This is a spoiler free review.

The Rocketeer: The Great Race is a very entertaining pulp adventure story that takes us across the globe with our guides, the Rocketeer and his friends. This story is a terrific homage to Dave Stevens' original, The Rocketeer comics. The new series, The Rocketeer: The Great Race still features all your favorite characters and elements from Cliff Secord to Betty to Peevy and lots of high adventure, love, and of course Nazi's! A line from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade always stood out to me as the perfect motto for the Rocketeer, "Nazis. I hate these guys.."

The Rocketeer: The Great Race is an awesome comic series. It's a perfect popcorn story to relax, read, laugh, and enjoy the fun. The Rocketeer and Betty get ensnared into a great air race from California to Paris, France. It starts when Cliff is roped into piloting an experimental plane that is supposed to win the race easily. You have to read the comics to see what hijinx and fisticuffs ensue during the air race...

The artwork in The Rocketeer: The Great Race is perfect! The lighting and colors are striking and reminds me of the original, The Rocketeer graphic novels. The illustrations are beautiful and bold and would fit in perfectly in any Film Noir movie or pulp fiction novel.

If you like the Dave Stevens, The Rocketeer comics or the Disney movie you will enjoy this series. It's very entertaining and will make you want to go back and read the original graphic novels and want to watch the movie. May I also recommend the Darwyn Cooke The Rocketeer Adventures comics series which is another very entertaining homage to original The Rocketeer comics series.

Stay awesome and keep reading!


The Rocketeer: The Great Race

Creative Team:

Written and Illustrated by Stephen Mooney

I grew up with the movie and read a few stories, but this comic definitely pays homage to the feel of the time and space it takes place in. Highly recommended.

"This is one of those things that you enjoy if you enjoy those things." I saw this quote from a review and have to agree: this story (set in the 1930s but written/created in the 1980s) is very much of its era: clueless 'fake it until you make it' main character, his pin up girlfriend), bad boy Nazi villains, derring do action, and a grizzled old mentor spouting advice destined to be ignored. We've seen it all before and yes, this does feel extremely dated as a result. But author Stephen Mooney really does an excellent job of channeling the short lived but extremely popular series - one that has the same feel for the 80s era as films like Indiana Jones and the time before things became so darn serious.

Story: Cliff has just returned from another dangerous job and realizes that saving the world means nothing if he can't spend time with his beloved Betty. Even Betty is getting tired of Cliff's antics with his helmet and rocket pack. But then a millionaire offers Cliff the opportunity of a lifetime: fly his prototype airplane in a race to Paris and win the big prize! Betty is happy because she gets to go to Paris and even Cliff is looking forward to trying out the new technology. But he will have stiff competition - perhaps deadly so!

Before we started to get the "Dark Age" of comics in the late 1980s (with Dark Knight, The Watchmen, etc.) a comic title in the early 1980s really caught the zeitgeist of the era of Patrick Nagel paintings, greed is good, and excess: The Rocketeer. Although most assume it was from the 1930s/World War II era in which it was set, this was rather a product of the Reagan era. Our hero is a clueless, shaggy haired, young but ambitious daring guy, his girlfriend spends most of the time on the page posed as a Betty Page centerfold photo, and our hero has one very cool 1930s streamlined art deco helmet along with a bib leather jacket. What's not to love?

The series, despite its popularity, did not last long (though it inspired a Disney movie sans Betty Page references due to copyright issues). Stephen Mooney slavishly recreates the look and feel here, successfully and not so successfully in places. For certain, this is lovingly done and an easy read. At the same time, issues such as trying to turn 1950ss Betty Page into a 1930s version are perhaps less successful. There is a Howard Hughes tycoon, his girlfriend who seems obsessed with wearing 1920s clothing despite the story being set in the late 1930s, and a Teutonic hunk channeling actor Hardy Krüger to menace American freedom.

