Gardner Fox, may I talk to you a moment? (and today's mystery photo)

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

Now, I like Gardner Fox just fine. Aside from the impressive list of classic characters he created, Fox turned out thousands of whacky, imaginative stories with complicated jigsaw-puzzle plots and great hooks to draw the reader in. His characterization and dialogue were not strong points, but adequate; sometimes he threw in a small aside that gave the characters unexpected quirks. However, decade after decade, Fox insisted on taking a small obscure scientific fact and misusing it quite cheekily in a story. He must have know most of the gimmicks he came up with couldn't conceivably work, but hey.. if they sold an issue and entertained a reader, that was enough. Here, in "Earth's Impossible Day" (from THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD# 44, November 1962), he has Katar Hol trying to pull our legs. The idea is that fulgurites -- those small tubes of fused quartz created by lightning strikes -- still somehow have some of that lightning stored in them...!


Today's mystery guest is also associated with birdlike characters, and I'm sure many of you are grinning and saying, "Of COURSE I know who that is, Doc! Who do you think you're dealing with here?" In any case, it's worth it just to show everyone this chipper beaming old chap.

Comments

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

That's Coral Barques.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

In the very flesh.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

I've always thought of Fox as being as good as his artist selling it. Kubert is one who sold it well. On the other hand, there are some Murphy Anderson JSA stories(and for that matter any number of early JLA) that make me cringe.

Especially any story that begins with the faulty premise, "Why does good always win over evil?" Usually being argued by a couple of supervillains. (Morrison could have answered this in FINAL CRISIS: because of the Code)

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

I'd agree with that. I've tried a few of Fox's pulp stories and barbarian tales (Kothar, wasn't it?) and they read much like a comics script waiting for the artist. Not hopeless or anything, but there was something lacking.

One thing about Fox's super-hero stories was that the villains were never really heinous enough. Robbing was about all they wanted to do. When the JLA's evil counterparts banished the real heroes to space, all they could think of was robbing and stealing. Maybe it was DC policy, maybe the Code was more oppressive in the early 1960s. But Marvel bad guys were genuinely violent and scary, one reason for the rise of the Marvel formula.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

That may well have been the limits of Fox's imagination. But in general, I think it's just that a robbery can be solved and put right, while other crimes can have more ambiguous outcomes, so they stuck with what was safe. I think of how Hollywood, really to this day, only allows frankness in sex on film when the context is "acceptable," i.e. strippers and the like.

It's most definitely the Code that limited them to this. It's how we ended up with bullshit like the New Look Batman, who mostly seemed concerned with protecting the property of other wealthy people. Like with most censorship, in an attempt to promote "good values," it causes a bad value to be promoted, namely the primacy of property as a value in itself. (Much like all attempts to make Batman sexless only made him look really, really gay) Thus it gives the impression that superheroes exist to keep poor people under control. And insanity like that.

When you consider how often DC heroes loved the mindwipe back then, it gets even more disturbing.