The Infamous History of DC’s Original Rival Before Marvel

DC Comics‘ rivalry with Marvel Comics goes beyond famous; since the 1960s, it has been the most iconic yet infamous battle between the two premier superhero comic companies to outdo one another. This rivalry has infiltrated nearly every facet of modern pop culture, with Marvel and DC competing through comics, television, radio dramas, movies, and merchandise.

It is almost difficult to imagine a time when DC and Marvel weren’t competing neck-and-neck as the world’s two most influential comic book companies. However, there was a time before when DC’s biggest competitor wasn’t Marvel. During the Golden Age of Comics, DC’s rival was Fox Feature Comics, which has now fallen into obscurity even though it once threatened DC enough to force legal action. Some parts of Fox Feature’s legacy remain, such as a particular superhero who helped kick-start the DCU cinematic franchise. While most fans are quick to take on the Marvel vs. DC discussion, DC’s rivalry with Fox Feature Comics and how it ended in DC’s favor isn’t as well known.

Victor Fox And The Abandonment Of DC

Victor Fox Went From DC Comics’ Accountant To An Independent Publisher

Victor Samuel Fox was a former employee of Independent News who joined the recently-established DC Comics publishing form after news of its immense financial success of superhero comics after the creation of Superman in 1938. Fox worked as one of DC Comics’ bookkeepers, wherein he saw first-hand the immense sales caused by the ‘Golden Age of Comics’ ever since Superman burst onto the comic book scene and spawned dozens of other superhero characters.

By 1939, Victor Fox wanted to capitalize on the Golden Age of Comics by taking what he had learned as DC Comics’ accountant and attempting to start his own comic book company, Fox Feature Comics, with fellow comic book employee Robert Farrell. While now an obscure name, Victor Fox brought some of the premier comic book talent of the age into Fox Feature Comics. Most notable were Will Eisner, Jerry Iger, Lou Fine, Jack ‘The King’ Kirby, George Tuska, and Joe Simon.

Superman Versus Wonder Man Controversy

Fox Feature Comics Established Itself As DC’s Rival By Attempting To Recreate Superman

In late 1939, Fox Feature Comics hired legendary comic writer/artist Will Eisner to envision the comic company’s answer to DC Comics’ Superman, hoping this new hero would produce the same success as the Man of Steel. For this, Will Eisner created ‘Wonder Man,’ a crimson-clad superhero with blonde hair who had incredible strength and could fly. Wonder Man was featured as the lead story in Wonder Comics #1(by Will Eisner, Bob Kane and Bob Powell), which explained that Wonder Man was once Fred Carson, an ordinary man who obtained a mystical ring that granted him his powers.

Wonder Comics #1 featured Fred Carson traveling to the war-torn country, Tatonia, with his love interest, Brenda Hastings, to volunteer for the Red Cross to help the country’s starving populace. However, when the violent Insurgent movement launched an attack on the Red Cross camp with a stolen bomber plane, Fred chose to use his alter-ego as Wonder Man to fight back against the terrorist group and try to bring peace to Tatonia. While the story was a very shallow representation of ‘the American hero fixing all the problems in a Third World Country,’ the story did gain decent success. Yet this success did not have the intended effect Victor Fox and Will Eisner hoped for, as Wonder Man immediately found himself in DC Comics’ crosshairs.

On March 15, 1939, Harry Donenfeld, an associate of DC Comics, sued Fox Feature Comics for copyright infringement because Wonder Man was a blatant copy of Superman. While it can be argued that there were some clear differences between Wonder Man and Superman, most notably his origins and character design, his powers, demeanor, and name were all enough for DC to claim that Wonder Man was a copycat and bring the case to before Second Circuit.

