Who's This? 25th-century commandos.
The facts: The space opera strip, created by Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino, ran from Mystery in Space #1 to #8 (1951-1952), getting the cover throughout. Some of these stories were reprinted in the 70s, but they would never reappear in their original form. The 1991 Twilight mini-series would place them in Howard Chaykin's mature readers story along with other sci-fi heroes. Starman #55 (July 1999) would also pull that trick, but in a contemporary setting. Their last appearance was a cameo in Vertigo's Strange Adventures #1 (July 2011).
How you could have heard of them: Twilight and Starman are still well-remembered series, but that's your only shot.
Example story: Mystery in Space #3 (August-September 1951) "Duel of the Planets!" by Robert Kanigher, Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella (story signed "Dion Anthony")
There's a low-level Arthurian vibe to the strip, between its medieval title/font and the mention of a Round Table in the opening caption, but the connections really end there. Their home base is a space station called... Camelot? Avalon? No, Gala. Pack your formal wear. The hero of the strip is the youngest Knight, Lyle, today tracing the origin of an aggressive bombardment to Mercury, the homeworld of his best friend and partner, Millo.
The Mercurians were "the first planet to be civilized", and should have rules the galaxy by right, but until now, they bowed to the Galaxian Democracy. And when the other Knights question Millo's loyalty, Lyle goes to bat for him. He's a good friend, and when there's a vote, the ayes unanimously have it. The next important person in the strip is Ora, daughter of Space Commander Artho, scientist and engineer, and love interest to young Lyle. I hope her "latest invention" helps with the situation.
What the Knights didn't plan on is Mercury's defenses. An anti-magnetic belt?
A forcefield that surrounds a whole planet! It stops ships, but maybe not soldiers? Millo intends to rocket pack to the space mortars, and this time, Lyle isn't listened to. Looks bad for the Knight from Mercury, like he's used this opportunity to desert his unit and join the opposition. Desperate to prove Millo isn't a traitor, Lyle goes to Ora for help. Thankfully, she's working on a "magnetic pendulum", which looks like a clock's and makes a ship go back and forth in an arc as if it WERE a pendulum, but don't let the dumb special effects confuse you, it's really an atomic oscillator that makes the ship phase into a dimension where the forcefield has no effect. Indeed, into the second dimension!
As soon as they pop out on the other side, Lyle destroys the cannon, but still needs to bring down the shield lest the Mercurians just put up new guns and start the shelling again. On the way to the capital, Mercurian interceptors, uhm, intercept Lyle and Ora, but the lead ship is piloted by Millo who only feigned desertion to get into a position where he could... sacrifice himself to destroy the magnetic belt generator!
Holy crap! Did they really kill Millo? (Siskoid runs off to the Wikis to see if the Mercurian had been a Knight before this issue; he was not; it's true that he's not featured in the Who's Who art.) Well, yes, they killed Millo. The Mercurian warlord surrenders and Millo's seat is left forever empty as a tribute to his sacrifice.
As far as old-fashioned space opera strips go, the "Space Knights"' isn't a bad one. The art is cool (look at that red-tinted panel on page 5, for example) and this story, at least, plays like the kind of war comics Kanigher would later become known for. On issue three, you're ready to believe Millo will be part of the main cast, only to have him die. It's pretty potent. Of course, we know the strip didn't have the longevity of, say, Mystery in Space's Adam Strange, but I definitely didn't hate it.
Who's Next? A serpentine cult leader.
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