#giffen

Hex v1

Jonah Hex was on it’s last legs when DC comics decided to to take a chance on this new series.

By 1985, Jonah Hex had been in publication for 9 years and had narrowly escaped three near-cancellations making it the longest-running (and only) Bronze Age Western comic book at the time. Things were looking pretty grim for Jonah Hex come 1983: super-hero titles were the popular genre at the time, the title had recently been passed up for the ‘Baxter’ treatment (higher cover price and better quality paper) because it wasn’t considered by DC to be a 'fan favorite’, and - the final nail in the coffin - Jonah Hex became a bi-monthly series after #85 (1984). Writer Michael Fleisher explained that the book wasn’t doing so well in the Direct Market (apparently Jonah Hex always did better on the newsstand) and it was probably due to all of the super-hero titles it had to compete with at comic book shops. What distinguished Jonah Hex from just about everything else on the market was the fact that it was a “typical Western” - it was set in the post-Civil War American West (circa 1850 - 1900), stayed within it’s own universe, the anti-hero protagonist was a flesh-and-blood 'everyman’, and the storylines were true-to-life with no super-villains, aliens or any other fantastic elements.  Michael Fleisher had written Jonah Hex stories since Weird Western Tales #22 (1974) and Jonah Hex had pretty much become his character by this point, so when DC decided to shake things up with the new Hex series it was a little surprising that it was revealed asFleisher’s idea.

Well, actually that’s not the whole truth - Fleisher credits the idea of HextoEd Hannigan who, about a year prior to the publication of Hex, showed up in Fleischer’s office with a new electric pink 'Hex’ logo he’d designed for no reason whatsoever. This got Fleisher thinking about what kind of book would suit that title and a title about Jonah Hex trapped in a post-apocalyptic future was proposed to the DC editorial board. But I kind of suspect that story to be bogus, too. The first person (that I know of) to suggest pulling Jonah Hex out of his environment and placing him in a new locale to fight aliens and super-villains was a fan named Doug Taylor who wrote in to Jonah Hex v1 #76(1983).Taylor argued that the series had gotten formulaic and that Jonah could be placed in any situation and still be interesting - he wasn’t criticizing, he was only offering suggestions on how to revitalize the series and it’s dwindling sales. The letter column writers dismissed the idea and Jonah Hex fans flamed poor Taylor’s suggestions in the letter pages of Jonah Hex for many issues to come.

There are some pretty obvious parallels between Hex and 1980s films like Escape From New York (1981) and the Mad Max trilogy (1979 - 1985) if for no other reason than they are set in a post-apocalyptic future and the anti-hero protagonist rides a motorcycle and is good with a gun. All of those films had a nice North American reception at the box office and earned a cult-favorite following - so that could’ve been another source of inspiration.

• No matter what the true source of inspiration may have been, DC decided that Crisis on Infinite Earths was the best time to take Jonah Hex in a completely new direction and send him to 2050 AD. Harbinger (in the Crisis on Infinite Earths maxi-series) makes a very candid comment about Jonah Hex being plucked out of the past and being sent to the far future - so that pretty much wraps up everything, right? Wrong. Hex created two major continuity problems:Jonah Hex gets sent to a post-apocalyptic future that had somehow endured some massive nuclear war in 2045 AD that left North America as a (mostly) dystopian wasteland. This was in direct conflict with the Legion of Super-Heroes’ future timeline (then written by Paul Levitz). After the Crisis on Infinite Earths it was decided that the DC universe would be part of one consistent universe and only have one possible future, so now Levitz had to try to incorporate the new nuclear-ravaged North America into Legion of Super-Hero’s past continuity.

• InJonah Hex Spectacular(1978),Fleisher wrote “The Last Bounty Hunter” - a story which details the death of Jonah Hex in 1904. This creates the big continuity paradox of 'how was Jonah supposed to be killed in 1904 if he was stuck in the year 2050’? Fleisher never resolved this, but the ending of Hex indicates that Jonah does somehow make it back to his own time - the reader just never knows how.

Hex lasted 18 issues from 1985 to 1987 and was cancelled because sales were too low. I think the main problem with the series was that it outraged a lot of the die-hard Jonah Hex fans who felt that moving him out of the old West and into the far future was basically sacrilege. I suspect Jonah being sent to 2050 AD was a last ditch attempt by Fleisher to keep the book alive - Jonah Hex v1 #92 ended hastily with a lot of dangling plot lines left unresolved (the new Hex series was previewed in Jonah Hex #89).

Hex was still a good series, but I’m sensing a lot of it’s regular readers were new fans since many letters in the letter column inquired as to the origins of Jonah’s disfigured face. The series did not have the Comics Code Authority seal on it’s cover, but wasn’t overly violent and the language wasn’t profane (and I don’t remember of any implied sexual situations). Still written by Fleisher, the series was fast-paced and had plenty of action.

