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Lou Fine Takes Us to Mars on Mystery Men Comics #2, Up for Auction

Lou Fine's Rex Dexter cover for Mystery Men Comics #2 is an early example from an artist who helped define science fiction art during comics' Golden Age.

Throughout a Golden Age lifespan that ran through Mystery Men Comics #1-24 and the attempted launch of his own series, Rex Dexter was only featured on three covers.  Created by Dick Briefer, the character made his cover debut with Mystery Men Comics #2 with an underappreciated Lou Fine piece.  While Fine is justifiably known for iconic work ranging from superheroes to fantasy and beyond, his art helped define how we think of Golden Age comic book science fiction, with covers that included Planet Comics #1, Fantastic Comics #3, and many others.  Mystery Men Comics #2's Rex Dexter cover appears to be his first science fiction cover work, and there's Mystery Men Comics #2 (Fox, 1939) CGC VG- 3.5 copy up for auction at 2025 February 2-4 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122505.

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.

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.  Beyond Flash Gordon, there's probably some more specific 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 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.

Briefer took these inspirations 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.  This story is told from the beginning in Mystery Men Comics, and exemplified spectacularly in Lou Fine's cover of Mystery Men Comics #2.

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