Where's Blicero?

[Dave Monroe]

Stopped by a comic shop on my rounds today, grabbed a
copy of Ministry of Space No. 1 (Image Comics) merely
because it had some kind of goofy rocket plane flanked
by a couple of Spitfires on the cover.  Figured it'd
be a more naturalistic Thunderbirds, but, lo and
behold, p. 4-6, "Peenemunde, Germany: Summer 1945,"
wherein an Avro Lancaster drops its load on the
American occupatrion force: "Ah, for the love'a Christ
... this just ain't fair ..." followed by "Report
target destroyed.  Neither the Americans nor the
Russians will get anything out of Peenemunde but
ashes."

A couple of pages later, an exchange between Winston
Chruchill and one "Air Commodore John 'Jacko'
Dashwood" ...

WC: "So.  I understand you have the Jerry bastards who
built the V-2 under lock and key."

ACJD: "Yes, Sir."

WC: "And waht exactly do you plan to do with them? 
Chain them up at Traitor's Gate and let 'em drown in
the Thames?"

ACJD: "No, Sir.  They are going to build missiles and
space rockets for us."

After some further chit-chat ...

ACJD: "--the next wars will be fought long-distnace,
by missiles, and they'll be fought in space.  That
bloody atomic bomb that the Yanks think we don't know
about?  My boffins tell me you could store a hundred
of them on an artificial moon orbiting the Earth and
just drop the buggers on any target in the world."

Cf. ...

"Is the new cycle over now, and a new one ready to
begin?  Will our new Edge, our new Deathkingdom, be
the Moon?" (GR, pp. 723)

And I'm pretty sure that's at least Wernher von Braun
@ p. 13 ... one thing that I'm curious about is where
the broken postwar British economy came up with the
cash to mount a space program, but there are sinister
hints (Sir John in 2001: "I'm worried they might have
found out where I got the money from").  Which might
explain Thunderbirds, UFO and Space: 1999 as well, but
... well, three issue miniseries, will keep you
postred ...



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