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oliveroctavius · 5 months

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I got this ask on main but thought I'd pick it up here, my comics history/fashion ramble blog. I'd been wondering this exact same thing recently, and Google initially wasn't much help—Rocketeer replica jackets describe themselves only as "Rocketeer jackets" and the one Lobster Johnson cosplay thread just suggested ordering one of those.

The most curious part is the double seam and horizonal row of buttons that mark out the entire front as possibly being an unbuttonable "bib", like a plastron front. (Please don't ask how late in the game I worked out that "plastron" is the right word for that.)

The closest genuine Golden Age example of a plastron jacket I found was the military tunic style uniform of Blackhawk, created in 1941.

(Pics from the '52 movie serial (right) really show how awkward it is to combine open lapels + plastron. On a double breasted coat, that chest panel IS the bottom lapel, folded shut.)

Here's the thing: This outfit mirrors that of the Nazi ace pilot he fights in the origin issue, von Tepp (middle). And compare further to the far right: real life WWI flying ace Manfred von Richthofen, AKA the Red Baron, in imperial German Uhlan (lance cavalry) uniform.

"The Germans had designed such great costumes, we decided to use them ourselves," co-creator Cuidera is quoted as saying in Steranko's History of Comics, which (more dubiously, in my opinion) compares the look to the Gestapo or SS. Breeches or jodhpurs weren't strictly a Nazi thing at the time, but they do add to the overall effect.

Compare two other military tunic themed costumes from 1940, on Captain Marvel and Bucky Barnes. These are asymmetrically buttoned, and switch to a more classic circus strongman look below the waist.

But somewhere around 1975, with the Invaders book, Bucky gets a buttoned bib! There's something infectious about it—the symmetry, maybe. (Even re: the characters we started with; Mignola didn't draw Lobster Johnson with buttons down the right side, but every artist after does. And Spider-Noir wore a sweater under his coat until Shattered Dimensions introduced the double-breasted vest.)

If it didn't reach his belt, Barnes' button-on front + shirt collar combo would resemble a bib-front western shirt, like the one that became the Rawhide Kid's signature look in '56. (Or Texas Twister's in '76.)

This shirt entered the old-West-obsessed public imagination in the 1940s/50s largely because John Wayne wore it in several cowboy movies. In reality it was rare among cowboys, more common with firefighters and civil war era militia.

Military tunics, Western shirts, alright, but does anything match the style and material and era, or are these jackets a total anachronism? I tried looking into 1930s leather flight jackets and was surprised when the closest-looking results were marked as Luftwaffe.

It took me a bit to work out why: USAF and RAF issued standard flight jackets with a center closure. The Luftwaffe instead let their pilots buy non-standardized ones. The 'weird' double-breasted black German flight jackets were in fact fairly normal (but repurposed) motorcycle racing jackets.

Far left is an English biker's jacket that dates back to the 1920s. Even without the bib, this may be as close as you'll get to an authentic Rocketeer. The jodhpurs were pretty common to complete the look. (What was an early motorcycle anyways, if not a weird metal horse?) The first biker jacket with the now iconic off-center diagonal zip was designed in America in 1928 and yet as far as I can tell, not a single actual pre-war pulp hero wore one.

The greatest weakness of this post is that I haven't been able to find any of these artists' notes on how, exactly, they arrived at similar versions of this iconic Pulp Front Panel Jacket. I'm sure I've missed some things. But as far as I can tell, this jacket is an odd bit of convergent stylistic evolution from the above influences that's picked up enough momentum to now be self-perpetuating.

The problem with pulp heroes is that for the most part, they just wore clothes. The appeal of this jacket is actually very similar to what the 1940s thought the appeal of the bib-front shirt in westerns was: It's alien enough to feel "old". It looks like something invented before zippers or synthetic fabrics. It looks formal and militant but also renegade, rebellious. It also looks a little mad-sciencey*. It's a costume, but you can nearly fool yourself into thinking the past was weird enough that you could find something this cool on the rack.

If I wanted to end on some grand point, I could try to argue that there's a thematic throughline between fascist fashion, John Wayne movies, and throwback pulp. A manufactured aesthetic valorizing the violence of a fictional golden age... but I think the noir stylings of the post-Rocketeer comics in this lineup mean that, at least on some level, they know the "good guys" didn't dress like this.

*If I had another couple weeks of time to burn, I'd try to trace the visual history of the Howie coat in popular culture and investigate its possible connections to this. Alas, I do actually have a life.

#thank you for reading. also don't read golden age blackhawks the racism is awful even by era standards.#comics history #costume taxonomy #<- forgot I had that tag.#not to be like ''in MY favorite comics...'' again but may I point out that Hellboy and Robo and Tom Strong just wear... clothes #like. yknow. A pulp series that had confidence in itself rather than trying to cosplay as eras it thinks were cooler might do-#[I am yanked offstage before I can restart that rant]#the rocketeer

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hot-hellboy · 2 months

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Bloom - A Fellow Travelers Fanfic

Summary:

Hawk fists Tim for the first time.

