Gardner F. Fox
Gardner F. Fox was a prominent American writer born in 1911, celebrated for his extensive contributions to comic books and science fiction literature. He began his career at DC Comics in 1937, just before the superhero genre was born with Superman. Fox not only wrote for iconic characters like Superman and Batman but also created several superheroes, including The Flash, Dr. Midnight, and Hawkman. He was instrumental in forming the Justice Society of America, the first superhero team, which later inspired the Justice League of America. Throughout his prolific career, he scripted over four thousand comic book stories and also contributed to Marvel Comics, DC's main competitor.
In addition to comics, Fox ventured into prose, with his first published story appearing in 1944. He wrote numerous novels, including historical romances and science fiction, with works like "Escape Across the Cosmos" and "The Arsenal of Miracles" earning him recognition. His versatile writing extended to various pseudonyms, allowing him to explore different genres, including fantasy and soft-porn literature. Gardner F. Fox's legacy is marked by his innovation in superhero storytelling and his significant impact on the science fiction genre until his passing in 1986.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Gardner F. Fox
Fiction Writer
- Born: May 20, 1911
- Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York
- Died: December 24, 1986
Biography
Gardner F(rancis) Fox was born in 1911. He was a lawyer and something of a legend in the scripting of comic book characters. He began writing for DC Comics in 1937, the year before that publishing house created the superhero genre with Superman. Besides writing Superman and Batman stories, he created other superhero characters for DC, including The Flash, Dr. Midnight, and Hawkman, as well as the first superhero team, the Justice Society of America (which evolved decades later into the Justice League of America). In the 1960’s, he worked with others at DC on reviving “golden age” superheroes in more up-to-date fashion, such as The Atom, and created new characters, like the space-faring Starman and Adam Strange. It is estimated that he scripted more than four thousand comic book stories during his career. He later worked for Marvel Comics, DC’s chief rival, as well.
His first published non-graphic story was “The Weirds of the Woodcarver” (1944) which appeared in Weird Tales magazine. His work appeared frequently in Planet Stories magazine starting in 1945. When DC began publishing the science-fiction (SF) comics “Strange Adventures” and “Mystery in Space” in the early 1950’s, Fox did many scripts for those. He did not begin publishing novels until 1962, when he published a novelization of the Irwin Allen film, Five Weeks in a Balloon, based on an early Jules Verne story. Fox also wrote historical romances such as The Borgia Blade (1953) and ended up writing more than one hundred novels, although he continued to script comics.
His first original SF novel was Escape Across the Cosmos (1964), and arguably his most acclaimed SF novel was The Arsenal of Miracles (1964) combining space opera, the galactic empire concept, and a fantasy-style hero. He also wrote under the name Troy Conway (in various collaborations with Michael Avallone, Johannes L., Bouma, Charles E. Fritch, Paul J. Gillette, and Eric Thomas) and as Simon Majors and Bart Somers. The Somers stories consisted of the Commander Craig space operas Beyond the Black Enigma (1965) and Abandon Galaxy! (1967). Under the house name of Rod Gray, he wrote several novels in the soft-porn Lady from L.U.S.T. series, including some with SF elements, such as The Poisoned Pussy (1969), Laid in the Future (1969), Blow My Mind (1970), and The Copulation Explosion (1970). He also wrote under such pseudonyms as Jefferson Cooper, Jeffrey Gardner and James Kendricks, for non-SF stories.
Fox did a two-book SF series with fantasy elements, Warrior of Llarn (1964) and Thief of Llarn (1966), and two longer series that fell into the fantasy category: five books between 1969 and 1970 featuring Kothar, a “barbarian swordsman” in the style of Robert E. Howard’s earlier Conan stories (he had earlier scripted a comic book takeoff of Conan, “Crom the Barbarian”). The first book in the series was Kothar—Barbarian Swordsman. His Kyrik series was similar but darker, and ran for four books between 1975 and 1976. Fox died in 1986.