Customer Reviews

Classic Dan Dare: Voyage to Venus pt 2

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This second part of the adventures of Dan Dare on the planet Venus has to be read after the first part, obviously. But the second part does surpass the first in many ways. The art work, the rendition of color and drawings, the speed of narration, the imagination of the nature of life on Venus etc, are all on a par with those in the first part. But there are other things to the second part which to my mind set it apart. In this story, the first to present the character Dan Dare to the British public in the Eagle comic of the 1950s, the Earth is starving and an expedition is launched to Venus in order to explore the possibility of that planet providing the food resources needed on the home planet. Of course there are aliens on the planet, hostile and friendly and the story explores the heroism of the main protagonists and their alliances with goodies and baddies. The tale is exciting and beautifully rendered. But in the story there are the elements of core beliefs about the nature of human goodness, the perfectability of social structures and the possibility that mankind can conquer war and conflict. The Earth, while running out of resources, nonetheless has abandoned war and destroyed nuclear weapons. The forces which are eventually gathered by the Earth to invade Venus on the side of rightness are under the control of the United Nations. Leaders come from all nations and not from a few. Written in 1950 and 1951, the story creates an idea of life on Earth in the 1990s where there is peace, if not prosperity; a projection into the not so distant future of an ideal set in the late 1940s. The inspiration of the color and the artwork provide a basis where fundamental ideas of goodness, social justice and universal democracy can be sewn. The story, to my mind, still stands the test of time, even though the science is hopelessly wrong and the prediction of the future is completely erroneous. But the philosophy and the ideology can still be defended and supported. What a great legacy to leave in a medium thought at the time to be worthy only of being read by children, and not very able children at that! This edition plays a great role in reminding us of what great graphic art can do.