Admittedly for me, the story was barely readable. Not because the author didn't do a good job; rather, he did it too well. The story was perfect for the series, the visuals were in line with the original work, and this was not 'updated' for the modern audience. Which means most of the characters were unlikable, Cliff Secord as a hero was eye rolling vapid, Betty an unpleasant over-jealous caricature of a woman, and the villain had all the silly swagger and one-liners of a 1980s Dolph Lundgren movie. For those who liked the movie (in all its Disney saccharine) and had not read the comics, this is probably an especially hard sell.

I highly recommend this for original fans of the series. It slots in perfectly between the two series that were published in the 1980s. There is a great biography/history of the original artist in the back (it was eye opening to learn just how obsessed he was with Betty Page) that was enlightening also for the accounts of life in the comics industry in that turbulent decade. At the same time, the overt sexism, the Marty Stu hero, the lack of 1930s milieu (outfits on the women range from the 1930s to the 1950s, making the historical aspects jarring and odd), and the lack of world building (most of this takes place in the air in planes and there are surprisingly few scenes of Cliff in costume or in 1930s Los Angeles) are problematic. Still, we have a complete story arc here and I respect the author's choice to not modernize but instead stay true to the original story. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

The Rocketeer: The Great Race was a fun read that I enjoyed. If you liked The Rocketeer movie, you will definitely enjoy reading this graphic novel.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher IDW Publishing for an advanced copy of this graphic novel about a pulp hero, an air races, Nazis and more.

I remember when I first found a copy of the graphic novel the Rocketeer featuring the adventures of Cliff Secord and his pals fighting crime and flying high. It was before the movie came out, I was working for a chain bookstore in a mall, and was not the happiest of campers. I saw the cover first, and it was eye-catching and page-popping. I loved comics, I loved pulp adventures, Harlan Ellison was writing the introduction so I was in. The character was great, the art fantastic, the story fun and exciting and everything seemed so well thought and researched. When Dave Stevens passed I was legitimately upset for someone I hadn't known, but had enjoyed all the work that he had done. I never thought that anyone could capture both the art and the feeling of the story. And I am glad to be proved wrong. Stephen Mooney has captured lightning in his ink and put it on the page, and reading this feels like I found an issue from the original run that I somehow had missed. The Rocketeer: The Great Race is a big intercontinental adventure with plenty of flight and fights, Nazis, heroes and more.

Cliff Secord has been shot out of the sky one too many times as we meet him, and is looking for something new to help him spend time with his special gal, Betty. Cliff is asked to be a pilot for a famous inventor who has entered a plane with a special new fuel into a race stretching from California to Paris, France. Cliff takes the job, thinking that it will be safer from dealing with German spies, and getting shot at, but this race has a lot of secrets. There is a German team and they are playing both to win, and eliminate other pilots. These Nazis also have eyes for a special fuel that could help them during wartime. Cliff's plan to find a safer job, might just have backfired on him, and there is quite a lot around him that might get burned.

A big adventure with a lot of thrills, spills, flying, fisticuffs, Nazis getting punched and or kicked, and beautiful are featuring ladies and planes. Mooney captures both the spirt of the comic, the pureness that is Cliff in his fight for what he considers right and fair, and the love and freedom of flying. The way Mooney draws Cliff both as regular pilot and as Rocketeer the glee on his face, even when things are going wrong, the way his body flies through the air. Really great. The story is good and allows Mooney to do a lot of different planes, sport planes, military planes, even transport planes, which all look really good, and show the research involved. The characters act and look consistent, and even better sound right. I wish Betty had more to do, but that is a minor quibble. I really can't stop thinking about the art, and how good the pages look. This book brought me back to those days when I first met the character, and I look forward to more stories.

Also the book has a nice biography and look at the life of Dave Stevens, which I guess is culled from a forthcoming documentary. This was very good, and really informative. I look forward to watching more. This graphic novel is recommended for fans of the Rocketeer, those who have yet to have met him but wish to, comic art fans, and people who enjoy fun stories.

