Friday Fun REX DEXTER OF MARS "...Goes Through!"

Ever hear of Nathaniel Nitkin?

If you're a Golden Age fan, you've probably read his work...including this story!

Nitkin wrote text features for Fox covering almost all their ongoing characters.

(Those text features were a requirement for the less-expensive periodical mailing permit the Post Office issued!)

Unfortunately, as this piece from Fox's Rex Dexter #1 (1940) shows, Nat would take a fairly generic genre plot and cram it into a story about whatever chararacter he was doing.

It's OK, but it lacks the weirdness of Dick Briefer's version of the strip.

BTW, the art is existing Briefer art "clipped" from a couple of stories!

Since it's never been reprinted, we thought Rex Dexter fans (and judging by the hits on his tales on Friday Fun, there are quite a number of you) would find the only non-Breifer Rex Dexter tale to be an interesting curiosity!

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Friday Fun REX DEXTER "Saves the World...Again!"

When Last We Left Our Interplanetary Hero...

...Rex has not only rebuilt a major part of Asia, but repopulates it with Americans, since all the locals were killed by the meteor strike!

Why wait?

We'll give you that kool page, from Fox's Mystery Man Comics #8 (1940), now!

Is that kool, or what?

TRIVIA: You may notice that pages 5-8 of this tale from Fox's Mystery Man Comics #7 (1940) have larger panels, and less-detailed art than the first four pages.

Did writer-artist Dick Briefer fall behind on the deadline and do the last four pages overnight?

Did the editor reject the original last four pages...forcing Briefer to re-write/re-draw them?

We'll never know...

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Friday Fun REX DEXTER "Invasion of the Protoplasmen"

Exiled from Earth, Rex Dexter heads home to Mars...

...not yet aware of what's transpiring on the third rock from the sun.

(BTW, note the amazingly-casual racism in the very next panel...)

Wait!
Rex was kicked off Earth only a couple of months ago (as shown HERE)!
Now, in Fox's Mystery Men Comics #6 (1940), without so much as a "Sorry about that!" or "Our bad!", Earth expects him to drop everything and save its' collective butt AGAIN?
But, that's exactly what he does!
And now, they want him to stay?
I'd ask for that in writing...and notarized.
But that's just me...

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Friday Fun REX DEXTER "Three Suns of Doom"

Though Rex Dexter was heading home to Mars from Earth...

...he seems to have somehow detoured into interstellar space!

You have to admire the sheer imagination Dick Briefer packed into tales like this one from Fox's Mystery Men Comics #5 (1939).
There's enough here for at least a book-length story in today's "decompressed" titles...if not a two-parter!
And considering what movie special effects tech was like in 1939, the only way you'd see creatures like those monsters on page 14 back then was in newspaper comic strips, pulp magazines, or comic books!
Amazing stuff!

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Friday Fun REX DEXTER "Meets Lord Marvel"

Regular Friday Fun readers might note a couple of changes in Rex Dexter as of this story...

...from Fox's Mystery Men Comics #4 (1939) read on and see if you can find them!

Here's the two major changes...

1) the title drops "...of Mars here on Earth-2000 AD" for "...Interplanetary Adventurer".

Not a major change in itself, except the opening paragraph also says "In 1939..." then concludes with "...A century later...", moving the series several decades later from 2000 to 2039-2040, where it remains for the rest of the series!

Why?

I have no idea!

2) Rex and Cynde adapt the costumes designed by Lou Fine for the cover of Mystery Men Comics #2...

...which they'll continue to use, on and off, for the remainder of the series!

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Friday Fun REX DEXTER "Giant of the Cone Planet"

Who do you call when something weird (like a non-globe-shaped planet) appears?

Why, Rex Dexter of Mars, of course!

Boy, people are fickle!

Just because a giant monster you bring back from another planet tears up the city, everybody forgets all the good stuff you did before that!

Talk about "what have you done for us lately?"

OTOH, it does free up the character to wander the universe in search of adventure...

This 6-pager from Fox's Mystery Men Comics #3 (1939) has enough wild concepts and action from Dick Briefer's fertile imagination to fill an entire issue (if not a mini-series) today!

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Friday Fun REX DEXTER "Radium Creatures of Capris"

Starting with Fox's Mystery Men #2 (1939), the legendary Lou Fine did a pair of covers...

...featuring a Rex Dexter almost totally-different from the Dick Briefer character inside the book and in situations that had no relation to the story in that issue!

But they were really kool, eye-catching pieces!

When Rex received his own one-shot title, Briefer adapted the garb Fine had designed...

...but with his own distinctive touches!

Now, on with the story!

The use of Earth-based magnetism to propel and recover un-powered spacecraft is a rather unique touch that Briefer seems to have come up with on the spur of the moment.

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