Anthony Rogers was a fictional character that first appeared in "Armageddon 2419 A.D." by Philip Francis Nowlan in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel called "The Airlords of Han" was published in the March 1929 issue.

The character was renamed Buck Rogers as a comic strip, making its first newspaper appearance January 7, 1929. Rogers also appeared in a serial film, a television series (where his first name was changed from Anthony to William) as well and other formats.

Nowlan, Creator and Author and John F. Dille Co., a syndicate, later known as the National Newspaper Syndicate contracted to make the comic strip. Nowlan and Dille enlisted editorial cartoonist Dick Calkins to illustrate. Nowlan took the first episode from "Armageddon 2419, A.D." and changed the hero's name from Anthony Rogers to Buck Rogers.

The adventures of Buck Rogers in comic strips, movies, radio and television became an important part of American popular culture. This pop phenomenon paralleled the development of space technology in the 20th century and introduced Americans to outer space as a familiar environment for swashbuckling adventure.

Buck Rogers has been credited with bringing into popular media the concept of space exploration, following in the footsteps of literary pioneers such as Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs (John Carter of Mars).

The character first appeared as Anthony Rogers, the central character of Nowlan's Armageddon 2419 A.D. Born in 1898, He was a veteran of the Great War (World War I) and was by 1927 working for the American Radioactive Gas Corporation. He was investigating reports of unusual phenomena reported in abandoned coal mines near Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania. On December 15, while investigating one of the lower levels of a mine, there was a cave-in. Exposed to radioactive gas, Rogers fell into "a state of suspended animation, free from the ravages of catabolic processes, and without any apparent effect on physical or mental faculties." Rogers remained in “sleep” for 492 years.

He awakes in 2419 and, thinking that he has been asleep for just several hours, wanders for a few days in unfamiliar forests (what had been Pennsylvania almost five centuries before). He finally notices someone clad in strange clothes and moving in giant leaps, who appears to be under attack by others. He defends the person, killing one of the attackers and scaring off the rest. It turns out that he is helping Wilma Deering, who, while on “air patrol”, was attacked by an enemy gang, the "Bad Bloods", which is presumed to have allied themselves with the Hans.

Wilma takes Rogers to her camp, where he is to meet the bosses of her gang. He is invited to stay with their gang or leave and visit other gangs. They hope that Rogers’ experience and knowledge he gained fighting in the First World War may be useful in their struggle with the Hans who rule North America from fifteen great cities they established across the continent. They ignored the Americans who were left to fend for themselves in the forests and mountains as their advanced technology prevented the need for slave labor.

In the sequel, The Airlords of Han, six months have passed and the 'hunter is now the hunted'. Rogers is now a gang leader and his forces as well as the other American gangs have surrounded the great cities and are attacking constantly but the airlords are determined to use their fleet of airships to break the siege.

In 1933, Nowlan and Calkins co-wrote Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, a novella that retold the origin of Buck Rogers and also summarized some of his adventures. A reprint of this work was included with the first edition of the 1995 novel Buck Rogers: A Life in the Future by Martin Caidin.

In the 1960s, Nowlan's two novellas were combined by editor Donald A. Wollheim into one paperback novel, Armageddon 2419 A.D. The original 40-cent edition featured a cover by Ed Emshwiller.

Comic strip

The story of Anthony Rogers in Amazing Stories caught the attention of John F. Dille, president of the National Newspaper Service syndicate, and he arranged for Nowlan to turn it into a strip for syndication. The character was given the nickname Buck, and some have suggested that Dille coined that name based on the 1920s cowboy actor, Buck Jones.

On January 7, 1929, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century A.D., the first science fiction comic strip, debuted. Coincidentally, this was also the date that the Tarzan comic strip began. The first three frames of the series set the scene for Buck's 'leap' 500 years into Earth's future:

"I was twenty years old when they stopped the world war and mustered me out of the air service. I got a job surveying the lower levels of an abandoned mine near Pittsburgh, in which the atmosphere had a peculiar pungent tang and the crumbling rock glowed strangely.? I was examining it when suddenly the roof behind me caved in and..."

Buck is rendered unconscious, and a strange gas preserves him in a sort of 'suspended animation' or coma state. He awakens and emerges from the mine in 2429 AD, in the midst of another war.