In the long history of comics, few creators reached the heights Dave Stevens achieved with The Rocketeer. His creation paved the way for perhaps the greatest underappreciated film ever. Obviously, the art of Stevens was the very definition of beautiful. But, what set The Rocketeer apart from the pack was the sheer fun of the series. I'm happy to report Stephen Mooney captures that fun in The Rocketeer: The Great Race. The spirit of the original series is seen in every panel of this book. Thank you to IDW Publishing and NetGalley for the advance reading copy. #TheRocketeerTheGreatRace #NetGalley

It's apparently been forty years since the original release of The Rocketeer, and IDW celebrated that by launching a new miniseries. Written and illustrated by Stephen Mooney, this volume is perfect for fans old and new.

And by new, I mean new to the series in general. I'll confess that I hadn't read the originals before diving in here (sorry to long-standing fans, but I couldn't resist!), and it was SO easy to get swept up in the plot. So if you've been debating about giving it a try, debate no more: go try it!

The Rocketeer: The Great Race is an action-packed read, and I do mean that fairly literally. It's got planes, rockets (obviously), and even a touch of that spy-thriller vibe. In short, if you like action (and lots of it), you've got to check this one out.

Actual rating: 3.75

I had a good time reading this despite the fact that I don't typically enjoy reading this time period in fiction. Debbie was really the best character in this, though it did kinda make me feel like maybe she should've been the main character. Regardless, I had a good time, and I'd love to read more about these characters.

Thanks to Net Galley, IDW and Mr. Mooney for the ARC of this book. There are some big rockets to fill when one want to write a story in this universe. Mr. Mooney paid his respects to Mr. Stevens while moving the story forward. No easy task. The story is good. It is a fun, pulpy, Rocketeer adventure. The star of the show though is Mooney’s art. He says in the prologue how much time he spent on this. It shows. Chef’s kiss.

This was a fun read and throwback to the Rocketeer movie. I give it 3.5 stars rounded up for enjoyability. It was fun but it also was a little fast. I think this story should have been told over more issues of the original comic.

I have always loved the movie the Rocketter. Being able to read it as a graphic novel was exciting and I'm privileged to get an advance look at it. The artwork is wonderful, the verbage for back in that time is perfect and Cliff reminds me of a Spider-Man/Captain America blend where Betty is an MJ type of girl. It worked so well coming over into a graphic novel form and I hope this series continues! Now to go re-watch the movie!

This will be biased beyond belief because I LOVE the Rocketeer...THIS WAS GREAT! I loved the story. The action was amazing. The art was spectacular.

I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Cliff returns to New York where he joins the Great Race to take Betty to Paris. The book also had an oral history of The Rocketeer and I loved it! The art had an old fashioned feel to it that would be at home on any detective story. It brought me back to my childhood watching this movie over and over again Saturday morning. I really enjoyed it.

4 stars

I'm a bad Rocketeer fan, in that I love the film but have never read the Dave Stevens comics, and the excellent oral history of character and creator in the back makes clear that at least one of the things I found jarring here - the pin-up portrayal of the female characters in general, and Cliff's girlfriend Betty in particular - is entirely faithful to the original. Certainly the plot is the right sort of pulpy, a high-profile air race, with one of the contestants a dastardly Nazi - even if I was puzzled that anyone might do a four-issue Rocketeer series where one issue doesn't feature the rocket and helm. But ultimately this series didn't click for me because there was too little sense of motion in Mooney's art, and there's not much point to a comic about the golden age of aviation if everything just hangs there in the sky rather than soaring.

(Netgalley ARC)

This is the type of comic you can hand to anyone and say 'read this, you'll like it,' and if they have a heart, they probably will. I highly recommend this to any and every comic reader, newbie and veteran alike. There is nothing bad about it. Brilliantly executed book that will leave you wanting more

I grew up with the Rocketeer movie of the the early 90s, so this book caught my attention. The artwork and coloring of this graphic novel were fantastic. The story was okay. I wished there was more use of the rocket, but I understand Cliff’s desire to step away. I am glad the illustrator went with a more tradition comic set up. Hope future novels continue this design and use the rocket some more.

Thank you Netgalley and IDW Publishing for this ARC. I think my secondary students would enjoy this novel.