THE RETURN OF JOHNNY FUTURE...

Copyright REBELLION

A good while back, around the time that REBELLION started releasing their collected editions under the TREASURY Of BRITISH COMICS banner, I emailed them and politely suggested that they should consider publishing the MISSING LINK/JOHNNY FUTURE strips first printed in FANTASTIC back in the late-1960s.  The standard reply I received saying that they had no plans to do so, but might consider it at some stage in the future didn't give me much hope for the prospect.

However, now, with the news that just such a volume is being planned for release in 2020, I'm claiming credit for giving them the idea.  Well, why not?  I even suggested on this blog that other Criv-ites should contact them and make the same suggestion, so that they could determine the level of demand for such a collection.  So, in my usual modest, understated way, I'm saying that it's all down to me.  (Humility is my middle name.)

One of the things that always puzzled me when I was a kid was that, when the Missing Link first stumbled out of the jungle, he was wearing a pair of gents trousers.  Now you and I both know ODHAMS PRESS could hardly have had him gadding about naked, but they should've given him a loin cloth, not an item of clothing from BURTON The TAILOR.  As an (alleged) adult, I set my mind to contriving an explanation for the way he was attired, and the following idea is what I came up with. (Well, okay - perhaps it wasn't my chief motivation, but it was something I wanted to address.)

It's really a rather obvious connection to make when you think about it.  The clue is in the names - JOHNNY FUTURE and The MAN Of TOMORROW!  So - what's the 'missing link' between the two awesome appellations?  SUPERMAN!  Here's how it happened in the fevered depths of my imagination.

JOR-EL, concerned about the impending demise of KRYPTON, has been observing our Earth through a space-time warp for many months.  It seems the best choice of planets to which he can send his infant son - if and when he perfects the hyper-drive of the spaceship he's working on.  He's already built a prototype, but needs to test it before he can risk using it as a space ark for little KAL-EL.

So, donning a replica suit of 20th century Earth-style clothes, he rockets to our planet with the intention of confirming that it would be a suitable environment for his young son.  He crash-lands in the African jungle, but although uninjured, a small radiation leak from the ship's hyper-drive power unit transforms him into a hulking brute of incredible strength and limited intellect, who comes to be known as The MISSING LINK.  Exposed once more to leaking radiation from a nuclear power plant, he returns to normal, but with no recollection of who he is.

If you're familiar with the Johnny Future strips from reading them in Fantastic back in the '60s, then you already know the rest.  However, what you didn't know (until now) is that, after his 'career' as a superhero on Earth for many months, Jor-El's memory returns and he makes his way back to the jungle to repair his ship and return to Krypton mere seconds after he left.  (Due to that ol' space-time warp, remember?) The rest, as they say, is history.

However, there's more.  Writer JERRY SIEGEL originally envisioned Superman being rocketed to Earth, not from Krypton, but from a doomed Earth far in the future.  Similarly, in my version of events, Earth is Krypton (having evolved over thousands of years and - due to an ever-expanding universe - now occupying a different place in the heavens than it used to).  The globe has been renamed and our once bright yellow sun has succumbed to the second law of thermodynamics (entropy) and is now a fiery red, affecting the gravitational pull of the planet.

So - Earth's first 'superman' is actually Superman's father.  Johnny Future sired The Man of Tomorrow!

Anyway, that's how it happened in my little world.  Bear it in mind when you finally get your hands on the eagerly-awaited upcoming collected edition of this fondly-recalled strip, written by ALF WALLACE and illustrated by the astounding LUIS BERMEJO - it may make you view the character just a little bit differently.

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