History ComicStrip / BuckRogers

* FollowTheLeader: ''ComicStrip/FlashGordon'' was conceived as a result of Buck popularizing SpaceOpera on the comics page. For that matter, Buck and Flash were George Lucas's primary inspiration for ''StarWars'', right down to the iconic ScrollingText.

** One of the novels does note that the Han Airlords were probably the result of a meteor or probe that crashed in Mongolia. The alien object apparently took possession of the inland Chinese and Mongolians and turned them toward conquest. ''The Airlords of Han'' specifically mentions (in a throwaway paragraph at the end) that the Japanese and coastal Chinese were unaffected, although the 'gangs' of North America approached them cautiously (it also notes that the 'blacks of Africa' are now 'one of the leading races of the world'). A massive case of FairForItsDay (note also that the novels were written well before WorldWarTwo.)

** The (unsuccessful) attempt to revive the novel series (publishing rights being held by Ace, which hired LarryNiven to work out a rational universe based on the original novel) was also as faithful to the original novel as they could be without letting it continue to have a lot of plainly stupid errors in it. (Most of the things that are obvious nonsense now were explained away as Rogers being an UnreliableNarrator due to his own limited scientific knowledge, and learning better by the time he was the old man the new novels began with.)

For the 1970s TV series, go to ''Series/BuckRogersInTheTwentyFifthCentury''.

* TheRedPlanet: The Tiger Men of Mars.

* TronLines: The outfits in the comic book from DynamiteEntertainment.

* RayGun: Has probably the most instantly recognizable ray pistols in all space opera, because tin versions were a popular toy back in the comic's heyday. The comic book uses the same design for them.

!!''Buck Rogers'' provides examples of the following tropes:

Has been seen in various media -- PulpMagazine, ComicBook and comic strips, film serials, role-playing games, video games, [[Series/BuckRogersInTheTwentyFifthCentury radio, movie and TV series]] (mmmm, Erin Gray in spandex) all stemming from the popular 1928 novel ''Armageddon 2419 A.D.'' about a time-travelling mining engineer named Anthony Rogers by Philip Francis Nowlan. John F. Dille, the head of National Newspaper Service, convinced Nowlan to turn his novel into a daily newspaper comic strip (changing the lead character's name to "Buck" in the process) and the rest, as they say, is history.

'''''Buck Rogers''''' is an adventure series about a modern man (mining engineer in the 1920s, astronaut in TheSeventies) who is put in suspended animation, wakes up in the 25th century, and then spends his time as a hero in space.

An adventure series about a modern man (mining engineer in the 1920s, astronaut in TheSeventies) who is put in suspended animation, wakes up in the 25th century, and then spends his time as a hero in space.

Has been seen in various media-- PulpMagazine, ComicBook and comic strips, film serials, role-playing games, video games, [[BuckRogersInTheTwentyFifthCentury radio, movie and TV series]] (Mmmm, Erin Gray in spandex) all stemming from the popular 1928 novel ''Armageddon 2419 A.D.'' about a time-travelling mining engineer named Anthony Rogers by Philip Francis Nowlan. John F. Dille, the head of National Newspaper Service, convinced Nowlan to turn his novel into a daily newspaper comic strip (changing the lead character's name to "Buck" in the process) and the rest, as they say, is history.

For the 1970's TV series, go to ''BuckRogersInThe25thCentury''.

!!Tropes:

* SpaceFighter: The 1970's starfighters are some of the most gorgeous ships of this type ever designed.

* RecycledInSpace: Space mummies and space vampires, among others.

* CoolGate: The stargates [[StargateSG1 (No relation).]]

* AfterTheEnd
* AlternateUniverse: "Flight Of the War Witch."

* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: subverted

* AscendedFanboy: Tim O'Connor as Dr. Huer.

* CatchPhrase: ''Beedeebeedeebeedee''

* CrystalSpiresAndTogas: the city of Oasis
* CoolShip: Hawk's bird-shaped spaceship.

* DeathByOriginStory: Hawk's girlfriend Kourie. She shows up again in a hallucination in a later episode.

* TheEmpire: The Draconian Empire
* EnemyMine: Buck and Hawk, at the beginning of the second season. Hawk then joins the heroes.

* FanOfThePast

* FighterLaunchingSequence

* HammerAndSickleRemovedForYourProtection: In ''The Trial of Buck Rogers'', is was revealed that just before Buck left earth, there was a conspiracy of high ranking American officers to launch a first strike against The Other Side.
* HeelRealization: Poor Ardala, in "Flight of the War Witch."

* InsufferableGenius: Kryten. [[Series/RedDwarf No relation.]]
** It's actually spelled Crichton.
*** [[Series/{{Farscape}} No relation.]]

* NewOldFlame: Mark Lenard's character to Wilma in "Journey To Oasis."

* OldSchoolDogfighting

* PettingZooPeople: Hawk

* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: Hawk

* RobotBuddy
* RobotMe

* ShoutOut: The second season has the character Admiral ''[[IsaacAsimov Asimov,]]'' as well as the assertion that Twiki and Kryten are equipped with [[IsaacAsimov positronic brains.]]

