Medieval Times Meets the Space Age

 

cover art by George Wilson

Space Family Robinson: Lost in Space #18 (October 1966) begins a four-issue story arc in which the Robinson family is accompanied by men and women from 12th Century Europe.

The script by Gaylord Du Bois gives us a strong and intelligent science fiction tale, with Dan Spiegle's excellent art bringing the story to life.

By the way, Gold Key's Space Family Robinson predates TV's Lost in Space by three years. Both series were based on the idea of moving The Swiss Family Robinson into space. Normally, Gold Key would have been the go-to company for a comic book adaptation of the TV series--they did comic adaptations of other Irwin Allen-produced series. But the existence of another Robinson family beating the Lost in Space crew into the cosmos prevented this. Instead, the comic book was renamed Space Family Robinson: Lost in Space starting with its 15th issue, but kept the comic book characters/continuity. 

The story we're looking at begins with the Robinson family's lost space station suffering from life support issues. They need to find a planet to land on to make repairs. The two kids, Tim and Tam, take the scout ship down to a planet with a breathable atmosphere. They find a city destroyed by nuclear war centuries ago, radiation levels down to acceptable levels, and a damaged space ship parked amidst it all.

As I said, Du Bois' script is intelligent. One thing he does is introduce new information, characters and plot information gradually, keeping our interest and building up suspense. The book is packed with a lost of nifty details, but its never overstuffed. It's really an excellent example of world-building.

 

My summary probably won't do justice to Du Bois' skill as a writer. Craig and June--the parents--eventually join the kids on the planet's surface. Dangerous and probably mutated animals are encountered. A search of the damaged space ship produces images of the giant crew. Then, hidden in the city, the Robinsons find suspended animation capsules. One of them contains one of the giant aliens. The others are humans dressed in 12th Century clothing. Helpful name tags (a little bit of a cheat--there's no logical reason for name tags--especially written in English) identifies one of the humans as Sir Thomas Maldane--an ancestor of June.

Sir Thomas is awakened. In another minor by acceptable cheat, he doesn't speak historically-accurate Middle English or Old French, but rather Elizabethan style English, so he and the Robinson's understand each other. He explains that the alien ship landed on Earth during a tournament. There was a flash of light and now--from Sir Thomas' point-of-view--he was suddenly somewhere else.

The alien also wakes up. His name is Kor and he's kind of a jerk. Having learned English, he explains that he plans to add the Robinson's to his collection of humans for scientific study.

He then gives the job of space janitors to Tim and Sir Thomas, cleaning out his spaceship. I love what happens next--the cloud of dust raised up while the two humans sweep gives Kor a sneezing fit, giving Tim a chance to grab his weapon.

The other humans are awakened and help deal with various dangerous animals. The issue ends with Kor and the Robinsons cutting a deal--the humans will help repair Kor's ship and he will help them get back to Earth.

As I said, Du Bois' script unfolds the story much more effectively than I do in my summary. Even taking the minor cheats about language into consideration, it really is good science fiction. 

We'll find out how helpful Kor is next week, when we look at the next issue.