulled in to help the campaign of honest candidate Blair against the crooked candidate, Mr. Greavey. He uses Science! to profile Grandma Posey.
It turns out the one subject the woman is truly interested in is food and the skillful cooking thereof. Jet has a way for Blair to succeed, but the candidate (modeled physically after young Lincoln) is perhaps a little too honest for his own good. Greavey’s got this election in the bag, unless he gets greedy….
A silly story, but with some political points that are sadly still relevant.
The tensest story in the volume is “Trapped in Orbit.” Experimental jet X0F is a little too successful on a test flight, and manages to get itself in orbit two years before Yuri Gagarin. The pilot was knocked out by the stresses of escape velocity, and the plane is out of fuel. Jet Scott and the pilot’s wife must find a way to get him down alive. This is nail-biting stuff even if we know perfectly well Jet will succeed.
Jerry Robinson does a stellar job with character design, drawing on his years as a Batman artist. Jet Scott’s half-missing eyebrow is a simple, effective way of making him stand out. If some of the characters look a bit too on the nose, it is fitting in the style of the strip.
One of my favorite character bits is at the end of “The Brainbox Hoax” when antagonist Cyrus C. Tycoon is thwarted and loses all his money, but picks himself right back up and returns to his original job of selling pencils from a cup. His actions up to that point might have been despicable, but he’s a good sport.
Content note: Attempted murder, death, borderline child abuse, a man extorts a woman into being in a relationship with him (no sex). Jet smokes, as do minor characters.
The strips run a bit short, so there’s a selection of pencil art from the Sunday strips to fill out the volume.
While this is good stuff, these volumes are spendy, so unless you’re a Jerry Robinson collector, you might want to check them out at your local library instead. And then dream of how it might have influenced pop culture if allowed to grow.
