# Dan Cooper (comics)

Dan Cooper (also known as Les Aventures de Dan Cooper) is a Franco-Belgian comics series about a fictional Canadian military flying ace and astronaut.
The title was conceived by Albert Weinberg in 1954 as Tintin magazine's answer to Buck Danny, which had become a great success for the rival Spirou magazine. It was the second of three prominent Franco-Belgian aviation-themed bandes dessinées, alongside Jean-Michel Charlier's Buck Danny (1948) and Tanguy et Laverdure (1959). Weinberg wrote and drew the strip for almost forty years, with the exception of three stories contributed by Charlier in the early 1960s.
As per Franco-Belgian comics tradition, each completed storyline would appear as a published album after first appearing as a serial in a weekly magazine.

## Synopsis

Dan Cooper is a test pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Early story-lines featured futuristic science-fiction themes such as piloting a rocketship to the Martian moon Deimos; however later stories were more rooted in present-day themes.

## Speculative connection to D. B. Cooper

Although fairly obscure in the English-speaking world since it did not appear in English translation (apart from a short run in the UK comics Champion and Lion in 1966 under the title Jet Jordan), the comics series nevertheless gained a small measure of notoriety in 2009 in the United States as a result of speculation concerning the identity of the 1971 airplane hijacker who came to be known as D. B. Cooper, but who had actually identified himself as "Dan Cooper." Cooper boarded a flight from Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington, claimed to have a bomb and demanded $200,000 in cash. He obtained the cash when the plane landed for refueling, and jumped from the Reno-bound airplane somewhere near Portland. Cooper was never apprehended or identified despite decades of FBI investigations, and the only evidence recovered outside the plane was a few thousand dollars in ransom cash buried or lost on a sandbar in the Columbia River.
The Cooper Research Team led by Tom Kaye, working in cooperation with Seattle-based FBI agent Larry Carr, speculated that the hijacker may have chosen an alias based on the fictional character. Kaye and colleagues suggest the hijacker may have been exposed to the comics while on a tour of duty in Europe, or that he may have been of French-Canadian origin. Some of the comics storylines seemingly match aspects of the D. B. Cooper case, including jumping out of a plane with a parachute, as well as a ransom being delivered in a knapsack.

## Albums

| No. | Series | Year | Title (original) | Title | Author | Publisher |
| 1 | main | 1957 | Le triangle bleu | The Blue Triangle | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 2 | main | 1958 | Le maître du Soleil | The Master of the Sun | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 3 | main | 1959 | Le mur du silence | The Wall of Silence | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 4 | main | 1960 | Cap sur Mars | Set Course for Mars | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 5 | main | 1962 | Duel dans le ciel | Duel in the Sky | Jean-Michel Charlier | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 6 | main | 1963 | Coup d'audace | A Bold Move | Jean-Michel Charlier | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 7 | main | 1964 | L'escadrille des Jaguars | The Jaguar Squadron | Jean-Michel Charlier | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 8 | main | 1965 | Le secret de Dan Cooper | The Secret of Dan Cooper | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 9 | main | 1966 | 3 cosmonautes | Three Cosmonauts | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 10 | main | 1967 | Fantôme 3 ne répond plus ! | No Response from Phantom 3! | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 11 | main | 1968 | Acrobates du ciel | Acrobats of the Sky | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 12 | main | 1969 | Tigres de mer | Sea Tigers | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 13 | main | 1969 | Le mystère des soucoupes volantes | The Mystery of the Flying Saucers | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 14 | main | 1970 | Panique à Cap Kennedy | Panic at Cape Kennedy | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 15 | main | 1970 | Les hommes aux ailes d'or | The Men with the Golden Wings | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 16 | main | 1971 | SOS dans l'espace | SOS in Space | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 17 | main | 1971 | Ciel de Norvège | Skies of Norway | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 18 | main | 1972 | Les pilotes perdus | The Lost Pilots | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 19 | main | 1973 | Apollo appelle Soyouz | Apollo Calling Soyuz | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 20 | main | 1974 | L'affaire Minos | The Minos Affair | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 21 | main | 1975 | Objectif Jumbo | Objective Jumbo | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 22 | main | 1976 | Crash dans le 135 | Crash in the 135 | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 23 | main | 1979 | Opération Jupiter | Operation Jupiter | Albert Weinberg | Lombard/Dargaud |
| 24 | main | 1979 | Azimut zéro | Azimuth Zero | Albert Weinberg | Fleurus/EDI-3 |
| 25 | main | 1980 | Le canon de l'espace | The Space Cannon | Albert Weinberg | Fleurus/EDI-3 |
| 26 | main | 1980 | Opération Kosmos 990 | Operation Kosmos 990 | Albert Weinberg | Fleurus/EDI-3 |
| 27 | main | 1981 | Programme F-18 | The F-18 Program | Albert Weinberg | Hachette/Novedi |
| 28 | main | 1981 | F-111 en péril | F-111 in Peril | Albert Weinberg | Hachette/Novedi |
| 29 | main | 1982 | L'aviatrice sans nom | The Nameless Aviatrix | Albert Weinberg | Hachette/Novedi |
| 30 | main | 1982 | Pilotes sans uniforme | Pilots out of Uniform | Albert Weinberg | Hachette/Novedi |
| 31 | main | 1983 | Navette spatiale | The Space Shuttle | Albert Weinberg | Hachette/Novedi |
| 32 | main | 1984 | Viking connection | Viking connection | Albert Weinberg | Hachette/Novedi |
| 33 | main | 1985 | Target | Target | Albert Weinberg | Hachette/Novedi |
| 34 | main | 1985 | "Silver Fox" | "Silver Fox" | Albert Weinberg | Hachette/Novedi |
| 35 | main | 1986 | Dragon Lady | Dragon Lady | Albert Weinberg | Hachette/Novedi |
| 36 | main | 1987 | L'avion invisible | The Invisible Plane | Albert Weinberg | Hachette/Novedi |
| 37 | main | 1989 | La vrille | The Tailspin | Albert Weinberg | Dargaud |
| 38 | main | 1990 | Pilotes fantômes | The Ghost Pilots | Albert Weinberg | Dargaud |
| 39 | main | 1990 | L'otage du Clemenceau | The Hostage of the Clemenceau | Albert Weinberg | Dargaud |
| 40 | main | 1991 | Alerte sur le "Clem" | Alert on the "Clem" | Albert Weinberg | Dargaud |
| 41 | main | 1992 | L'œil du tigre | The Eye of the Tiger | Albert Weinberg | Dargaud |
| 1 | Special Edition | 2004 | Mystères et secrets | Mysteries and Secrets | Albert Weinberg | Loup |
| - | main | 2004 | Le maître du Soleil - Épilogue | The master of the Sun - Epilogue | Albert Weinberg | B.D. Club Genève |
| 2 | Special Edition | 2005 | Échec et Mat ! | Check and Mate! | Albert Weinberg | Hibou |
| 1 | Missions | 2006 | Les paras | The Paratroopers | Albert Weinberg | Hibou |
| 3 | Special Edition | 2006 | Les intrus | The Intruders | Albert Weinberg | Hibou |
| 4 | Special Edition | 2008 | Tous azimuts! | All Azimuths! | Albert Weinberg | Hibou |
| 5 | Special Edition | 2010 | L'île aux géants | The Island of the Giants | Albert Weinberg | Hibou |