After rescuing Wilma, he proves his identity by showing her his American Legion button. She then explains how the 'Mongol Reds' emerged from the Gobi desert to conquer Asia and Europe and then attacked America starting with that 'big idol holding a torch.' Using their disintegrator beams, they easily defeated the army and navy and wiped out Washington DC in three hours. As the people fled the cities, the 'Mongols' built new cities on the ruins of the major cities. The 'Mongols' left the Americans to fend for themselves as their advanced technology prevented the need for slave labor. The scattered Americans formed loosely bound organizations or 'orgs' to begin to fight back.

Wilma takes Buck back to the 'Alleghany org' in what was once Philadelphia. The leaders don't believe his story at first but after undergoing electro-hypnotic tests, they believe him and admit him into their group.

On March 30, 1930, a Sunday strip joined the Buck Rogers daily. There was, as yet, no established convention for the same character having different adventures in the Sunday strip and the daily strip (many newspapers carried one but not the other) and so the Sunday strip at first followed the adventures of Buck's young friend Buddy Deering, Wilma Deering's younger brother, and Buddy's girlfriend Alura. It was some time before Buck made his first appearance in a Sunday strip. Other prominent characters in the Sunday strip included Dr. Huer, who punctuated his speech with the exclamation, "Heh!", the villainous Killer Kane and his paramour Ardala, and Black Barney, who began as a space pirate but later became Buck's friend and ally.

Like many popular comic strips of the day, Buck Rogers was reprinted in Big Little Books; illustrated text adaptations of the daily strip stories; and in a Buck Rogers pop-up book.

Keaton wanted to switch to drawing another strip written by Calkins, Skyroads, so the syndicate advertised for an assistant and hired Rick Yager in 1932. Yager had formal art training at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and was a talented watercolor artist; all the strips were done in ink and watercolor. Yager also had connections with the Chicago newspaper industry, since his father, Charles Montross Yager, was the publisher of The Modern Miller; Rick Yager was at one time employed to write the "Auntie's Advice" column for his father's newspaper. Yager quickly moved from inker and writer of the Buck Rogers "sub-strip" (early Sunday strips had a small sub-strip running below) to writer and artist of the Sunday strip and eventually the daily strips.

Authorship of early strips is extremely difficult to ascertain. The signatures at the bottoms of the strips are not accurate indicators of authorship; Calkins' signature appears long after his involvement ended, and few of the other artists signed the artwork, while many pages are unsigned. Yager probably had complete control of Buck Rogers Sunday strips from about 1940 on, with Len Dworkins joining later as assistant. Dick Locher was also an assistant in the 1950s. For all of its reference to modern technology, the strip itself was produced in an old-fashioned manner—all strips began as India ink drawings on Strathmore paper, and a smaller duplicate (sometimes redrawn by hand) was hand-colored with watercolors. Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, has an extensive collection of original artwork. The strip's artists also worked on a variety of tie-in promotions such as comic books, toys and model rockets.

The relations between the artists of the strip (Yager et al.) and the owners of the strip (the Syndicate) became acrimonious, and in mid-1958, the artists quit. (See Time, June 30, 1958.) Murphy Anderson was a temporary replacement, but he did not stay long. George Tuska began drawing the strip in 1959 and remained until the final installment of the original comic strip, which was published on 8 July 1967.

Revived in 1979 by Gray Morrow and Jim Lawrence, the strip was retitled Buck Rogers in the 25th Century in 1980. Long-time comic book writer Cary Bates signed on in 1981, continuing until the strip's 1983 finale.

 

Radio

In 1932, the Buck Rogers radio program, notable as the first science fiction program on radio, hit the airwaves. It was broadcast four times a week for 15 years, from 1932 through 1947.

The radio show again related the story of our hero Buck finding himself in the 25th century. Actors Matt Crowley, Curtis Arnall, Carl Frank and John Larkin all voiced him at various times. The beautiful and strong-willed Wilma Deering was portrayed by Adele Ronson, and the brilliant scientist-inventor Dr. Huer was played by Edgar Stehli.

The radio series was produced and directed by Carlo De Angelo and later by Jack Johnstone. In 1988, Johnstone recalled how he worked with the sound effects of Ora Nichols to produce the sound of the rockets by using an air-conditioning vent.