* TheVamp: Princess Ardala-- yes, she does predate the TV show.
** Though she wasn't a princess in the comics.

* UltraTerrestrials: Hawk's race evolved from birds and left Earth eons ago.

For the 1970's TV series, go to ''{{Buck Rogers In The 25th Century}}''.

* {{Angst}}: Goes with being a FishOutOfTemporalWater. Everyone Buck ever knew or loved from his old life is dead. Worse in the TV series, because he knows they probably all had their lives cut short by the nuclear war.

* ArtificialIntelligence: The Computer Council from the TV series, although the only member we got to see regularly was Dr. Theopolis. Also Twiki and Kryten, of course.

* CanonDiscontinuity: A 1970's viewer who missed the opening episode could easily go the whole series without realizing there was a radioactive wasteland full of savages waiting just outside New Chicago. And that's just as well, perhaps.

* TheDragon: Tiger Man in the TV series. (His name is a ShoutOut to the Martian Tiger Men of the original comic.) Later replaced by Panther Man.

* FanService: On the TV series, Erin Gray in [[LatexSpaceSuit a spandex minidress]]. Pamela Hensley in [[{{Stripperiffic}} even less]].

* ReTool: The second season of the TV series, which attempted to [[FollowTheLeader Follow The Lead]] of ''Franchise/StarTrek'' and ''[[Series/BattlestarGalacticaClassic Battlestar Galactica]]''.

* UnPerson: In the TV series, part of Dr. Huer's argument in favor of Buck becoming a special agent is that, at least at the beginning of the series, he had no legal identity.

* ReTool: The second season of the TV series, which attempted to [[FollowTheLeader Follow The Lead]] of ''StarTrek'' and ''[[Series/BattlestarGalacticaClassic Battlestar Galactica]]''.

* {{Technobabble}} - ''StarTrek'' has '''nothing''' on BuckRogers in this department, trust me.

* InsufferableGenius: Kryten. [[RedDwarf No relation.]]

* RayGun: Has probably the most instantly recognizable ray pistols in all space opera, because tin versions were a popular toy back in the comic's heyday. The recent comic book uses the same design for them.

* TronLines: The outfits in the recent comic book from DynamiteEntertainment.

* ValuesDissonance: where to start? The early novels consistently refer to adult women as 'girls' (although Buck as narrator regards them as equal to the men and notes that the women have significant fighting and leadership roles) and portray the Han as stereotypically decadent, making mention that their values were entirely contrary to those of 'the American race'.

Has been seen in various media-- PulpMagazine, ComicBook and comic strips, film serials, role-playing games, video games, [[BuckRogersInTheTwentyFifthCentury movie and TV series]] (Mmmm, Erin Gray in spandex) all stemming from the popular 1928 novel ''Armageddon 2419 A.D.'' about a time-travelling mining engineer named Anthony Rogers by Philip Francis Nowlan. John F. Dille, the head of National Newspaper Service, convinced Nowlan to turn his novel into a daily newspaper comic strip (changing the lead character's name to "Buck" in the process) and the rest, as they say, is history.

* ValuesDissonnance: where to start? The early novels consistently refer to adult women as 'girls' (although they take an equal share with the men in fighting and leadership roles) and portray the Han as stereotypically decadent, making mention that their values were entirely contrary to those of 'the American race'.

* CuteKidsAndRobots: Twiki the robot in the TV series, and Gary Coleman's recurring [[TeenGenius Boy Genius]] character. The original comic and film serials have Wilma's younger brother Buddy, who subverts the trope by actually being extremely competent (the reason being that for years, he and Barney carried the Sunday installments of the comic by themselves, in a parallel storyline to whatever Buck was doing on the weekdays).

* ReTool: The second season of the TV series, which attempted to [[FollowTheLeader Follow The Lead]] of ''StarTrek'' and ''BattlestarGalactica''.

* AlternateContinuity: Unlike his comic page contemporary ''FlashGordon,'' who tends to stay visually recognizable in most incarnations, Buck and his world have undergone major overhauls in almost every updated version, starting with the Disco-era aesthetic in the 1970's TV series, through TSR's hard s.f. "[=XXVc=]" role-playing game setting, to the TronLines outfits in the current comic book by DynamiteEntertainment. [=TSR=] averted this with the "Cliffhangers" version of the [=RPG=], which was very faithful to the original comic--perhaps to a ''fault,'' since it started at the [[CanonDiscontinuity mostly forgotten,]] [[YellowPeril politically incorrect]] ''[[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness beginning]]'' of the comic's timeline, before the iconic space opera elements had even been introduced.

* FollowTheLeader: ''FlashGordon'' was conceived as a result of Buck popularizing SpaceOpera on the comics page. For that matter, Buck and Flash were George Lucas's primary inspiration for ''StarWars,'' right down to the iconic ScrollingText.