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It was moments like these that reminded Hawk that life was truly worth living. It was the softer moments–the tranquil moments–after sex that reminded him of what really mattered. And what really mattered was his fucked out beautiful boy, who was currently curled into his side and on the brink of dozing off.

Of course, Hawk had to be mindful of the fact that at least one of them had to stay awake (which usually ended up being him, but he didn’t mind–especially if he got to watch his Skippy rest in total peace for a few hours before sunrise) so that they could be ready to wake the other up in time to leave Hawk’s apartment building without suspicion, and under the cover of a starless city sky.

Hawk was content with letting Tim rest for a while after sex, so long as they didn’t make the same mistake as one time before when sleeping in with each other wasn’t an option. But that incident hadn’t been repeated since, so Hawk was willing to let it go. Well, for the most part.

As mentioned before, now was usually the period of time where Tim would either be nearly passed out, or still be riding the highs of sexual ecstasy, and therefore conscious enough to be chattier than usual as he asked Hawk all of the questions weighing on his mind, or otherwise communicating in general. Tonight was clearly the situation of the former–it had been a particularly rough session with his boy that night which left Tim too tired to stay up late talking with Hawk as he opted for letting his body be cradled in his arms as sleep nudged him into its gentle lull. However, Hawk wasn’t done playing with him.

“Skippy?” Hawk’s hand came up to stroke the side of his face while Tim made a quiet noise of acknowledgment somewhere in the back of his throat. “I want you to turn over for me.” Tim looked up at him momentarily with a slightly confused and dazed look in his eyes that told Hawk two things: one being the fact that Tim was still deep in subspace, and two being that he still hadn’t made the effort to put his glasses back on, so seeing Hawk clearly was a bit of a struggle.

Nevertheless, Tim did as he was told as he rolled over onto his front just like Hawk asked. It never failed to amaze Hawk how obedient Tim was in the bedroom for him, and how that kind of submission was nothing short of a gift.

“Good boy,” he praised. Hawk could see the small twitch of a bashful smile begin to form on what he could see of Tim’s face, which also made his fondness grow simply because of his Skippy’s love for affirmation.

Hawk let his hand slide from the side of Tim’s face down to tracing his neck, his spine, and down to the small arch of his lower back right before it met his plump ass. Hawk nudged his thighs apart for easier access while he fumbled around for the can of lube they had used before.

Tim turned his head to watch what he was doing with those stupidly pretty brown eyes of his that Hawk would never admit to the extent of how much they affected him, especially when those irises were filled with so much trust to the point that Tim wasn’t even questioning what he was about to try.

Hawk’s attention was brought back to him as his slicked up fingers found their way to tracing his hole in circles. Tim must’ve assumed it was time for round two with the way he spread his legs a little wider for when Hawk was ready to fuck him full of his cock once again, but he had other plans.

This time around, Hawk was much slower and deliberate with the way he fingered him. It was no longer a rushed process as before with his fingers getting his boy prepped and ready as fast as possible, but instead he was truly taking his time with how he stretched him, though it wasn’t really necessary since Tim’s hole was still thoroughly open from their actions prior.

Hawk could feel how ready Tim was just by feeling the semen he had ejaculated into him make his two fingers inside him sticky with the substance. It made something dark and animalistic inside him proud of the way he was able to claim his boy from within.

Like the good boy he was, Tim didn’t even flinch or try to move away when Hawk slid a third finger into his soft pink hole. He paused to reapply some more lube before guiding his fingers in and out as he watched his boy make little sounds of pleasure when Hawk rubbed his prostate.

“Feels good, Skip?” Hawk teased as he intentionally felt around for that perfect little sweet spot again.

“Yes,” Tim moaned into the pillow while his hips moved back to meet Hawk’s fingers.

Hawk chuckled as he stimulated that place over and over again. He appreciated how far Tim was allowing him to go even after a scene so rough.

Speaking of which, in Tim’s mind, he wasn’t completely sure what had come over Hawk. Usually, it was all cuddles, kisses, soft words, and sometimes hard conversations that followed what they did in the dead of night, especially since they only had so much time for only so many rounds of sex before he inevitably had to leave Hawk’s side and go back to being relative strangers the next day for appearances. Good God , did Tim despise “appearances”, and Hawk never failed to remind him of the importance of them, even if it hurt.

But Tim decided he couldn’t focus on any of that right now, especially not with Hawk still playing with him long after he had come inside him for the night. Tim’s entire body thrummed with the feeling of his well-fucked hole stretched over Hawk’s three fingers inside of it, and he relaxed into the grounding sensation of Hawk’s free hand petting his sides, his hair, and occasionally guiding his face into a sweet kiss.

Anticipation grew in his mind, and it translated into him arching his back and fucking himself on Hawk’s fingers as he waited for his length to fill him once again. Tim waited patiently for the now four fingers stuffing him full to be removed in order to make way for a much larger intrusion, but he soon came to realize that wasn’t going to happen.