 

Film and TV adaptations

World's Fair

A ten-minute Buck Rogers film premiered at the 1933–1934 World's Fair in Chicago. John Dille Jr. (son of strip baron John F. Dille) starred in the film, which was called Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: An Interplanetary Battle with the Tiger Men of Mars. A 35mm print of the film was discovered by the filmmaker's granddaughter, donated to UCLA's film and television archive, restruck and subsequently posted to the web. It is now available on the VCI Entertainment DVD 70th Anniversary release.

Department store promotion movie

A live-action short film was produced in 1936, designed to be shown in department stores to promote Buck Rogers merchandise. It was shot at in the Action Film Company studio in Chicago, Illinois, directed by Dr. Harlan Tarbell. The characters included Buck Rogers, Wilma Deering, Dr. Huer, Killer Kane, Ardala, King Grallo of the Martian Tiger Men, and robots.

 

Movie serial

A 12-part Buck Rogers serial film was produced in 1939 by Universal Pictures Company. Buck Rogers and his young friend Buddy Wade get caught in a blizzard and are forced to crash their dirigible in the Arctic wastes. In order to survive until they can be rescued, they inhale their supply of Nirvano gas which puts them in a state of suspended animation. When they are eventually rescued by scientists, they learn that 500 years have passed. It is now 2440. A tyrannical dictator named Killer Kane and his henchmen now run the world. Buck and Buddy must now save the world, and they do so with the help of Lieutenant Wilma Deering and Prince Tallen of Saturn.

The serial had a small budget and saved money on special effects by re-using material from other stories: background shots from the futuristic musical Just Imagine (1930), as the city of the future, the garishly stenciled walls from the Azura palace set in Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars, as Kane's penthouse suite, and even the studded leather belt that Crabbe wore in Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars turned up as part of Buck's uniform. Between 1953 and the mid-1970s, this film serial was edited into three distinct feature film versions.

 

1950–1951 ABC television series

The first version of Buck Rogers to appear on television, debuted on ABC on April 15, 1950 and ran until January 30, 1951. Its time slot initially was on Saturdays at 6 p.m., and each episode was 30 minutes. Later, the program was rescheduled to Tuesday at 7 p.m., where it ran against the popular Texaco Star Theater hosted by Milton Berle.

Buck Rogers finds himself in the year 2430. Based in a secret lab in a cave behind Niagara Falls (the city of Niagara was now the capital of the world), Buck battles intergalactic troublemakers.

There were a number of changes to the cast during the show's short duration. Three actors played Buck Rogers in the series: Earl Hammond, Kem Dibbs and Robert Pastene. Two actresses portrayed Wilma Deering: Eva Marie Saint and Lou Prentis. Two actors would also play the role of Dr. Huer: Harry Southern and Sanford Bickart.

The series was directed by Babette Henry, written by Gene Wyckoff and produced by Joe Cates and Babette Henry.

The series was broadcast live from station WENR-TV, the ABC affiliate in Chicago, Illinois. There are no known surviving kinescopes of the first Buck Rogers television series.

 

Motion picture and 1979–1981 NBC television series

In 1979, Buck Rogers was revived and updated for a prime-time television series for NBC Television. The pilot film was released to cinemas on March 30, 1979. Good box-office returns led NBC to commission a full series, which started in September 1979.

The series starred Gil Gerard as Captain William "Buck" Rogers, a United States Air Force pilot who commands Ranger III, a space shuttle-like ship that is launched in 1987. Because of a freak combination of gases, he is frozen in space for 504 years and is revived in the 25th century. There, he learns that the Earth was united following a devastating nuclear war on November 22, 1987, and is now under the protection of the Earth Defense Directorate, headquartered in New Chicago. The latest threat to Earth comes from the spaceborne armies of the planet Draconia, which is planning an invasion.

Co-starring in the series were Erin Gray as crack Starfighter pilot Colonel Wilma Deering, and Tim O'Connor as Dr. Elias Huer, head of Earth Defense Directorate, and a former star pilot himself. Ardala appeared (played by Pamela Hensley), as a Draconian princess supervising her father's armies, with Kane (played by Henry Silva in the film; by Michael Ansara [now of Star Trek fame] in the series) as her enforcer, a gender reversal of the original characters where Ardala was Killer Kane's sidekick. Although Black Barney did not appear as a character in the series, there was a character named Barney Smith (played by James Sloyan) who appeared in the two-part episode, "Plot to Kill a City." New characters added for the series included a comical robot named Twiki (played by Felix Silla and voiced by Mel Blanc), who becomes Buck's personal assistant, and Dr. Theopolis (voice by Eric Server), a computer brain Twiki carries around.