Fox Feature Comics attempted to defend the Wonder Man character by claiming Superman himself was inspired by famous Western myths, such as Hercules and Samson, and that Wonder Man was but another case of borrowing from these myths. Nonetheless, the Second Circuit moved in favor of DC Comics, and Wonder Man was discontinued; however, his place in Wonder Comics was quickly filled by a plethora of new Fox Feature characters, such as Blue Beetle, The Flame, Phantom Lady, Green Mask and Yarko the Great.

Blue Beetle Became Fox Feature’s Greatest Character – By Stealing From Batman

The Blue Beetle Began To Radically Adapt Batman Gimmicks To Increase Popularity

After the Wonder Man controversy, Fox Feature’s premier superhero quickly became Blue Beetle, now a famous member of the DC Universe. In his original Golden Age depiction, Blue Beetle was Dan Garret, a police officer who joined the force after his father, Michael Garret, was killed; he occasionally took crime into his own hands as the Blue Beetle, wearing a costume that originally bore great resemblance to The Spirit, before changing it a scale-covered costume that looked more like The Phantom.

Blue Beetle gained immense success, becoming the first Fox Feature character to get his own solo comic series titled The Blue Beetle in December 1939. He also gained his radio drama (wherein Frank Lovejoy voiced Blue Beetle) and his very own day of recognition thanks to the 1939 New York World’s Fair, marking the 7th of August as ‘Blue Beetle Day.’ But it was not enough for Blue Beetle to run off his own merit as a character, causing Fox Feature –in a similar vein to Superman for Wonder Man– to begin incorporating a large variety of Batman tropes into Blue Beetle’s comic stories.

Where Batman had his police ally, Commissioner Jim Gordon, Blue Beetle has his own policeman partner, Officer Mike Mannigan. Where Batman had the sprite teenage sidekick, Robin, Blue Beetle now had Sparky as his teenage crime-fighting partner. Blue Beetle also incorporated a ‘Blue Beetle Signal’ to warn criminals of his arrival and sported both a ‘Beetlemobile’ and a ‘Beetlebird’ jet, all being clear homages to Batman’s Bat-Signal, Batmobile and Batwing. Even Batman’s famous utility belt, which has saved the Caped Crusader countless times whenever he’s captured, had been copied by Blue Beetle, who sported a belt buckle that had dozens of master keys and bobby pins. This replication of gimmicks almost acted as Fox Feature getting revenge for DC’s copyright claim over Wonder Man, with Blue Beetle rivaling many of DC’s Golden Age heroes in popularity.

The Two Big Threes of the Golden Age

DC Had Their Legendary Big Three, So Fox Feature Had To Make Their Own Superhero Trinity

There is likely not a comic book fan alive who doesn’t know of DC Comics’ legendary trinity of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Each of these characters has become the pinnacle of the superhero genre, being chiefly responsible for popularizing the genre in the first place. So, in what was now a reoccurring gag for Fox Feature Comics, they had to battle DC’s legendary trio with one of their own. Thus, they resolved to bring their three biggest superhero characters (Charles Nicholas’ Blue Beetle, Will Eisner’s The Flame and the biblical hero, Samson) into a single comic series where they were branded as theBig 3.

While initially not much changed for the members of the Big 3 after they were branded as such, they took on radically different roles as heroes once World War II began in the real-world. The superheroes collectively joined a more real-world arena as they joined the United States Military in World War II to fight the Axis Forces, much like the other comic book superheroes such as Superman, Captain America and the Seven Warriors of Victory. Each of the Big 3 heroes took part in the United States war effort, with Blue Beetle joining the US Intelligence Agency to infiltrate Germany, while The Flame joined the US Airforce to dismantle Nazi Prison Camps in South America. Samson, meanwhile, was discontinued as a member of the Big 3 and replaced by the incredibly patriotic ‘Victory Man’ (more commonly referred to as V-Man), who featured in the Big 3 comic series as an All-American purveyor of freedom fighting against the Japanese.

What Happened To Fox Feature’s Characters?

