The actual amount of Rocketeer comics Dave Stevens wrote and drew is surprisingly small. The "Complete Collection" consists of around 140 pages, total. Once IDW started having other people make Rocketeer mini-series, they probably blew past that in a year or two.
There were a couple of Rocketeer Adventures minis, anthologies that were often pretty to look at, but not much else. But in 2012 we got Cargo of Doom, a full-fledged mini-series by the writer and artist that had recently been killing it together on Daredevil. A mysterious cargo ship sails into L.A., the man in charge with an important cargo, but also another goal: Take the rocket pack from Cliff Secord.
Cliff, meanwhile, has other problems. He punched out a federal inspector who was getting handsy with Peevy's niece, which does nothing to dim Sally's crush on Cliff. The new inspector is much bigger and unaware of the reasons, so he's quick to goad Cliff into trying to punch him. And Cliff is quick to comply.
Waid really leans into the pulp influences. The dinosaurs were collected on Skull Island, and there's a reference to King Kong's disastrous stint on Broadway. The guy who captured the dinos is Doc Savage enemy, John Sunlight, who is working for some other shadowy figure (a Mr. Trask) that can't see the possibilities in stealing the rocket. Dinosaurs with rocketpacks. The world we could have had.
Samnee goes with the vibe, too. The dinosaurs are old-school. Massive, scaly reptiles. No feathers (minus the giant bird) or quick reactions, just big and powerful things that stomp around. The same could be said of Sunlight's goons aboard the freighter. Big and powerful things that stomp (on Cliff.) Cliff does get beat up a bit, but also manages to use the rocket in some clever ways to get out of trouble.
I don't like how Waid handles Cliff and Betty's relationship, as he writes Betty as being the manipulative and jealous type, who gets mad when Sally starts mooning over Cliff. He tries to paper over it at the end, that Betty is used to having the upper hand, I guess because guys drool over her. She didn't like that the tables were turned, with Sally swooning over Cliff, and that's why she was jealous. I don't think it tracks. Did Betty really have the "upper hand" in the Stevens' stories?
Cliff is the insecure one, yes, the one chasing after her. But that's a function of his insecurity, that he thinks every moment she's not with him, she's with another guy. We never see Betty actively flirting with another man. She's trying to get her career off the ground, so it's not as though Cliff was a kept man. He just doesn't like the way she's going about it. He's always suspecting Marco - with good reason as it turns out - and taking it out on her. Sometimes Betty tried to reassure him, and sometimes she gave it back at him with both barrels. She gets annoyed with him if he tries to control her, or forgets a date, especially during the stretch where she doesn't know he's fighting crime as the Rocketeer.
I think Stevens wrote Betty as reasonable with Cliff as he deserved, if not more, so I don't know where Waid was coming from with his take.
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