Johnny Galaxia

Origin

After discovering a dying alien from Altair, a Rockie mountain forest ranger is gifted the alien’s spaceship and memory-transferring helmet and becomes Johnny Galaxia, working for Earth’s fledgling Space Patrol.

Creation

Johnny Galaxia was created by Spanish artist Josep Beá and Blay Navarro for Selecciones Illustradas in 1959. Selecciones Illustradas then sold the series to various countries over the next few years. In Australia he became Johnny Galaxy, while in Britain he was sold both to Atlas Publishing, who adapted his stories to become new adventures of their existing character Space Ace (in later issues of Lone Star and from the 14th issue of Space Ace on), and L. Miller and Son, who used him under his original name of Johnny Galaxia as back up features in both Marvelman and Young Marvelman; for a period of time both British companies were using the character simultaneously under these different names. In Italy, where an existing character was already called Gionni Galassia (Johnny Galaxy), the Spanish creation was renamed Alan Ford. In France he became Johnny Galaxie, appearing in Super Boy and Tenax.