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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Friday Fun REX DEXTER "To Mars...and Back Again!"

You may have noticed that the Friday Fun series features strips which have a distinctive "flavor"...

..usually attributable to a creative (writer, illustrator or writer-illustrator) who remains constant through the entire run!

Starting today, we're re-presenting another never-reprinted series with a unique style...Dick Briefer's Rex Dexter of Mars!

Remember the interplanetary rocket that took off during the New York World's Fair of 1939?

No?

Me neither.

But it occurred, because in 2000, this happened...

Wow, that's a helluva lot for only six pages in the back of Fox's Mystery Men Comics #1 (1939)!

Today, it'd be a four-issue mini-series!

Writer-artist Dick Briefer ended up creating a rather kool sci-fi character who became one of the longer-lasting strips of the Fox Comics line, lasting the entire run of Mystery Men Comics as well as his own one-shot title, and as one of the features in Victor Fox's proposed newspaper strip booklet (predating Will Eisner's Spirit inserts by a month or so in 1940).

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