The Legion of Super-Heroes made an extremely brief appearance (Hex #10; ties in with Legion of Super-Heroes v3 #23) and a future version of Batman even guest-starred (Hex #11-12). I’m going to assume that the Batman appearance was just a marketing gimmick as Fleisher stated that Hex #11 received some of the highest sales of the series. Mark Texeira illustrated the majority of the first fourteen issues of Hex, and Keith Giffen pencilled issues #15 - 18. While Texeira was a great choice and natural fit for the Hexseries,Giffen was not. Many fans wrote in to complain that Giffen’s art was too confusing and chaotic, and threatened to drop the book if Giffen wasn’t dropped as an artist.

I’m inclined to agree with the die-hard fans that Jonah Hex works best as a Western character in a Western environment (as nine years of continuous publication have demonstrated). Thankfully, Jonah Hex went back to his Western roots in DC’s Vertigo imprint during the early 1990s.

Doctor Fate v1

Dr Fate was created by Gardner FoxandHoward Sherman and first appeared in National’sMore Fun Comics #55 (1940). He debuted as a flying, magical-based superhero who was somewhat invulnerable and could shoot lightning from his fingertips. It has been speculated that the creation of Dr Fate was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft (and the need for another Superman-like character). Dr Fate was a member of the Justice Society of America and appeared in All-American’sAll Star Comics #3 (1940) as a founding member of the team. In 1942, More Fun Comics (the series Dr Fate regularly appeared in) became more oriented towards super-hero action, and the creative team decided to downplay his magical powers and play him up as physician who occasionally became a masked crime fighter to beat-up criminals (they also reduced his full helmet to half of a helmet). In 1944, World War II was concluding and super-heroes were no longer the popular genre, so Dr Fate was placed into comic book limbo.

Dr Fate resurfaced in the 1960s and, being categorized as a ‘Golden Age hero’ along with the rest of the Justice Society of America, mainly appeared in stories set on Earth-Two. The more famous of these stories being the ones in which the JSA crossed over to Earth-One and met the modern aged Justice League of America. In 1975, Dr Fate got a chance at an ongoing series in DC’s First Issue Special #9, but fan reaction wasn’t strong enough so it didn’t take. In the mid-70s, Dr Fate appeared regularly in DC’s All-Star Comics until it was cancelled. Although he was an Earth-Two character, he still appeared in many other mainstream DC books (sometimes as a cameo, sometimes as a guest appearance or sometimes even in a back-up feature) so he was never far from view. It would seem like he was one of those characters who had a lot of potential, but DC wasn’t sure what to do with him. Finally, in 1985’s Crisis On Infinite Earths, Dr Fate got his big break: he had somehow been spared of the fate the Justice Society of America had received (they were all wiped out and placed into comic book limbo) and had been transplanted to Earth One. He appeared in the company-wide Legends cross-over and ultimately became a member of Keith Giffen’sJustice League in 1987.

I don’t think Dr Fate migrating from Earth-Two to Earth-One was an lucky coincidence, and a big clue supporting this theory the Super Powers Collection action figure toy line released in 1985 by Kenner. Dr Fate is the only Earth-Two figure in the toyline and was not appearing in any cartoons at the time - so I’m going to go on a limb and guess that DC was planning for Dr Fate to have a larger role in the DCU and was just trying to get the fans warmed up to him. Well, that and the fact that he’s just a cool-looking character. Around this same time, DC published a 3 issue series called Immortal Dr Fate which consisted only of reprints of his more popular Silver Age solo stories - I believe this was reprinted in an effort to re-spark interest in the character.

Doctor Fate v1 was written by J.M. DeMatteis and illustrated by Keith Giffen, and was essentially the introduction of a new version of the character. DeMatteis took care to incorporate the previous Dr Fate’s history when explaining the origin of this new character rather than tossing all of the previous history away and starting anew (aka: John Byrne’s reboot of Superman). I’m kind of getting the impression that writers couldn’t decide what to do with Dr Fate during his previous 40 year publication history - everybody from Paul LevitztoRoy ThomastoMartin Pasko has put their own little spin on the character (whether it be slightly altering his origin or changing the extent of his powers) and I suspect this is a common problem when you are dealing with a character whose powers and origins are somewhat vague. DeMatteisopted to start fresh and, roughly following the old origin formula of the previous Dr Fate, created a mystical character that was now a composite of both a man AND a woman. This was a major revitalization of the character and surprised many long-time fans.

This mini-series contains some of my favorite Keith Giffen artwork. If I was a Keith Giffen-ologist, I’d tell you at this point in his career he was one of DC’s most popular comic book artists, but his art was under heavy scrutiny for mimicking the work of Argentinian cartoonist Jose Muñoz. This wasn’t the first time Giffen had pencilled Dr Fate - but his style was way different from the previous back-up stories he illustrated back in 1959’s The Flash v1 #306-310. Thankfully, Giffen was able to bounce back from these accusations and kept delivering on some top notch work for DC comics.

