Gardner Fox
Gardner Francis Cooper Fox was an American writer known best for creating numerous comic book characters for DC Comics. He is estimated to have written more than 4,000 comics stories, including 1,500 for DC Comics. Fox was also a science fiction author and wrote many novels and short stories.
Fox is known as the co-creator of DC Comics heroes Barbara Gordon, the original Flash, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Doctor Fate, Zatanna and the original Sandman, and was the writer who first teamed several of those and other heroes as the Justice Society of America, and later recreated the team as the Justice League of America. Fox introduced the concept of the Multiverse to DC Comics in the 1961 story "Flash of Two Worlds!".
Early life and career
Gardner Cooper Fox was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Julia Veronica and Leon Francis Fox, an engineer. Unlike many of his contemporaries in the comic book field, such as Jack Kirby and Jerry Siegel, who came from poor backgrounds, Fox came from an affluent family from Long Island. His family was of Irish and English descent, with his first known American ancestor being the either Irish-or-English born Richard Fox arriving in Connecticut in 1635. Fox had a sister, Catherine, known as "Kay".Fox recalled being inspired at an early age by the great fantasy fiction writers. On or about his eleventh birthday, he was given The Gods of Mars and The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, books which "opened up a complete new world for me." He "read all of Burroughs, Harold Lamb, Talbot Mundy," maintaining copies "at home in my library" some 50 years later.
Fox received a law degree from St. John's College and was admitted to the New York bar in 1935. He practiced for about two years, but as the Great Depression continued he began writing for DC Comics editor Vin Sullivan. Debuting as a writer in the pages of Detective Comics, Fox "intermittently contributed tales to nearly every book in the DC lineup during the Golden Age." He was a frequent contributor of prose stories to the pulp science fiction magazines of the 1940s.
On November 14, 1937, Fox married Lynda J. Negrini. They had two children, Jeffrey Francis Fox, and Lynda Anne Fox.
A polymath, Fox included numerous real-world historical, scientific, and mythological references in his comic strips, once saying, "Knowledge is kind of a hobby with me". For instance, during a year's worth of Atom comic strip stories, Fox referred to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the space race, 18th-century England, miniature card painting, Norse mythology, and numismatics. He revealed in letters to fan Jerry Bails that he kept large troves of reference material, mentioning during 1971, "I maintain two file cabinets chock full of stuff. And the attic is crammed with books and magazines....Everything about science, nature, or unusual facts, I can go to my files or the at least 2,000 books that I have".
Novels
Fox wrote both comic book scripts and prose fiction throughout his career. He began writing fiction for the pulp magazines and transferred to writing original paperback novels as the market shifted to that format in the 1950s.During the mid-to-late 1940s, and into the 1950s, Fox wrote a number of short stories and text pieces for Weird Tales and Planet Stories, and was published in Amazing Stories and Marvel Science Stories. He wrote for a diverse range of pulp magazines, including Baseball Stories, ''Big Book Football Western, Fighting Western, Football Stories, Lariat Stories, Ace Sports, SuperScience, Northwest Romances, Thrilling Western, and Ranch Romances for a number of publishing companies.
His first novel, a historical romance entitled The Borgia Blade, was published by Belmont Books in 1953. He went on to write novels and short stories using a variety of male and female pseudonyms for a number of publishers, including Ace, Gold Medal, Tower Publications, Belmont Books, Dodd Mead, Hillman, Pocket Library, Pyramid Books and Signet Books.
Fox wrote a pair of sword and planet novels titled Warriors of Llarn and Thief of Llarn.
From 1969 to 1970, Belmont Books published a series of sword and sorcery novels by Fox, featuring the barbarian character Kothar. These were Kothar: Barbarian Swordsman, Kothar of the Magic Sword, Kothar and the Demon Queen, Kothar and the Conjurer's Curse and finally Kothar and the Wizard Slayer. These were followed in 1976 by another series featuring the barbarian Kyrik: Kyrik: Warlock Warrior, Kyrik Fights the Demon World, Kyrik and the Wizard's Sword and Kyrik and the Lost Queen.
Kothar and the Conjurer's Curse was adapted by Marvel Comics as a six-part Conan story, loosely following Fox's plot but with Conan replacing Kothar, starting with Conan the Barbarian'' #46. The story was produced by scripter Roy Thomas and artists John Buscema, Joe Sinnott, Dan Adkins, and Dick Giordano.
