Bob Brown was born on this date in 1915. Brown was rock-solid artist at DC for many years before shifting over to Marvel where he made his mark on The Avengers and elsewhere. His most famous contribution to comics is likely The Space Ranger, which is the focus of today.
The collection I'd most like to get from DC is one featuring The Space Ranger. The two debut comics featuring DC's superhero of the future have been reprinted in the oddly titled Showcase Presents: Showcase, but I have read nothing indicating any more Space Ranger stories will be forthcoming. His sci-fi brethren Adam Strange and Rip Hunter have each had their own Showcase volumes. Like Adam Strange, Space Ranger did not get his own self-titled series, but did have a long and healthy run in one of DC's sci-fi anthology comics, specifically Tales of the Unexpected. After some years there, he shifted to Adam's own Mystery in Space where the two teamed up, sort of since it was actually Adam's descendant who rallied with Space Ranger.
Space Ranger functioned much like a 20th Century superhero, having a secret identity and a secret lair hidden inside an asteroid. When not performing his Ranger duties he was Rick Starr, the son of a wealthy industrialist and he was often aided in his adventures by his sometimes secretary Myra Mason and the shape-changing alien Cryll. He seems to have had a wide array of specialty ray guns and the space ship called "The Solar King" to use, as he battled menaces to the security of Earth itself.
The feature was written by the likes of Gardner Fox and Edmond Hamilton and featured for the whole of its run the effective and durable artwork of the often overlooked Bob Brown. Below is a cover gallery of some of the most colorful and offbeat Space Ranger covers.
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