All things considered, this mini-series was a pretty good read. I’m really tempted to call this the post-Crisis reboot of Dr Fate for the main reason that, in the story, the former Dr Fate (Kent Nelson) blames the Crisis on Infinite Earths as the reason for his demise (as well as Inza’s). Chronologically speaking, Doctor Fate v1 occurred after Dr Fate’s appearance in LegendsandGiffen’sJustice League, so it’s kind of a mess to determine just what is considered post-Crisis and what isn’t. Apparently, the only reason Dr Fate was included in Giffen’sJustice League is because DeMatteis (who was also writing Justice League) was already writing this mini-series, so they had free reign of the character. Speaking of which, a few members of Giffen’sJustice League DO make an appearance in this mini-series (albeit a pretty minor role) which I was pretty grateful for. Dr Fate works well as a member of the Justice League, but omnipotent mystical characters do not tend to make for interesting main characters in a book and tend to not sell very well. I was a little surprised that this mini-series spun-off into an ongoing in 1988 that lasted 41 issues and an annual.

Heroes Against Hunger

If you were old enough (and socially aware enough) you'd probably remember that collaborative charitable campaigns were pretty trendy in the 1980s. This is actually pretty ironic considering the 80s are often remembered as a decade of self-serving greed and decadence.

The collaborative charitable campaign trend kicked off with Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” which recieved worldwide airplay in 1984 (it featured an all-star ensemble of UK pop stars releasing a musical single with the intent of raising money/awareness for Ethiopia) and snowballed into the massive Live Aid benefit concert of 1985. Not to be outdone, North America also contributed it`s own Ethiopia awareness/fundraising collaborative single in 1985: “We are the World” performed by the USA for Africa supergroup. The pinnacle of the collaborative fundraising arms race between North America and the UK would result in 1986`s Hands Across America  wherein 6.5 million Americans held hands for 10 mins to create a human chain across the USA. If you think that is excessive, I haven`t even mentioned Sport Aid, yet.

Why was the world (well, UK and North America) so intent on helping Ethiopia? Ethiopia was struck by a massive drought in 1983 that saw the deaths of over one million Ethiopians. BBC news was the first on the scene to record the first-hand effects of the famine and televised them. The imagery shocked the UK and inspired it`s citizens to raise world awareness about the plight of the ravaged country. Philanthropist and rocker Bob Geldof was the first to organize a collective of musicians to form Band Aid, and now you know the rest of the story.

As previously mentioned, Live Aid (the massive fundraising concert which featured over 50 cumulative musical acts) started a trend and the 80s would see more collective benefit concerts such as Farm Aid,Self Aid, the Conspiracy of Hope US Tour, Heart Beat 86, and the Human Rights Now! World Tour.

DC Comics weren`t too far behind on the trend and introduced Heroes Against Hunger in 1986. Marvel Comics beat them to the punch one year earlier and published Heroes for Hope in 1985. Actually, it was Jim StarlinandBerni Wrightson who proposed the idea to Marvel Comics and based on the success of theMarvel publication (it got some exposure in Timemagazine)StarlingandWrightson decided to take the idea to DC comics and do it again.

Despite being a collaborative benefit project (all of DC`s top writers, artists, inkers, letterers, and colorists contributed a few pages), Heroes Against Hunger was a pretty solid story - it wasn’t too preachy, featured two of DC`s most popular protagonists (Batman and Superman), provided an in-depth exploration of the Superman/Lex Luthor rivalry, had an epic battle with an alien, and concluded with a brief illustrated history of why Ethiopia was in the fix it was currently in. They even made sure to use the pre-Crisis versions of Batman, Lex Luthor and Superman (Byrne’s Superman reboot would debut later that year). I`m not sure what kind of proceeds this one-shot procured, how many Ethiopians it helped feed or the awareness it raised, but I do know that it’s greatest contribution to comicdom was the all-star cast of artists it contained - each artist did about 2 pages of the story. Did you ever want to compare how Curt Swan,Keith Giffen, Barry Windsor-Smith, and Walt Simonson all drew Batman and Superman? Easy - just flip to the appropriate pages. I think this was alone was worth the price of the admission.

I remember seeing this house ad in my youth and my interest was piqued by the appearance of battlesuit Lex (a Super Powers action figure I also used to own) and I was really curious as to why Lex was torturing these poor Africans to get to Superman and Batman. I was pretty blasé about the whole `starving Ethiopian` thing at that age: to me the hungry Ethiopians were the primary reason my weekday morning cartoon block ended at 9:00am (after Inspector Gadget) and was followed by 2 hours of starving Africans on TV. I am much older and wiser now. It wouldn’t be until many years later that I would get to actually read this issue and discover that Lex on Batman and Superman`s side the whole time and just revealing the truth to them (albeit in a really condescending manner).

P.S. the cover of this issue was illustrated by Neal Adams.