Although tangential to the main body of Jeff Hawke stories, an alternative incarnation of Sydney Jordan’s space hero appeared in the pages of Junior Express weekly, a juvenile publication which started in February 1954, only seven months after Hawke’s first appearance in the Daily Express. The publishers considered that Jeff Hawke would also appeal to younger readers in stories that were tailored to their tastes. Although not drawn or written by Sydney and with a different cast of supporting characters ( including a young schoolboy with whom readers could identify), the comic book Hawke nonetheless retained some of the elements from the adult strip. Hawke’s encounter with a flying saucer and the Shining Ones in Sydney’s first story SPACERIDER , are repeated in the comic book, but in the latter , not only Jeff but his two companions, Capt. Bill Judd and Judd’s nephew Dick are taken aboard the alien craft. Again, the robots who serve the Shining Ones are present and drawn exactly as Sydney had drawn them in the newspaper strip. Their purpose is also the same, namely to set missions for Jeff and his companions to carry out, with the usual aim of righting wrongs throughout the galaxy, though the stories themselves are different  and contain different villains   and story-arcs. Having said that, the “Underground men” from the second story, PLANET OF FIRE look identical to Ultar and the “new” Martians in Sydney’s Martian invasion who must have been their inspiration.Later posts will look at the four individual JH stories which appeared in Junior Express weekly and present brief synopses                                  Skipper Prossit