Number 1553: Rex Dexter redux

What to think of this? Last October I showed you the lead story from Fox’s 1940 one-shot, Rex Dexter of Mars #1. You can read it by clicking on the thumbnail at the bottom of the page. That story, showing Rex returning to Earth from his home on Mars, appears to have been created especially for the book. It is followed immediately in that publication by a reprint of the very first Rex Dexter story from Mystery Men Comics #1 (1939). It also is a story of Rex Dexter coming to Earth for the first time from his home on Mars. The two stories coincide with that, but in details vary. So I repeat my question of what to think of this, even going back nearly 75 years to kids buying the book and encountering what seem to be two origin stories in a row with differences in the details. Anyone who is big on consistency and continuity may be a bit confused.

I’m showing that reprint, plus another reprint from the issue of the Rex Dexter story from Mystery Men Comics #4 (1940). The second story has Rex and his galpal Cynde encountering a villain, grandly named Lord Marvel, on a planet, Ursis, The first story has Rex encountering a villain with the excellent moniker of Boris Thorax, who is somehow able to get planet Tarsis to hit our planet.

Stories written and drawn by Dick Briefer.

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Here is the story I posted last October. Just click on the thumbnail:

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Number 1455: Welcome back to Earth, Rex Dexter of Mars

Although the cover says “No. 1,” Rex Dexter of Mars was a one-shot publication from Fox Features, dated Fall 1940. Except for the story I’m showing today, the magazine is made up of reprints from Fox’s Mystery Men and Wonderworld comics.

Rex and his girlfriend Cynde have been raised on Mars, where Rex's great-grandpappy took a group of people in 1939. In 2040 Rex and Cynde return to Earth to find a utopian world. According to an unnamed character, explaining how life on Earth has changed in 100 years, it is, “Oh, much better, I’d say! To-day we are a united world, all working for the common good!” In the world of 2040 no one works because they have to, just because they want to. There is no need for money. Hey, want a ride on the city bus to the job where you aren’t being paid? It’s free.

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 Here’s another of Rex’s adventures from Mystery Men Comics. Just click on the picture.

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Number 1173: Rex Dexter of Mars

Dick Briefer is mostly known by Golden Age comics fans as the creator of the funny Frankenstein of the 1940s, which became the serious Frankenstein of the early ’50s. Briefer’s career goes back to the earliest days of comic books. He left the field about the time the Comics Code came in, in the mid-’50s.

Briefer created Rex Dexter of Mars for Victor Fox. Rex was the child of a scientist and his wife. They built a rocket ship for the 1939 World’s Fair, and ended up crash-landing on Mars. Years later Rex came back to Earth and with the American military fought off a mad scientist holed up in Europe. (I'm getting my information from the Public Domain Superheroes website.) There were only so many genres comic books explored in those early days, and just about every anthology title had a space hero.

Rex was shacked up—or more properly “rocketed up,” since they lived in Rex’s spaceship—with Earth girl Cynde, whom Rex rescued in his first appearance in Mystery Men #1 in 1939. Rex lasted through Mystery Men #24, in addition to an issue of his own comic.

This story is from halfway through the Mystery Men run, #12 (1940):

Still available, Dick Briefer's Frankenstein, the deluxe hardcover from Craig Yoe, printed in color, and The Monster Of Frankenstein, a trade paperback reprinting all of the "serious" Frankenstein stories Briefer did, reproduced in black and white.

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