Science fiction heroes in newspaper comic strips usually had names that projected power or strength, like Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and Brick Bradford. So, what’s the deal with “Drift?” Actually, he adopted it for ironic reasons. Having been found drifting in a life raft, the American soldier had no memory of his identity or past life. Frankly, he was just as surprised as skeptical readers that he was given security clearance to work for the American space agency. Perhaps the government knows more than they let on. Regardless, Marlo was the troubleshooter America needed to safeguard is space program, from both foreign and domestic sabotage. Honestly, writer Phil Evans’ Drift Marlo is one newspaper strip that could be just as timely if it were rebooted today as when it debuted at the height of the Space Race, on this day in 1961.
Marlo is like Jason Bourne, but more suave, more stable, and more trustworthy. In fact, his girlfriend, Claire Porter, a civilian employee of the agency never officially identified as NASA, thinks he is such a catch, she puts up with their frequently broken dates. Such are the demands placed on the agency’s in-house investigator.
He will have plenty of work to do, including finding an astronaut who mysteriously disappeared from his sealed capsule after splash-down. Soon, Marlo qualifies as an astronaut, to facilitate space-based investigations, like the mystery of unexplained human presence detected aboard an abandoned American craft still orbiting Earth.
While later narratives became more fanciful (some even involving hostile aliens from Venus), the early storylines were very much reflected Cold War reality, like the rescue of a defecting Soviet Cosmonaut. They were also thoroughly grounded in science thanks to Evans’ fully credited technical advisor, Dr. I.M. Levitt, who was a regular media commentator at the time. Consequently, the strip often took the time to explain the potential benefits of space explorations—most of which have withstood the test of time. Indeed, that is exactly why we could use a rebooted Drift Marlo updated for our current times.
In fact, the strip died a premature death, while it still had a respectable readership. Sadly, a terrible accident forced artist Tom Cooke to retire from the strip, which never found a replacement that could match his facility for realistically good-looking characters, as well as the more technical astronomical and aeronautic elements. Admittedly, Drift Marlo never spawned a TV show or theatrical serial, but Dell licensed a series of original comic books. It only lasted two issues, but it still counted for something.
Not only is today the anniversary of Drift Marlo, it is also the premiere date of Apple TV+’s Star City, the companion series to For All Mankind, which follows an alternate history timeline, in which the Soviets won the race to the Moon. Essentially, Drift Marlo could have been an alternate Space Race history that responded to real-life current events in much the same way Alen Drury’s Advise and Consent novels did for the Cold War and presidential politics. Drift Marlo is a forgotten treasure, so hopefully About Comics will release further collections. For all these reasons, today is a perfect day to re/discover Drift Marlo.
