The privately-owned (and generically-named) Spacecraft Development Company built the X-1000, a spacecraft capable of attaining faster-than-light speed.
MIKE RUGGER
Real Name: Mike Rugger
Identity/Class: Human mutate (Pre-Modern era; see comments)
Occupation: Astronaut
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: None
Enemies: His own stupidity
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Mobile throughout an unidentified American city; temporarily traveled in deep space at faster-than-light speeds
First Appearance: Amazing Adult Fantasy#12/5 (May, 1962)
Powers/Abilities: Due to his flight in the X-1000 at faster-than-light speeds, Rugger's metabolism and perceptions were greatly accelerated to such a degree that he found himself living out of sync with the world--while he was unchanged from his own perspective, the rest of the people of world (still living at "normal" speed) appeared to be motionless "living statues".
Height: Unrevealed (6'; by approximation)
Weight: Unrevealed
Eyes: Unrevealed
Hair: Brown
History:
(Amazing Adult Fantasy#12/5) - The
Spacecraft Development Company built the X-1000, a spaceship that could
travel faster than the speed of light. The company held testing for a
number of applicants to see who would be the ideal pilot for the
ship--among the applicants was Mike Rugger, who wanted to fly the X-1000
only for the fame and fortune it would bring him.
Rugger had paid a bribe to get the answers to the written part of the exam (which he passed with flying colors, of course), but he was unable to pass the other demanding requirements for the physical tests; as a result, he received the lowest rating of all, and was eliminated as a candidate from the program.
Weeks later--after an applicant was selected and the flight was scheduled--Rugger was still determined to pilot the spaceship, so he hid in the company's locker room and knocked out the winning applicant as he was getting dressed. Rugger then took the winning applicant's place--as he boarded the spacecraft wearing the astronaut's spacesuit and helmet, the ground crew never realized that Rugger wasn't the real pilot.
The X-1000 successfully launched, then headed for deep space at hyper-light speed. But Rugger was panic-stricken because he had thought the controls would all be automatic, and he didn't know how to operate the spaceship. As the X-1000 traveled billions of miles in mere minutes, Rugger found a button labeled "RETURN" on the control panel and pressed it, which automatically sent the spacecraft back to Earth. Ejecting back down to Earth in a parachuted escape pod, Rugger found himself in a city of "living statues"--people who were alive (their bodies were still warm), but they stood completely motionless.
Further exploring the city, Rugger climbed into a car and turned the ignition key, but the engine wouldn't start. After turning on a radio, he found that the device only emitted a dull hum. As he continued walking, he saw a motionless police officer firing his gun--Rugger noticed that the bullet emerged from the gun at an impossibly slow rate, and that it just slowly crawled from the barrel.
Mike Rugger then realized that because he flew in the X-1000 and traveled faster than the speed of light, he had somehow entered another dimension of time and he was actually living at a faster time-rate--nothing on Earth was standing still, it only seemed that way to his accelerated perspective. Now living at a rate faster than light, Mike Rugger sadly realized that he would be an old man before a minute of "real" time had gone by.
Comments: Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.
Living at a time-rate where he would also suffer from hyper-ageing, Mike Rugger probably met the same fate as Adam Clayton; but unlike Clayton (who could turn his power ON and OFF), Rugger probably met it a lot quicker (relatively speaking).
And a big THANK YOU to Dennis Giansante for originally scanning this story for me!
Since this story was published at about the same time as Fantastic Four I#4, maybe it actually took place in the early modern era--maybe the Spacecraft Development Company was secretly trying to duplicate the spaceship built by Reed Richards (@ Fantastic Four I#1), which was originally just a rocket to the moon [back in 1961], but later ret-conned into a faster-than-light starship that could travel to other solar systems.--Ron Fredricks
Profile by John Kaminski. Expansion by Ron Fredricks (sub-profiles, new images, etc.)
CLARIFICATIONS:
Mike Rugger has no known connections to:
The X-1000 spacecraft has no known connections to:
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The privately-owned (and generically-named) Spacecraft Development Company built the X-1000, a spacecraft capable of attaining faster-than-light speed. |
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Several applicants applied to be the spacecraft's pilot, but rejected-applicant Mike Rugger had replaced the actual pilot, and he was aboard it when it launched. The X-1000 successfully traversed billions of miles of space in mere minutes; but when it eventually returned to Earth, Rugger found that his own body was also accelerated to hyper-speed. Although the X-1000 had manual controls (which Rugger didn't know how to operate), its control panel had a button labeled RETURN, which automatically sent it back to Earth; it also included an emergency escape pod, which ejected the pilot from the vessel and lowered him back to Earth via a parachute. The eventual fate of the X-1000 is unrevealed--perhaps it remained in orbit over Earth. --Amazing Adult Fantasy I#12/5 |
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 The denizens of an unidentified American city, their daily lives continued on unchanged; but to Mike Rugger (whose body and perceptions were accelerated to super-fast speed) they appeared to be motionless. Rugger noticed that although the bodies of the "statues" were warm, he couldn't hear the heartbeats of any of them--this was due to the fact that their hearts were beating too "slowly" (relatively speaking) for the hyper-accelerated Rugger to hear. --Amazing Adult Fantasy#12/5 |
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images: (without ads)
Amazing Adult Fantasy I#12/5, p1, pan1 (main image - Mike Rugger touching "living statue")
Amazing Adult Fantasy I#12/5, p5, pan3 (headshot - Mike Rugger)
Amazing Adult Fantasy I#12/5, p5, pan11 (Mike Rugger begins to realize what happened to him)
Amazing Adult Fantasy I#12/5, p5, pan12 (Mike Rugger fully understands his predicament; "living statues" [foreground])
Amazing Adult Fantasy I#12/5, p2, pan1 (model of X-1000; employees of Spacecraft Development Company)
Amazing Adult Fantasy I#12/5, p3, pan6 (X-1000 flying through space)
Amazing Adult Fantasy I#12/5, p3, pan5 (Mike Rugger seated inside X-1000)
Amazing Adult Fantasy I#12/5, p4, pan3 (X-1000 returns to Earth; Mike Rugger inside ejected escape pod)
Amazing Adult Fantasy I#12/5, cover ("living statues")
Amazing Adult Fantasy I#12/5, p4, pan6 (Mike Rugger tries to talk to "living statues")
Amazing Adult Fantasy I#12/5, p4, pan7 (Mike Rugger tries to listen for heartbeat of a "living statue")
Appearances:
Amazing Adult Fantasy I#12/5 (May, 1962) - Stan Lee (writer/editor), Steve Ditko (artist), Artie Simek (letters)
First posted: 08/22/2006
Last updated: 02/10/2025
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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