“Hawk–” Tim protested when he felt Hawk slide all four digits down to his knuckles. Now that was new. By this point, both of them would have been too eager to ravish each other’s bodies until pure exhaustion was the only thing pulling them apart, and Tim would have long deemed himself ready to take Hawk inside him, but never before had he been so set on opening him up like this.

“You trust me, don’t you, Skippy? Trust me enough to take good care of you?” Hawk murmured into his ear, but Tim didn’t have the heart to tell him that after observing the unpredictable nature of Hawk’s behavior and his ability to seemingly detach himself from Tim’s life at the drop of a hat, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

But this? Tim trusted him enough for the sake of what they did behind closed doors. Trusted him to the point of doing anything Hawk asked; trusted him with his submission, and certainly trusted him with his love despite everything separating them.

“I-I do,” Tim’s voice shook as Hawk’s fingers formed a point; the shape they formed akin to the closed beak of a duck.

Hawk proceeded to go even slower (if that was possible) after he reapplied more lube to the rest of his hand, which was when Tim began realizing his intentions.

Just the mere thought of Hawk’s future actions made him blush and squirm under the amount of close attention the man was giving him. It was the sheer trust and vulnerability of it all that had Tim questioning whether or not he could really take it. Yet the answer was simple; of course he could take it. Take the emotions, take on his role of knowing exactly who he belonged to, and, physically speaking, take Hawk’s hand inside him. Tim supposed it was poetic, almost,–it was as if what Hawk was doing to him at the moment was a metaphor for the hand-held grip he had on his life, his every waking and breathing moment, on Tim himself.

“Are you okay?” Hawk stopped for a second before he got to the widest part of his hand where his knuckles peaked and the joints of his fingers could very much be felt by Tim’s sensitive hold.

Tim gave a shaky nod as he squeezed his eyes shut at the impending pressure against his body.

“I want to hear you say it, can you do that for me?” Hawk’s voice was gentle in the way it got whenever his dominating facade faded ever-so-slightly during sex whenever he wanted to check in on Tim.

“I’m okay,” he responded. And it was true; Tim was more than just “okay”. He felt vulnerable in the best way possible as he surrendered any semblance of control to Hawk as he always did, only this time in the way of doing something they had never done before.

Hawk’s lips met his heated skin in reassuring kisses as he inched more of his hand into his hole, and Tim took it beautifully. The hard part was relatively over–he had managed to take him past his knuckles and over the wide part of his palm, and Hawk wouldn’t let him doubt for a second about how well he was doing.

Every couple minutes was spent either inserting more of himself in Tim, or stopping completely just to praise his boy for being so open in more ways than one. Eventually, Tim had taken Hawk up to his wrist, and he was overwhelmed with just the feeling of being so full.

“Talk to me, tell me how my boy is feeling,” Hawk coaxed the words out of him since Tim was too overstimulated to do it himself.

“Hawk–I’m–I’m good, really good, it’s just–”

“Too much?”

“Yeah,” Tim laughed breathlessly. Hawk started to retract his hand. “Don’t,” Tim whimpered; his voice high and needy as his grip tightened significantly.

“ Fuck, need it that badly, huh? Need my hand filling you up like this, even if it’s a lot,” Hawk said as he continued stretching him as Tim’s hole fluttered around his wrist.

Hawk could see him rutting against the sheets for some much needed friction, and that was when he decided it was time to end his little experiment for the night. This time, Tim let him remove his hand from his inviting body since the urge to get off had taken over his mind, and Hawk was keen on letting him orgasm once more for the night.

Tim moaned loudly when he wrapped his hand around his cock and proceeded to stroke his length until his cum splattered across the bed sheets. Hawk gave him a few more tugs even after he climaxed, which made Tim shudder and bat his hands away. He turned over onto his back once more with a content, blissed out expression on his face; making Hawk’s heart warm.

Few words were exchanged as they cleaned up for the second time that night–though it was mostly Hawk who was doing the tidying-up since rough sex, a fisting session, and two orgasms had left Tim far too tired to be much help.

Once everything was settled, Hawk joined his boy on the bed once more and wrapped a clean blanket around the two of them. Tim made a quiet sound of appreciation as Hawk tucked him in for real this time.

“You were good tonight, Skip. Really good,” he murmured into his soft brown hair. There were no less than a million words Hawk wanted to say to him, but couldn’t bring himself to do so. So, he opted to do what he did best when it came to Tim; hold him in his arms and hope that everything he wanted to communicate was shared through that kind of contact, even if they both knew Tim needed more than that. But like everything else, Hawk hoped it would be enough for now.

The

End.

#fellow travelers #smut #hawk x tim #literally what is their ship name so i can tag it #hawktim #?#hawk x skippy #hawkskip #hawkins fuller #tim laughlin #fanfic #hellboy #fellow travelers tv series

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