Review by Karl Verhoven

The Great Race showed Stephen Mooney knew almost exactly what it takes to produce a Rocketeer story. He hit the right note with the spirit of adventure, the art and the period setting. The only slight flaw for some might have been not enough actual Rocketeer until the final chapter, but the adventure and excitement was sustained throughout. Welcome, then, to the sequel.

This time Mooney’s only writing, with the art provided by David Messina. Unlike Mooney, there’s no great attempt to resemble the visual style of the Rocketeer’s creator Dave Stevens, but Messina adopts the same, bright, widescreen look, draws a recognisable cast and really impresses with the page layouts. In places a character will lack weight, but the general attractiveness overcomes the slight fault.

When last seen Cliff had broken his rocket pack, seemingly beyond the ability of engineer Peevy to repair. In the Den of Thieves opens with the Nazis having achieved their aim of having generated copies of the rocket engine, but they still need an engineer to maintain them. They have a plan for that…

Like all pulp adventure, it’s best to be swept away in the action and adventure without looking too closely at the plot mechanics, where Mooney takes some liberties. The allegedly broken rocket pack is too easily fixed, even though that’s what we want, and other aspects are largely to ensure the Rocketeer’s involvement, and therefore start the thrills. As it’s explained, the Nazis’ overall plot would work just fine without the main cast. Mooney has people seen in earlier stories drop by, but there’s a feeling that he doesn’t know quite what to do with Betty. She has another film part before accompanying Cliff to Berlin, and isn’t overawed, so better than having to be rescued, but her presence always seems circular for all the lines like “Buster, I’m the greatest adventure you’ll ever have”. Perhaps a change will come with The Rocketeer Breaks Free.