Buck Rogers #0

So I was pretty excited about this one.  I had read that it was coming out on Free Comic Book Day, May 2nd, but also heard it could be released today for only 25 cents.  Luckily it was today.  This is pop culture's first hero!  The infamous Buck Rogers!!  My history professor the other day showed us a prize from a cereal box, a little booklet from the 1930s, depicting Buck Rogers' origin and a little short adventure.  I was amazed, and not just at how cereal box prizes went from cool comics and reading material to crappy toys that are throw-away material in a couple of days.  Anyway, since it's a #0, it was pretty short and sweet, but definitely a good hook for me to keep reading this when it hits #1....like I wasn't going to anyway.

Buck Rogers #0

Written by Scott Beatty

Art by Carlos Rafael and Carlos Lopez (Colors)

Published by Dynamite Entertainment

We start off the issue with Buck being held prisoner, and being slapped around/interrogated by weird-looking amoeba things.  They have terrible grammar (which Buck makes a joke about) and deliver a variation of that classic alien line, "Take me to your leader" ("Take me to your leadership collective" here in the issue).  We discover these amoeba beings are about to invade or "absorb" Earth and all its people.  They are beings from Ganymede, one of the moons of Jupiter.  Buck appears to be totally out of it, like they've just beat him half to death.  However, for some reason, they decide to leave him alone?  I guess it was because they thought he was half-dead, I don't know.  They just walk away from him and say "Hey, let's invade Earth."

Buck then shows he was "playing possum" and gets up and gets his gear and gets ready to kick some ass.  One of my favorite things about the issue is when Buck looks down at Earth from the Ganymedian ship and says "Hello lady...century after century she still's got her looks" to Earth.  It was, for the lack of a better word, awesome.  I think it was kind of the, reflective feel of the statement that made it so interesting.  Buck is obviously on his decline, in age and adventuring, which he points out at one time.  It just seems like he's heading to a destination, a grand finale.

So he precedes to kick some ass for a couple of pages, while we see a woman and a man in the same suits Buck is wearing, obviously some type of inter-stellar military unit for Earth.  Buck has a plan to stop the attempted invasion of the Ganymedians and sets it in motion.  I don't want to give some things away but there's real promise for a continuation besides the opening saying this is "a last desperate battle to save the Earth...".  They say this is the end, but it looks like we're going back to the past...err future...in Buck Rogers #1.  I am ready!!!

--Patrick