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Cox News Service
Expensive summer movies derived from comic books are nothing new.
Expensive summer movies derived from comic books hardly anybody has heard of are.
Disney's bid for the brass ring in this season's sweepstakes is "The Rocketeer," adapted from a comic book created by Dave Stevens, who created the character in 1982 at the age of 35 from his memories of Republic serials such as "Commander Cody" and "King of the Rocket Men." Those were epics in 12 chapters that posited a man who straps a rocket to his back and takes off after evil-doers and renegade space aliens.
Of the Rocket Men movies, the most famous is "Zombies of the Stratosphere" (1952), not because it's any good, but because a nearly unrecognizable Leonard Nimoy plays an alien named Narab.
LAST WAS 'THUNDERBALL'
The serials took their cues from pulp fiction of the '30s, when the idea of each man zooming into the skies as a self-contained travel vehicle was a common theme. That...