That could be the beginnings of a really lame joke, but it’s something more. All four of these characters, these separate genre icons, share something in common. They are all cut from the same bolt of cloth… the American hero.
The second of these true American heroes is the hardy space-faring Captain. Pinpointing an exact creator is a little harder, for Science Fiction heroes begin with John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs in February 1912 in “Under the Moons of Mars”, acquiring all the fighting skill of the old romantic heroes but then move on to Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Hawk Carse, John Eric Stark and the list goes on and on… Best of all of them was C. L. Moore’s Northwest Smith, who hung around the seedy bars of Mars with his pal, Yarol the Venusian. These tough spacers drank segir, slept with alien chicks and could shoot or punch their way out of any situation. They lead the way to the final icon, Captain Kirk of Star Trek.