Armageddon 2419 A.D. - Allusions/references From Other Works

Allusions/references From Other Works

After Armageddon 2419 A.D. was published, John F. Dille, the head of the National Newspaper Service, which syndicated comics and features, read Nowlan’s novella and convinced a dubious Nowlan to turn it into a daily comic strip. Dille renamed the character Buck Rogers, possibly after a cowboy hero of the same name, and hired artist Dick Calkins to do the illustrations. It was the first real science fiction comic strip, and one of the first strips to tell a continuous adventure story, while also using word balloons, rather than a text box.

The story of the comic strip diverges from the novel after the first few strips never to return to it. While Armageddon 2419 A.D. heavily emphasizes war and military tactics and technology, the comic strip is based on adventures and romantic problems. The book features lethal violence and gore while in the comic strip doesn't.

Buck Rogers was a huge success, spawning many imitators such as Flash Gordon.

Nowlan’s novella and script introduced the public to science fiction and prepared them for a future that involved space exploration and space/arms race, that later, indeed, was going on between the USA and the Soviet Union. While it sometimes claimed that they introduced the idea of “personal flight” with the use of devices attached to the body, this idea is based on the fact that a flying man is depicted on the cover of the August 1928 issue of Amazing Stories, which included the first part of Armageddon 2419 A.D. In fact the cover illustrates E.E. Doc Smith's serial The Skylark of Space, which began in the same issue.