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Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future is an archetypal British adventure hero who debuted in his eponymous science Action comic strip in 1950. His adventures through the Solar System and beyond were serialized in full-page spreads in the Eagle weekly comic until 1969. But, his popularity was such that the serial and characters have been reimagined in comic books in every decade since, on radio (Radio Luxembourg 1951-56; BBC Radio 4 1990), on television (2002), and in 2016-17 as a series of six, full-cast audio dramatizations produced by B7 Media in association with Big Finish Productions. Generations of British children, parents and policymakers have grown up with Dan Dare as part of their cultural milieu.
The original 1950s incarnation of Dan Dare has been convincingly located, together with contemporary science fiction such as that by Arthur C. Clarke, as arising from the austere post-war conditions of the UK (James 1987). Despite this, Dan Dare demonstrates a profound optimism not only regarding Britain's future international but also social, political and technological development. This optimistic outlook was a deliberate choice on the part of Frank Hampson, the original artist and writer, who noted, 'I wanted to give them something that made the future more hopeful in human terms' (Vince 2004: n.p.).
Hampson intentionally embedded Dan Dare in the realities of cuttingedge scientific development and worked with the Encyclopaedia Britannica for reference, alongside extensive models and technical drawings. Clarke, then at the start of his career, was employed to fact-check the early scripts, although the extent of his involvement is unclear. His brother, Fred, claimed that he received scripts to regularly check but quickly decided this was unnecessary due to their quality (Crompton 1985: 84). Clarke may have suggested, though, that Venus was more likely to be inhabited than Mars, based on then current knowledge (Porter 2005). He certainly contributed at least one short story to the Eagle in its early years (Dunnett 2011: 241-43) as well as a seven-page article on space travel to Dan Dare's Spacebook (1953).
Alongside Clarke's writings, Dan Dare can also be examined in the context of the contemporary radio serial, Journey into Space (1953-58), which featured a similar vision of human space exploration. Writer Charles Chilton had also worked for Eagle, albeit...
