Comment from Richard Kahl: The "Defender" story by Jack Cole is a blatant steal of the third Avenger pulp novel "The Sky Walker" which had a newsstand date of November 1939. Rocket # 2 has a newsstand date of April 1940. The Avenger was published by Street & Smith, while Rocket was published by Hillman. Other than the plagiarism, it is a very nice example of Jack Cole's early style. The Defender story in Rocket # 3, is not by Cole and is lacking all the elements of the "Avenger" that were in # 2.
Link to the book:
Rocket Comics 02 (JVJ)