Producer Ryan Heppe has acquired the rights to the 1984 Marvel comic book series Crash Ryan, which was created by Ron Harris.  Crash Ryan was one of the first wave of creator-owned projects published by Marvel under its Epic Comic imprint, and Harris, who both wrote and drew the comic, later took the character to Dark Horse with a 4-part story that appeared in Dark Horse Presents.

The Crash Ryan comic was set in an alternate history version of 1935 that was complete with giant airships, flying airports, and powerful planes.  Ryan is a member of the United Airmen, who take on a would-be Napoleon, who calls himself "the Doom" and sets in motion a narrative that could easily have come from a Republic serial.  Those who remember the 1980s in comics will recall that it was Dave Steven’s The Rocketeer, which debuted in 1982 that really set the standard for the sort of retro, pulp magazine comic book narratives.  The Crash Ryan comic never received the critical praise or the popularity of Stevens’ The Rocketeer, which was made into a film in 1991, but perhaps the film version of Crash Ryan will be more successful than the movie of The Rocketeer, which was a box office disappointment--it certainly is a much friendlier marketplace now for this type of breezy, retro, serial-type adventure than it was for The Rocketeer back in 1991.

According to Variety, Harris and Heppe have come up with a 50-page outline, Crash Ryan and the Eyes of Lemuria, which they describe as "a steampunk-inspired fusion of Indiana Jones and Star Wars."  David Cowper (Road Dawgs) has been hired to turn the outline into a final script.