historical inevitability versus laser beams

Until a mid-90's change in postal regulations, comic book publishers were forced to include a couple of text pages in each individual comic in order to qualify for the second class bulk rate for periodicals. Before the letters page/editorial page format became the standard method of fulfilling this requirement, publishers often filled two pages with dubious "educational" content or generally terrible short stories.

Fawcett's Captain Marvel Adventures, a series which I've professed my love for in more than a few previous posts, met its obligations to the USPS though an ongoing series of stories starring "Lieutenant Jon Jarl of the Space Patrol" written by "Eando Binder," actually a collaborative pseudonym of brothers Earl and Otto Binder ("E and O"), though some sources credit Otto (who was also writing the Captain Marvel comic stories at the time) with pulling the lion's share of the weight. The two already had an impressive sci-fi writing résumé under their belts -- including the highly influential "I, Robot"/Adam Link material published in Amazing Stories in the late 1930's and early 1940's -- but none of that previous magic was on display with the Jon Jarl stories, which were stock "two-fisted" sci-fi adventure tales flatter than the paper they were printed on. Given the stories' principal purpose, they didn't have to aspire to anything more artistically, though such awareness doesn't make them any more readable.

As a result, whenever I flip through an issue of CMA, I tend to skip past the Jon Jarl pages in favor of actual comics content featuring the Big Red Cheese battle rogue sausage-making machines or atomic killer robots. However the title, and accompanying racist caricature, which adorned this installment of Lt. Jarl's adventures from Captain Marvel Adventures #142 (March 1953)...

...piqued my curiosity enough that I had to find out what the full story was.

Fawcett, though its roster of titles featuring the various Marvel Family members, backed Truman's police action against Global Communism on the Korean Peninsula 110%. The lead story in CMA #142 in fact featured Captain Marvel going up against the (again) grotesque racist caricature of the "Red Crusher" and his insidious Bolshevik "lightning machine." Apparently not content in limiting the patriotic agitprop and demonization of the other to the comic content, Binder felt compelled to expand his platform to include the text pages, as well.

The following is an abridged yet annotated retelling of "Korea of Space":

The story begins with Jon Jarl, the 22nd century's answer to Joe Friday, stuck working the Asteroid Beat, a boring place where the biggest crimes are hotlinking images and failure to give due credit for borrowed content (wait, I'm thinking of another Beat). Things get interesting, however, when Jarl finds a largely intact satellite embedded into the side of a stray asteroid. He determines the object is of mid-twentieth century origin, more specifically from the year 1953 (a blatant bit of plothammering of an example of post-war technoptimism? Take your pick).

Upon exploring the vessel's interior Jarl discovers that the crew is intact, but flash-frozen into a state of suspended animation. Using his belt's Atomic Heat Lamp (concerns about radiation damage to reproductive organs in the 22nd century have been mitigated by the ubiquity of Vend-o-Baby machines), Jarl thaws out the timelost travellers...

...only to discover that they are a lost detachment of North Korean soldiers whose weapons platform had been knocked off course by a comet. They are naturally curious about the outcome of the war, and Jarl takes an unusual amount of pleasure in telling them of their eventual loss (if by "loss" you mean a shaky cease-fire stretching over five decades along a demilitarized zone and complicated by nuclear weapons ambitions). The future-shocked Stalinists don't take the news well:

"Furthermore," added Jarl pulchritudinously, "Nyah, nyah, nyah!"

Next time anyone moans in your presence about how comics content used to be more innocent and kid-friendly back in the "good old days," feel free to point out the astonishingly frank level of racist content in this story, which if anything is more restrained than what appears in the actual comics material featured in this issue and others dealing with similar subject matter.

While sickened by the stench of centuries old Bolshevism, Jarl still condescends to offer assistance in helping the soldiers find a place in this brave new world...


(Vintage popcult ethnic shorthand lesson #26: "Buddha" = "Asian" "Oriental," even if the characters in question are atheistic Reds)

The duplicitous commies have other plans, however, and begin to embark on a Glorious People's Crusade throughout the belt colonies.

"...and if we should have to use our status as galactic superpower to force compliance from those backwards natives though political assassinations, election tampering, or other black op tactics, that's a price the United Worlds is prepared to pay. Our access to their markets, I mean the notion of liberal democracy, demands it," thought Jarl petuantly.

Call it "Space Man's Burden."

The archaic technology of the North Koreans is no match for the pocket nukes and high-yield lasers of Jarl's patrol craft, which he unleashes with a sense of estatic glee that makes one question the psych-screening procedures of the Space Patrol Force.

"It's a little something we in the 22nd century call the Bush Doctrine. It's how we brought modern civilization to the Venusians -- and those thirteen survivors out of an original population of fifty million are grateful to us for it," Jarl said pusillanimously.


The procrustean nature of the narrative, the lack of rudimentary plot logic, the uncomfortable feeling that you're reading a transcipt of someone's personal fantasy rather than a considered work of literature... Well, I'll be! I think we've just stumbled across the ur-text from which all fanfic was derived!

The entire time I was reading this story, I had the most powerful feelings of deja vu. I eventually figured out why. "Korea of Space" is remarkably similar in plot to the original Star Trek series episode "Space Seed," only heavier on the Red Scare agitprop and tragically devoid of an over-the-top fight scene featuring William Shatner and Ricardo Montalban. Which is a shame, because there are few works so terrible that they could not be redeeemed by the addition of James T. Kirk delivering his trademark two-handed, entwined-fingers, downward punch.

And it goes without saying, but also: YOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG!

The Rezillos - Cold Wars (from Can't Stand the Rezillos, 1978) - Gleefully anachronistic, heavy on the sci-fi elements, and free of racist caricatures. It's a win-win-win situation! (Seriously, though, if you don't own a copy of this album, go out and buy one at the soonest available opportunity. You'll be glad you did.)