Honestly, if you ask someone today about Buck Rogers, they usually picture Gil Gerard in a spandex jumpsuit or maybe a clunky toy ray gun. But there’s a weird gap between what we think we know and the actual history of Buck Rogers and the 21st century—mostly because we’ve spent the last hundred years rewriting him.
He wasn't always a "Buck."
In 1928, Philip Francis Nowlan wrote a story called Armageddon 2419 A.D. for the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. The hero was Anthony Rogers, a WWI veteran who gets trapped in a Pennsylvania coal mine. He inhales some "radioactive gas" and takes a 492-year nap. When he wakes up, the world is a mess. America has been conquered by the "Han Air Lords," and Rogers has to teach a bunch of scattered forest-dwelling gangs how to use 20th-century military tactics to fight back.
It was gritty. It was high-tech for the time. And it was a massive hit.
The Birth of Buck Rogers and the 21st Century
John Flint Dille, who ran a newspaper syndicate, saw the potential. He teamed up with Nowlan and artist Dick Calkins to turn the story into a comic strip. On January 7, 1929, the strip debuted. This is where the "Buck" nickname came from—supposedly inspired by cowboy actor Buck Jones.
They changed the dates slightly, but the core hook of Buck Rogers and the 21st century was established: a man from "today" (the 1920s) forced to survive in a tomorrow he doesn't understand.
The strip was basically a catalog of things that didn't exist yet but eventually would. Or at least, things we wished existed.
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- Inertron Jump Belts: Essentially jetpacks, but using a fictional gravity-defying metal.
- Disintegrator Rays: The original "zap" guns.
- Television: Nowlan described "visiphones" long before Zoom calls were a nightmare for office workers.
- Drones: Unmanned aerial scouts.
It’s easy to look at the old drawings now and laugh. The rockets look like fat cigars with fins. The "Red Mongol" villains are, frankly, incredibly racist caricatures that wouldn't fly for a second today. But in 1929? This was the first time "serious" science fiction reached the general public every morning at the breakfast table. Before Buck, space was for "nerds" reading pulps. After Buck, space was for everyone.
Why he survived the 1930s
During the Great Depression, people didn't want to read about bread lines. They wanted to read about a guy who could strap on a belt and fly over his problems. By 1934, the first Buck Rogers toy rocket pistol hit shelves. It cost 50 cents, which was a lot of money back then, but it became the first major example of character-based merchandising.
You've gotta realize that Buck Rogers paved the way for Flash Gordon. Flash was actually created by King Features Syndicate specifically to compete with Buck. Without the 25th-century veteran, we probably don't get the blond quarterback on Mongo.
The 1979 Shift: From War to Disco
Fast forward. The 70s happen. Star Wars blows up.
Universal Pictures wanted their own piece of the space pie, so they dusted off the old IP. But the Buck Rogers and the 21st century legacy they built for TV was a totally different beast. Instead of a WWI vet in a cave, Captain William "Buck" Rogers was a NASA pilot launched in 1987.
He gets frozen in a "freak mishap" (the ultimate sci-fi hand-wave) and returns to Earth in 2491.
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This version, played by Gil Gerard, was basically James Bond in space. He spent less time fighting for American independence and more time thwarting Princess Ardala’s attempts to marry/kill him. And let’s be real: we all remember Twiki. The small robot voiced by Mel Blanc who said "biddy-biddy-biddy."
It was campy. It was fun. It was also very, very expensive to make.
The show shared props and effects with Battlestar Galactica. If you look closely at the starfighters in the pilot, you’ll see they look suspiciously like the original Colonial Vipers. That's because they were Ralph McQuarrie’s early designs.
The Public Domain Factor
Something huge happened recently. As of 2025, the original Armageddon 2419 A.D. and the early 1929 comic strips entered the public domain.
What does that mean for you?
Basically, anyone can now write a Buck Rogers story, make a movie, or design a game based on those original 1920s versions. We’re already seeing the ripple effects. Legendary Pictures has been trying to get a big-budget reboot off the ground with names like George Clooney and Brian K. Vaughan attached. There’s even a new comic series, Buck Rogers 2425, that tries to strip away the camp and go back to the original "soldier out of time" vibe.
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What Most People Get Wrong About the Lore
People think Buck was always an astronaut.
He wasn't.
In the original stories, he was a surveyor. An engineer. Just a guy doing his job who got unlucky. The NASA background was a late-addition retcon to make him feel more "modern" during the Space Race.
Another misconception is that it was all about aliens. The early strips were actually much more grounded in Earth politics. It was about a collapsed United States trying to rebuild itself while being occupied by a technologically superior foreign power. It was essentially a "What If?" scenario about the fallout of WWI.
Key Milestones in the Franchise
- 1928: Anthony Rogers debuts in Amazing Stories.
- 1929: The name "Buck" is born in the daily comic strip.
- 1932: The radio show starts, introducing the iconic "sound" of sci-fi.
- 1939: Buster Crabbe stars in the movie serial (he played both Buck and Flash Gordon, which is just confusing).
- 1979: The Gil Gerard era begins, defining the character for Gen X.
- 2025: The character enters the public domain, sparking a creative "wild west."
Practical Ways to Dive Into the History
If you actually want to see why this matters beyond just nostalgia, don't just watch the 70s show. It’s fun, but it’s a product of its time.
- Read the Source: Go find a copy of Armageddon 2419 A.D. Since it’s public domain, you can find it for free on Project Gutenberg. It’s surprisingly readable for a book nearly 100 years old.
- Check the Art: Look up Dick Calkins’ original 1929 strips. The "future" as seen from the 20s is fascinating. They thought we'd have giant floating cities but still use vacuum tubes.
- Watch the Serial: The 1939 Buster Crabbe serial is on various streaming sites like YouTube. It’s "cliffhanger" storytelling at its most basic level, and it’s where the "Buck Rogers stuff" trope really solidified.
The phrase "Buck Rogers stuff" was actually used by real-world pilots and engineers in the 40s and 50s to describe anything that seemed too futuristic to be real. Radar? That’s Buck Rogers stuff. Rockets to the moon? Pure Buck Rogers.
We live in a world that Buck Rogers' creators could only dream of, yet we're still obsessed with the idea of a hero who can bridge the gap between our present and a terrifying, exciting future.
To start exploring the original 1928 text that started it all, you should look for the "Complete Armageddon 2419 A.D." which includes the sequel, The Airlords of Han. This gives you the full arc of how Rogers actually saved the country before the 70s turned him into a disco-era adventurer.