Blue Beetle Maintained A Healthy Popularity Long After Fox Feature’s Went Bankrupt

Undeniably the most influential character spawned by Fox Feature Comics, Blue Beetle suffered very little once Fox Feature eventually declared bankruptcy in the 1950s. Comic book publishers were eager to gain the rights to Blue Beetle, resulting in Charlton Comics taking over the Blue Beetle franchise.

Charlton breathed new life into the property by having legendary comic writer Steve Ditko create the brand new Blue Beetle, Ted Kord. It was this incarnation that would join Charlton’s premier superhero team, The Sentinels of Justice, alongside such names as Captain Atom and Nightshade. Ted Kord would briefly exhange hands from Charlton Comics to AC Comics before –in an act of supreme irony– both he and his predecessor, Dan Garrett, were bought by their original competitor, DC Comics.

Ted Kord first debuted in the DC Universe through the massive crossover event, Crisis on Infinite Earths, which literally depicted Blue Beetle being transported out of the Charlton Universe into DC. Ted Kord would spawn his own Blue Beetle comic book series published by DC Comics in 1986 before gaining cult status for his role as a major member of the Justice League International.

Eventually, Ted was killed by Maxwell Lord in Countdown to Infinite Crisis, leading to the creation of a brand-new DC original version of Blue Beetle called Jamie Reyes in Infinite Crisis #3 (by Geoff Johns, Phil Jimenez, George Perez, Andy Lanning, Norm Rapmund, Wayne Faucher, Jeromy Cox, Guy Major, and Nick. J Napolitano). Fortunately, ever since the New 52 Reboot, Ted Kord has been resurrected and now he and Jamie share a feature role in Josh Trujillo’s ongoing Blue Beetle comic series.

Phantom Lady Joined Blue Beetle In The DC Universe

Similarly to Blue Beetle, Phantom Lady was another Fox Feature Comics character sold by Robert Farrell to Charlton Comics in the 1950s, where she appeared exclusively in reprints of old Fox Feature material recycled by Charlton. Fortunately, her story didn’t end in reprint purgatory as Phantom Lady was bought by DC Comics in 1956 before properly bringing her to the DC Universe in 1973 through Justice League of America #107 (by Len Wein, Dick Dillin and Dick Giordano). Within this story, she became a key member of the Freedom Fighters, a group of superheroes who existed in the dystopic Earth-X, a world where the Axis Forces won World War II.

During Crisis on Infinite Earth, Phantom Lady and the rest of the Freedom Fighters were brought into the main DC Universe. Phantom Lady joined the All-Star Squadron and became a quasi-member of the Starman Family. DC Comics also spawned their own version of Phantom Lady named Dee Taylor as part of the Action Comics Weekly series, turning Phantom Lady into a legacy character.

This version of Phantom Lady was killed off in Infinite Crisis #1 (by Geoff Johns, Phil Jimenez, George Perez, Andy Lanning, Norm Rapmund, Wayne Faucher, Jeromy Cox, Guy Major, and Nick. J Napolitano) and replaced by a third version of the character named Stormy Knight. As of the New 52 Reboot, all of these Phantom Ladies have been replaced by Jennifer Knight, a fourth Phantom Lady who bore a greater resemblance to her original Fox Feature variant.

Sparky Recently Returned As Blue Beetle’s Sidekick In The DC Universe

While Blue Beetle was able to continue as a major comic book character, his Robin-inspired sidekick, Sparky, was abandoned from the hero’s larger mythos, quickly falling into the public domain while his mentor gained immense popularity under Charlton and DC Comics. However, in 2022, Sparky made an extremely unexpected cameo in the Earth-Prime miniseries, featuring in the background of a flashback panel swinging alongside the original Blue Beetle, Dan Garrett, in the series’ fourth issue. This was a nice homage to the character, but it was assumed that would be as much as the character would get.

