Below is a brief synopsis of the first Jeff Hawke story  “Space Rider” which appeared in Junior Express Weekly from 4th Sept 1954.

The story starts in familiar fashion when Jeff, in his Gloster meteor is sent to intercept a flying saucer, exactly the same saucer as that in Sydney’s strip. The saucer belongs to the shining ones who, again, as in the original, have a team of robots serving as their crew. Here the two stories start to diverge. Jeff discovers that there were two accidental stowaways aboard his Meteor , his friend Capt. Bill Judd and

Judd’s nephew Dick Regan. All three are enlisted into the service of the Shining Ones to act as their agents on troubled planets throughout the galaxy. They are equipped with spacesuits and sent on their first mission to the distant planet Rea. Here they are met by a robot called Groka ( different from the Shining ones’ robots and of a very interesting design). Groka has been awaiting their arrival. He explains that his people, a race of robots called the Ruks, were rescued by the Shining ones and given refuge on Rea. However the other inhabitants of Rea, a group of humans called the Sators have become very belligerent and are waging war on Groka’s robots for no obvious reason. Jeff and co are needed as they can infiltrate the Sators and discover their plans. After speedily capturing a Sator plane , Jeff and his companions arrive at the robot HQ.

Here they are trained to fly spacecraft and to use ray guns and then sent in a swift plane across the border to begin their spying mission.

After a series of adventures where Jeff and co manage to insinuate themselves into the Sator army, they arrive at the enemy HQ and discover that the Sators have been constructing a robot army of their own , identical to the Ruks and built for the purpose of infiltrating and destroying them from within. While investigating the fake robots, they are discovered by a Sator officer who recognises that they are spies but who also reveals that he is part of a clique of officers whose plan is to rid themselves of their warlike dictator , who , confusingly, is also called Sator. No sooner have these discoveries been made when they learn that the dictator’s invasion of the Ruks territory has

began.

After a brief attack on the Sator forces in a small spacecraft, in which he displays his superb flying skills , Jeff leads the Sator rebels on a bombing run in which they drop huge quantities of red paint on the fake Ruks, thereby making it easy for Groka and his people to identify the fakes. Although now deprived of the element of surprise the Sator dictator decides to continue his attack and in a foolhardy move leads his army of men and paint-splattered robots through a narrow valley toward Ruk territory. Jeff locates the command vehicle which controls the Sator robots and destroys it from the air. The fake robots are thus put out of action and

the demoralized troops of Sator’s army begin to give in. After escaping the battle in a swift pursuit ship the dictator returns to his citadel where the last of his loyal troops are still holding out. Before long Jeff ,Groka and the others arrive to prise him out. The dictator escapes in a waiting plane and his deserted supporters surrender to a man. After some further adventures in which Jeff ,Groka and Dick track the dictator to a swamp in which his plane has crashed, and encounter a “swamp-beast” a

kind of fanged aquatic ape, the injured dictator is finally captured and taken back to Groka’s headquarters. Their mission over the three companions are taken up once more into the Shining ones’ saucer for another mission.

Skipper Prossit