"The older I get, the dumber I feel." The Fox #1-5 review

Last year Archie Comics published a new five-issue mini-series by Dean Haspiel & Mark Waid featuring their long-time super hero the Fox. I reviewed Haspiel & Waid's first mini-series some time ago and enjoyed it quite a bit, but the situation at Archie changed a bit between the two series. This new Fox series ("Fox Hunt") was branded as being part of "Dark Circle Comics" (rather than the Red Circle brand their super heroes traditionally have appeared under). Dark Circle is an attempt to create mature readers comics because when you think Archie, obviously you think mature readers. The previous series was good all-ages fun; how do Haspeil & Waid adapt to this new reality?

Previously, Waid had said he would have wanted to explore a father-son dynamic in the series if he had been plotting; evidently that put a bug in Haspiel's ear as he made much of this series a family story about Paul Patton Jr (the Fox), his son (Ghost Fox) and his wife (She-Fox). Like the previous story, Haspiel has a bit of fun playing around with previous Archie super hero comics, digging up old enemies from their obscure past appearances. This time the "freak magnet" Fox finds himself targeted by the financier Mister Smile, who hires a score of super-criminals to kill the Fox.

Perhaps the most surprising appearances amongst the criminals were two from Archie's Shadow comics! If you recall my series "Bitter Fruit" you may well remember Radiation Rogue and Elasto; both villains are back in this series as Archie evidently owns them, not Street & Smith (why would Street & Smith want ownership of those comics?).

It's unfortunate that Archie's decision to render all of their super heroes as mature readers titles affected this book as I feel Haspiel would have been much happier keeping the previous all ages tone; his art is clean and bright and the tone is mostly very jocular, but there is profanity and gore thrown in to justify the mandate - as if anyone ever said "you'll like this comic, it has swearing and a guy who bursts through someone's chest."

More significantly, the story leads up a confrontation with the main villain who is relentless in his determination to bring down the Fox and his family; to keep Ghost Fox from killing Mr. Smile, She-Fox kills the villain herself. It's a tough moment which is at odds with much of the book's tone - I mean, one page after the horribly scarred She-Fox snaps the villain's neck then collapses we have the Fox and Ghost Fox fighting a living tree. How much better to seek out something bright and fun - because frankly, the "super heroes and killing" dilemma hasn't progressed at all since the days of Claremont's Wolverine. It's a minor speedbump in an otherwise clever and fun comic book series.

Latent Hostility

The cover of Pep Comics #44 (art by Bob Montana, 1943):

I have no mouth and I must scream

The most striking thing about this cover is the terrifying visage of Archie Andrews, transmorgified into a living football. The second most striking thing is to consider who's kicking him: The Shield. The Shield was once the leading character published by the company which became Archie Comics; that the publisher is now called Archie Comics tells you what the future portended for the Shield. In that respect, at least he got a good kick in while he could.

Archie took another attempt at super heroes in the 1960s, reviving most of their 40s heroes but their 60s super hero books are considered some of the worst super hero stories ever printed by a major publisher. Covers such as the above Josie #22 (1966, Dan DeCarlo art) demonstrated their thinly-veiled contempt for the rising popularity of Marvel Comics and the Batmania craze.

R.I.P.: Bob Hastings

I don't often comment on the deaths of old-time radio personalities - their ranks being (sadly) both small and finite - but there are some who certainly shouldn't be overlooked. Such a person is Bob Hastings, a talented performer whose career meets at an intersection between two of my interests - comic books & old-time radio. He passed away June 30th.

Hastings' was already a radio performer by age 14, beginning a career in voice acting which lasted 70 years. Hastings' first great role from the comic book genre came when he portrayed Archie Andrews on the radio (for about eight years). Unfortunately, it's a pretty awful radio show. Many radio shows of the day which featured comedic adventures of teenagers cast members used "funny voices" - actors whose voices cracked and broke. Archie's radio show was easily the most egregious offender against one's hearing (even the adult characters' voices crack). It's generally affirmed that Archie is one of the lousier old-time radio programs.

Fortunately, there was a lot more of Hastings on the radio in those days. Probably his greatest gift to we OTR fans were his appearances on NBC's Dimension X and successor program X Minus One, two great science fiction anthology shows. My favourite episodes with voice acting by Hastings are (links will take you to an archive.org mp3 file):

• Cold Equations Tom Godwin's infamous tale of a woman who steals aboard a spaceship and the horrible reprecussions of her actions. Hastings portrays the husband of the doomed woman.
• Marionettes, Inc. A swell Ray Bradbury story where men purchase android duplicates of themselves so they can escape from their wives. Hastings has a minor role as a bank clerk.
• Junkyard A weird, almost equal parts funny and horrifying story about men setting their starship down on a world where people constantly lose knowledge, leaving the crew unable to recall how to activate their engines. Hastings plays a crewmember.
• Skulking Permit A funny story about a colony which has been cut off from Earth for far too long; as Earth reestablishes contact, they're desperate to prove they're just like the humans they've read about in books, unaware Earth is now a tyrannical dictatorship. Hastings plays one of the complacent colonists.

Although he played Superboy on a 1960s animated series (his voice still quite able to achieve the teenage tones he'd used as Archie), Hastings' most beloved voice acting role came in 1993 with the launch of Batman: the Animated Series. His voice now roughened up by the passage of time, Hastings portrayed Commissioner Gordon. On the program, Gordon rarely got to be more than a stooge to the show's titular hero, but Gordon got in a few good lines from time to time and in one memorable outing - "Over the Edge" - went through an emotional rollercoaster which pit his brain and nerve against Batman himself.

Hastings remained with the program through 1999 and for many of us, served as the definitive Commissioner Gordon. Thank you for sharing your gifts with us, Bob!