Yet in a shocking twist, Sparky featured in a more prominent role in 2023’s Stargirl: The Lost Children miniseries, which told the story of the titular Stargirl’s quest to find the missing sidekicks that have been displaced in the multiverse. On her mission, Stargirl, Red Arrow and The Boom found Sparky imprisoned by the villainous Childminder alongside other forgotten sidekicks. Sparky joined the others in battling Childminder and her legions of robots. By the end of the series, Sparky was displaced in the main DC Universe, with the Justice Society of America attempting to find a place for him, presumably within the Blue Beetle Family.

The Flame Tried To Exist Outside of Fox Feature But Failed

As a member of Fox Feature Comics’ Big 3 and one of the few superheroes from the company who had his own solo series, it was presumed that The Flame would be able to gain the same success as Blue Beetle and Phantom Lady when Fox Feature declared bankruptcy. Indeed, this seemed to be the case as Robert Farrell was able to maintain The Flame’s copyright when Fox Feature went under, allowing him to bring The Flame into his own comic book company named Ajax-Farrell Comics. The Flame comic series was relaunched in 1954; however, after only three issues, the series was canceled and The Flame was left abandoned until his copyright was released into the public domain.

But this was not the end of The Flame, as he eventually made a triumphant return in Dynamite Entertainment’s 2010 series Project Superpowers, which featured multiple Golden Age comic book superheroes who had fallen into public domain as a tribute to these forgotten heroes. Within the comic book story, The Flame featured in Project Superpowers #0 (by Alex Ross, Jim Krueger, Doug Klauba, Stephen Sadowiski, and Simon Bowland) as part of a team of heroes alongside the Fighting Yank, Mr Face, Green Lama and Samson, who were sent to Germany to stop Adolf Hitler from using Pandora’s Box to create his own nuclear bombs for Germany. Project Superpowers acted as the last proper appearance of The Flame, but as a public domain character, essentially anyone is free to use him in stories.

Rulah the Jungle Goddess Continued In Star Comics and AC Comics

Originally created for Fox Feature Comics’ Zoot Comics series to capitalize on the ‘jungle girl’ aesthetic of the late 1930s, Rulah the Jungle Goddess became a quasi superheroine through her feats of strength, being capable of taking on great beasts and gaining a reputation as a divine savior to the local tribes of her jungle home. Initially, there was no attempt to salvage her after Fox Feature went bankrupt. Star Comics made a partial attempt in the 1950s by reprinting her old Fox Feature stories under their brand.

Ultimately, it would be AC Comics who would get their hands on Rulah’s character and bring back through a backup story in their Femforce comic series, specifically in 2004’s Femforce #129 in the story ‘Clash of Gods’ (by Enrico Teodorani and Antonio Conversano). The story had Rulah re-enact her usual Fox Feature tradition of defeating a powerful animal, in this case a giant ape, which she felled with a machete after a fierce battle. Beyond that, Rulah fell into obscurity and has not returned since, pushing her character into the public domain.

Yarko The Great Became The Leader Of A Team Of Public Domain Heroes In AC Comics

Yarko the Great was the second most famous mystical superhero Fox Feature Comics had to offer (second only to The Flame), the first hero used to take over Wonder Man’s position as the Wonder Comics series’ mascot. Yarko’s appearances expanded to include stories inside Fox Feature’s The Blue Beetle and Samson comic runs until Fox Feature went bankrupt. In a similar case to Rulah, there was no real attempt to continue Yarko the Great outside of Fox Features until AC Comics featured him in the Femforce comics series.

In Femforce #125-126 (by Pedro Angosto, Carlos Rodriguez, Luis Lorente & Pablo Alcalde), Yarko the Great was mentioned as the leader of an old World War II-era superhero team called the Century Club. He properly debuted in the following issue when he and the Century Club were transported into the Femforce’s universe to help battle against the armadas of Emperor Seng. After this appearance, Yarko joined many other Fox Feature characters in obscurity, having never appeared since his Femforce cameo.