HOTW- Buck Rogers (and RIP Gil Gerard)

From Wiki-  The first three frames of the series set the scene for Buck's "leap" 500 years into Earth's future:

I was 20 years old when they stopped the world war and mustered me out of the air service. I got a job surveying the lower levels of an abandoned mine near Pittsburgh, in which the atmosphere had a peculiar pungent tang and the crumbling rock glowed strangely. I was examining it when suddenly the roof behind me caved in and…

Buck is rendered unconscious, and a strange gas preserves him in a suspended animation or coma state. He awakens and emerges from the mine in 2429 AD, in the midst of another war.^[6]

After rescuing future freedom fighter Wilma Deering from attackers armed with anti-gravity belts and rocket guns, he proves his identity by showing her his American Legion button. She then explains how the Red Mongols emerged from the Gobi desert to conquer Asia and Europe and then attacked America starting with that "big idol holding a torch" (the Statue of Liberty). Back to me:

I hadn't considered adding Buck here at this time, but since Gil Gerard passed on the other day, it makes sense.  I have read the first two books, and watched the serial and the TV show and enjoyed all of them.  I did like Gil quite a bit, from what I saw him in.  RIP.