Buck Rogers invented the spacefaring adventurer in pop culture. Though John Carter Of Mars was first (1912), Buck's debut in 1928 jumped from the pulps to mainstream jackpot though comic strips, then to radio, movie serials, television, toys, and comics. He personified the future action hero for the public, a world of deco rayguns and flapper femmes and planet-hopping.
Philip Nowlan wrote him, and the strip art of Dick Calkins defined him. Frank Frazetta cut his baby teeth drawing his comics. Buck Rogers was the architect of the archetype: the path from Carter to Rogers to Flash Gordon to Adam Strange to Captain Kirk to Perry Rhodan to Luke Skywalker to Duck Dodgers to Mal Reynolds to Star-Lord to Rey is hyperdrive hopscotch.
Buck Rogers inspired Star Wars, and Star Wars inspired the second Buck TV series. This is the pilot, thrown in theaters for a quick haul. It's everything that late 70's TV thought SF was and that's its own kind of fun: spandex, no shadows, clunky bots, and laser animation. It's breezy optimistic fun, and that's pretty much what he's always been about.
