What if comets weren’t just icy wanderers in the sky, but worlds with secrets of their own? In this episode of The Rocketeer Podcast, I discuss Edmond Hamilton’s The Comet Kings (1942), a “Captain Future” adventure where electrically-charged beings live inside a comet—and danger comes in the form of weird shadowy enemies from another dimension. Hamilton turns comet panic into wonder, asking the timeless question: what if?
As chatter and panic spread online about comet 3i/Atlas, we pause to remember that fear of comets is nothing new. From Halley’s Comet to Hamilton’s space opera epics, people have always seen omens, threats, and possibilities in these celestial visitors. But panic rarely gets us closer to truth—curiosity does.
This is not a survey of comet lore through the ages, but a 15 minute imaginative journey into an exciting pulp adventure, with “Captain Future” at the helm. Along the way, we’ll uncover forgotten details—telepathic aliens from the astral plane, and immortal beings who ingest electricity as food—and reflect on why these ideas still spark wonder today.
