The Rocketeer the Complete Adventures by Dave Stevens | IDW Publishing | Comic Book Review
Channel: ComicgeddonTV
Date: 2017-08-23

This Video is NOT made for kids, This video is for adult collectors The Rocketeer the Complete Adventures by Dave Stevens | IDW Publishing | Comic Book Review
The Rocketeer the Complete Adventures by Dave Stevens, re-colored by Laura Martin and re-published in 1 complete collected edition by IDW Publishing. The Rocketeer  was created by Dave Stevens and debuted in Starslayer #1 way back on February 1st 1982. In May of 2011, IDW began publishing Rocketeer Adventures with painted cover art by Legendary Artist Alex Ross. But we're not here to talk about Rocketeer Adventures... oh no that's a review for another day. 
Today, We're going to be talking about the Original Graphic Novel, The Rocketeer which spun off from Starslayer #1. 
The Rocketeer is a rollicking tribute to pulp novels and serial matinees of the 1930's. It's follows the adventures of stunt pilot Cliff Secord and his girlfriend Betty, after Cliff finds a mysterious jet pack and takes to the sky. One of the most beloved comic series of all time. 
The review I'm doing today is on the re-release of the original stories, with all new coloring.  122 pages of art and writing by one person, Dave Stevens. This volume was re-released with the new coloring in December 2009. 
I never got my hands on a copy of the original, so I won't be able to compare this one with that, but I'm pretty sure that with the exception of coloring they're pretty much identical since Dave Stevens who passed away on March 11, 2008 from Leukemia is credited as both writer and artist. 
The Rocketeer was published originally by Pacific Comics in Mike Grell's Starslayer series with two more installments in Pacific's Showcase comic Pacific Presents #1 and 2. Chapter #4 ended with a cliffhanger which eventually concluded in a special Rocketeer issue released by Eclipse Comics. Eclipse then collected the entire story of 5 chapters in a single volume entitled "The Rocketeer". 
After Eclipse released volume 1, the story was continued by Comico Comics in 1988 and 89 in The Rocketeer Adventure Magazine for 2 issues. 1995 saw the release of the third installment 6 years later by Dark Horse Comics. 
There was an official movie adaptation graphic novel which was illustrated by Russ Heath in 1991 but that's not apart of this as it's not official cannon and it's not included in this re-print. 
Coloring for this new re-print was done by Laura Martin who was personally chosen by Stevens for IDW Publishing prior to his death. 

Cliff Secord's girlfriend Batty is modeled almost identically after the Pin Up Queen bettie Page. 

It's hard to give the story in full a complete review since the story itself was never actually finished. But we also get graphic novels like
The Rocketeer Adventures volume 2 by Kyle Baker and Peter David from 2013
 The Rocketeer: Hollywood Horror by Roger Langridge and J. Bone from 2013.  
The Rocketeed Cargo of Doom by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee from 2013
The Rocketeer/ The Spirit: Pulp Friction by Mark Waid and J. Bone from 2014
The Rocketeer At War by Marc Guggenheim and J. Bone from 2016
and
The Rocketeer: High Flying Adventures by Mike Allred and John Arcudi from July of 2017.
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