The series ran for two seasons on NBC. Broadcast of the second season was delayed until 1981 due to a writers' strike in 1980. When the series returned it had been retooled. Now rather than defending Earth, Buck and Wilma were on a mission to track down the lost colonies of humanity aboard the deep-space exploration vessel Searcher. The series was cancelled at the end of the 1980–1981 season.

Two novels based on the series by Addison E. Steele were published, a novelization of the 1979 feature film, and That Man on Beta, an adaptation of an unproduced teleplay.

Future Films

Frank Miller has been slated to write and direct a new motion picture with OddLot Entertainment, the production company that worked with Miller on The Spirit.

 

Role-playing games and video games

 Buck Rogers XXVC

In 1988, TSR, Inc. created a game setting based on Buck Rogers, called Buck Rogers XXVC. Many products were produced that were set in this universe, including comic books, novels, role-playing game material and video games. In the role-playing game, the player characters were allied to Buck Rogers and NEO (the New Earth Organisation) in their fight against RAM (a Russian-American corporation based on Mars). The games also extensively featured "gennies" (genetically enhanced organisms). The gameplay of the Buck Rogers - Battle for the 25th Century board game by TSR dealt with token movement and resource management. There is purported  to be a single expansion for the board game called the Martian Wars Expansion, but it is not known if this was ever released.

The first ray gun was made of cardboard and was produced as a mail-away premium by Cocomalt cerial, one of the early sponsors of the Buck Rogers radio drama. Created in 1933, the gun was just one of many advertising premiums offered by numerous companies to "cash in" on Buck's increasing popularity. From storybooks to space costumes and games to model rocketships, Buck Rogers merchandise became one of the most popular premiums in American advertising history.

Like many other premiums which encouraged children to act out, and thus more completely identiify with, the adventures of the characters associated with the product being promoted, the Cocomalt Buck Rogers cardboard pop gun was offered as part of a "playset." This playset included not only a gun but also a Buck Rogers or Wilma Deering cardboard helmet. The gun is "fired" with a flick the wrist, causing a sheet of folded paper inside the gun to pop as it snaps out.

 A second Buck Rogers paper gun, called a "Flash Blast Ray," was produced in 1937 by Warren Paper Products Inc. Like the Cocomalt gun, this rubber-band shooting gun came as part of a set which encouraged children to act out Buck's adventures. In this case, the gun accompanied a "Rocket Ship Control Base" with a launching platform which propelled cardboard rockets to Mars, Saturn and Jupiter. Inside the Control Base is Dr. Huer's laboratory.

 1940 saw the production of the third Buck Rogers paper gun. Offered in the fall as a sales promotion for Onward School Supplies, this toy came on a punch out sheet which included standup targets of a sea monster, a villain called Wing Bat Wu, and a spacehip.

 The final Buck Rogers paper gun was offered by Sylvania Electric Products in 1952 as part of a Buck Rogers Space Ranger Kit that was given away with Sylvania products. The kit included six full color punch-out sheets which could be made into a gun as well as a paper helmet, badge, targets, a rocketship launch pad and other toys.

Despite the popularity of the cardboard Buck Rogers ray gun premiums, it was the metal Buck Rogers ray guns made by Daisy Manufacturing Co. that really captured the popular imagination. First introduced by Daisy in 1934, these guns were the beneficiaries of one of the most successful merchandising and sales campaigns in the history of the American toy business. Daisy began this remarkable campaign by convincing Nowlan and Calkins to redesign the hand guns, helmets, and holsters portrayed in Buck's comic adventures so that they could be exactly duplicated by Daisy. Then in February of 1934, after the Buck Rogers comic strip and radio show had developed a significant following and a strong market potential for Buck Rogers' toys, Daisy introduced their first Buck Rogers gun, the XZ-31 Rocket Pistol. Before the introduction of the XZ-31, Daisy had already convinced the J.L. Hudson department store in Detroit to make "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" their Christmas theme, and to install a large rocket ship and set of Martian figures in their toy department. Daisy then used these same props when it finally introduced its Buck Rogers gun at the prestigious American Toy Fair.

