Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Dick Briefer, Fox Feature Syndicate, victor fox

Dick Briefer's Weird Science in Rex Dexter of Mars #1, up for Auction

Dick Briefer's Rex Dexter of Mars was meant to be a multi-media star, with aspirations for film, radio, merchandise, and syndicated strips.

Fox Feature Syndicate publisher Victor Fox had high hopes for Dick Briefer's Rex Dexter of Mars from early on.  A few months after his debut in Mystery Men Comics #1, Rex was part of Fox's push via the Mitchell J. Hamilburg Agency to get Fox properties into film, radio, merchandise, and syndicated newspaper strips.  A Rex Dexter radio serial was planned as part of the next wave of Fox radio features after the launch of Blue Beetle on the radio, but Rex never hit the radio airwaves.  Similarly, a newspaper daily and color weekly strip by Briefer was announced and listed as available for syndication.  The color weekly appeared in a handful of newspapers as part of a Fox Feature Syndicate weekly comic section.

Briefer's approach to this solar system-spanning saga can be compared to his more famous Frankenstein comic book work:  often unexpected, occasionally amazing, and always very weird.   As a matter of fact, Briefer drew a villain in the Rex Dexter story of Mystery Men Comics #5 whose face and head had a very similar look to the way he would later draw the monster in Frankenstein. An often overlooked Fox comic book by an underappreciated artist of the Golden Age, there's an Apparent GD+ copy of Rex Dexter of Mars #1 (Fox Features Syndicate, 1940) up for auction in the 2024 May 30 Adventures in the Golden Age Comics Showcase Auction #40261 at Heritage Auctions.

While it's often said that Rex Dexter draws its inspiration from Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, there's probably some additional inspirations that can be pointed to here.  Given how closely Victor Fox was watching DC Comics titles like Action Comics and Detective Comics for inspiration, it's not unlikely that inspiration was taken from All-American Comics for this one.  That title was running both Ultra-Man and Adventure in the Unknown in the early going.  Ultra-Man was itself inspired by Buck Rogers with the addition of a multi-generational family aspect and connections to the U.S. president and government, which are also present in Rex Dexter of Mars.  Adventure in the Unknown is a proto-Challengers of the Unknown saga which was adapted for comics by its creator Carl H. Claudy from stories originally appearing in the magazine The American Boy 1931-1939 (parts of which were more famously collected into the Adventure in the Unknown book series).  The first story arc of Adventure in the Unknown beginning in All-American Comics #1, involves traveling to Mars and returning with weird technology, which also seems to inform Rex.  The name of that first arc in All-American Comics, Mystery Men of Mars, also seems on-point for inspiring a Mars-themed character that debuted in Mystery Men Comics.

The New York World's Fair of 1939-1940 was a major influence comic books of that era, and this shows up in a number of ways at Fox. For example, Science Comics' Perisphere Payne is obviously named after one of the most famous symbols of the fair — the Trylon and Perisphere. The character Electro from Science Comics #1 was also likely inspired by Elektro, the robot created by Westinghouse Electric Corporation and one of the most famous exhibits at the fair.  With Rex Dexter, the World's Fair influence is baked into the character's origin story.  As told in Mystery Men Comics #1, "one of the features of the Fair of 1939 was the rocketing of a space-ship to the planet Mars. Piloted by Young Montague Dexter and his Wife, the ship soared on its course… the anxious world receiving word every hour, until…"  That feature of the fair was actually an exhibit inspired by Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon newspaper strip, where the entrance of the exhibit resembled Flash Gordon's rocket ship, and showed visitors destinations such as Venus and Mars.

Whatever the inspiration, Briefer took it in some wild directions of his own, as he did with Frankenstein. In the year 1939, Montague Dexter, an intrepid visionary, plans to escape Earth's turmoil and establish a colony on Mars with two other couples. They successfully land and build a new life on the Red Planet, leaving a sealed message for their descendants. In 2015, Montague's great-grandson, Rex Dexter, is born on Mars and raised with a super-vitamin diet from Martian cow milk. He grows into a strong and intelligent young man, sharing a close bond with a young woman named Cynde, who constantly tries to outdo him. In 2040, Rex opens the sealed tube left by Montague, which contains instructions to return to Earth and share the results of their Martian experiment. After refurbishing the old rocket ship, Rex and Cynde embark on a journey back to Earth.

Upon their arrival, they are initially met with suspicion by the Earth Patrol, but historical records confirm Rex's identity. In New York City, they are greeted with excitement and curiosity. The Earth of 2040 has transformed into a united world free of war and poverty, where robots handle menial tasks and transportation is free. Rex and Cynde receive an apartment overlooking the Empire State Building, ready to share their knowledge with the people of Earth, and the legend of Rex Dexter begins.

While this issue was part of the 1940 Fox wave of breaking out his anthology characters into their own titles, this one didn't last past one issue — and curiously, got much less internal house ad marketing support than the others.  It's been an underappreciated part of Fox history ever since, and there's a CGC FN- 5.5 copy of Rex Dexter of Mars #1 (Fox Features Syndicate, 1940) up for auction in the 2025 July 18 Golden Age Comics Century Showcase at Heritage Auctions.

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