Comics
Golden Age
Fox's earliest stories for DC Comics featured the fictional district attorney Speed Saunders with art by Creig Flessel and later Fred Guardineer beginning at least with Detective Comics #4. Speed Saunders was initially credited to "E.C. Stoner," which many believe to be a Fox pseudonym, and Fox has gone on record as claiming he created the character, "cashing in on my law school work". As the 1930s progressed, Fox added writing credits for Steve Malone and Bruce Nelson for Detective Comics to his workload, as well as Zatara for early issues of Action Comics.During World War II, Fox assumed responsibility for a variety of characters and books of several of his colleagues who had been drafted. He worked for numerous companies including Marvel Comics' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics; Vin Sullivan's Magazine Enterprises, Columbia Comics where he created Skyman; and at EC, where he served a brief stint as chief writer. With the waning popularity of superheroes, Fox contributed western, science fiction, humor, romance, and talking animal stories.
Batman
During July 1939, just two issues after the debut of the character Batman by artist Bob Kane and scripter Bill Finger, Fox wrote the first of his several tales for that character, introducing an early villain in the story "The Batman Meets Doctor Death". Alongside Kane and Finger, Fox contributed to the evolution of the character, including the character's first use of his utility belt, which "contain choking gas capsules," as well as writing the first usages of both the Batarang and the Batgyro, an autogyro, two issues later. These were the original bat-themed weapons and vehicles, a concept that would later be expanded on.Fox returned to the Batman in 1964. ''''
Sandman
During 1939, Fox and artist Bert Christman co-created the character of the Sandman, a gasmask-wearing costumed crime-fighter whose first appearance in Adventure Comics #40 was pre-empted by an appearance in New York World's Fair Comics.The Flash
Fox is credited with writing the first three of six stories in the inaugural issue of Flash Comics, including the debut of the titular character, The Flash. With a hero described as a "modern-day Mercury", the title feature saw college student Jay Garrick imbued with superhuman speed after inhaling hard water vapors. The character went on to appear in a host of nineteen-forties comics, including All Star, Comic Cavalcade, The Big All-American Comic Book, Flash Comics and his own title, All-Flash, so named because, unlike Flash Comics, all the stories in it were about The Flash.Hawkman
Describing the origins of Hawkman, Fox recalled, "I was faced with the problem of filling a new book that publisher Max Gaines was starting... As I sat by the window I noticed a bird collecting twigs for a nest. The bird would swoop down, pick up the twig, and fly away. I thought, 'Wouldn't it be great if the bird was a lawman and the twig a crook!'" The character bore a visual resemblance to the Hawkmen who had appeared in the Flash Gordon comic strip in the mid-1930s.Debuting as the third story in Flash Comics #1 — "Fox's imagination that bird the soaring, mysterious Hawkman." With art by Dennis Neville, the origin of the 'Winged Wonder' featured archaeologist and collector Carter Hall reliving his past life as Prince Khufu of ancient Egypt, creating a costume, confronting the reincarnation of Hath-Set, his former nemesis, and meeting his reincarnated love interest, Shiera Saunders.
The Justice Society of America
Regularly writing more than six stories in five titles per month, every month throughout the early 1940s, Fox continued to create new features.At the time, DC Comics consisted of two discrete sub-companies, Max Gaines' All-American Publications and Harry Donenfeld & Jack Liebowitz's National Periodical Publications. Though he continued to script for National/Detective Comics, Inc., Fox became the chief writer for All-American. While Fox's Dr. Fate was published by National; Sandman, Hawkman and the Flash were released by All-American. For Winter 1940, the third issue of All-American's All Star Comics debuted the Justice Society of America, the first superhero team in comics. Fox had worked on the Hawkman, Flash and Sandman features in All-Star for its first two issues, but from issue #3, he assumed full writing duties for the issue, with all features by different artists working within the framing device wherein the characters were described as part of a "Justice Society".
In the pages of All-Star Comics #3, in collaboration with editor Sheldon Mayer and with artists including E. E. Hibbard, Fox created the first superhero team, the Justice Society of America. Each character – Dr. Fate, the Sandman, the Flash, and Hawkman were joined by Hour-Man, the Spectre, the Atom and Green Lantern – was introduced individually, and related a solo adventure, before being charged at the title's end with remaining a loose team by the Director of the FBI. During April 1941, Fox created the character of Starman with artist Jack Burnley in the pages of Adventure Comics #61, and the character would later join the JSA. Fox wrote the Justice Society's adventures from All Star Comics #3 until leaving the feature as of issue #34 with a story that introduced a new super-villain, the Wizard.