Despite initial skepticism about the XZ-31 (many toy buyers at the toy fair thought Buck Rogers was a cowboy!) Macy's Department Store in New York City agreed to promote the gun in exchange for a one week exclusive on its sales. Using the rocket ship and extra-terrestrial figures from J.L. Hudson, Macy's promotion was so successful that, on the day the guns went on sale, over 2,000 people stood in line outside their doors to buy the Rocket Pistol. As the week went on the crowds grew, and in order to keep Macy's supplied, Daisy kept trucks on the road every day from their Michigan plant.

Following this first week promotion, the XZ-31 was shipped to stores across the country, including Gimbel's, Macy's rival department store in New York City. As soon as Gimbel's received their guns, they cut the price below the forty-nine cents which Macy's had been charging. This started a price war between the two stores. Within a few weeks Gimbel's was pricing their guns at two for nineteen cents - stubstantially below their cost! Prices of the Rocket Pistol changed almost hourly in each of the stores, except when one of them ran out of the toys, at which time the other store raised its price. While this was going on, Daisy exacerbated and profited from this situation by sending people into whichever store had the lowest price and buying back its guns which were then sold to the other store. According to Cass Hough, Daisy sales manages at the time, "during those first two weeks the Gimbel's and Macy's toy departments looked like a cyclone had struck, and people were still lining up to buy."

Soon almost every toy store in the country was clamoring for shipments of the XZ-31 and Daisy could not get enough steel material or cardboard boxes to keep up with the production demand. For Christmas that year Daisy developed a Buck Rogers holster and helmet to go with the Rocket Pistol, and the next year they produced a smaller version of the Rocket Pistol, the XZ-35 or "Wilma" pistol.

Following up on the success of the Rocket Pistol and the surging popularity of Buck Rogers, in 1935 Daisy produced a new Buck Rogers gun, the XZ-38 Disintegrator Pistol. A masterpiece of art deco design, this gun featured a fluted barrel and flamboyant fins. Produced in both nickel and copper finishes, the gun was both sold in stores as well as merchandised as a Cream of Wheat premium in 1935 and a Popsicle premium in 1939..

In 1936 Daisy brought out one of the most colorful Buck Rogers toy guns, the XZ-44 Liquid Helium Water Pistol, finished in bright yellow and red lightinig bolts. (It also came in a plainer, but no less striking, copper color.) Made before plastic was used in the manufacture of toys, this metal squirt gun utilized an interior leather sack to hold the water and was advertised as a "25 shot repeater."

After World War II, Daisy used the existing tools and dies from the Disintegrator Pistol to create their last Buck Rogers gun. Called the U-235 Atomic Pistol, this gun reflected the then current fascination with atomic energy. This gun was available with a blued finish, in unfinished steel, or painted gold.

Although Daisy never produced another new Buck Rogers ray gun after the mid 1940s, the company continued to use some of the old Buck Rogers tools and dies to manufacture new toys. In about 1952 Daisy recycled the original Buck Rogers Rocket Pistol to produce the Zooka Pop Pistol, a gun which was identical to the 1930s model except for its bright, multicolored lithographed finish. Like the Rocket Pistol, this gun was armed by cocking the handle.

A short while after Daisy produced the Zooka Pop Pistol, the company again reused the Rocket Pistol tools and dies to make the Rocket Dart Pistol, a toy gun which shot darts instead of simply making a popping noise. Unlike the Zooka Pop Pistol, the Rocket Dart Pistol was slightly reengineered from the original mould in order to make it a dart shooter. To fire this gun one pulls the trigger which raises a bar on the top of the barrel to release the dart in the barrel.

The last two Buck Rogers ray guns produced in the 1950s were flashlight guns made by Norton Honer. First marketed in the mid 1950s, the Sonic Ray became so popular that it not only served as a model for many subsequent flashlight guns made by other companies, but also probably inspired Norton Honer to produce its second flashlite gun.

Made a few years after the Sonic Ray, the Super Sonic Ray is a more successful design. With its fluted, trumpet-like barrel and rakishly exagerated rear site it has a more imposing visual presence.