Gardner Fox
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Gardner Francis Fox (May 20, 1911, Brooklyn, New York – December 24, 1986) was an American writer best known for writing comic books and co-creating numerous comics characters, especially for DC Comics.
He received a law degree from St John's College and was admitted to the New York bar in 1935. He practiced for about 2 years but the great depression was hard on Fox and his legal practice. He took work writing comics for DC Comics editor Vin Sullivan. His first story was for "Steve Mallone, District Attorney". He later contributed scripts for Zatara and Batman.
Fox, along with writer Bill Finger, was instrumental in the evolution of Batman. He introduced now-famous crimefighting tools such as the Batarang and the Batplane. He also co-created numerous characters including The Sandman with Bert Christman, Starman with Jack Burnley, and Doctor Fate with Howard Sherman.
Though he contributed a number of scripts for other companies, Fox remained a mainstay of DC and became the head writer for the DC-related company All-American. There, Fox created such iconic superhero characters as The Flash (with artist Harry Lampert) and Hawkman with Dennis Neville. With editor Sheldon Mayer and artist Sheldon Moldoff Fox created the first superhero team, the Justice Society of America. These characters gained their own titles and became very successful making Fox one of the comic industry's stars.
During World War II, Fox took over a variety of characters and books of several of his colleagues that had been drafted. He worked for numerous companies including what would one day become Marvel Comics, and at EC he served a brief stint as head writer. With the waning popularity of superheroes Fox contributed western, science fiction, humour, romance, and funny animal stories.
In the late 1950s Fox was called upon by editor Julius Schwartz to revive The Flash. Fox reinvented the character as a police scientist named Barry Allen. Many people consider the sales success of the Flash in the anthology title Showcase the beginning of the Silver Age of comic books. Superheroes were once again in vogue and DC called upon Fox to revive characters and concepts such as Hawkman and the Atom, and the Justice Society as the Justice League of America. Fox also wrote scripts for Batman reintroducing villains such as The Riddler and The Scarecrow, who would go on to become some of Batman's most famous foes.
Fox stopped receiving work in 1968 when DC comics refused to give health insurance and other benefits to their older creators. Fox, who had written a number of prose science fiction novels in the 1940s, returned to producing novels under his own name and several pseudonyms.
His comics work won several awards, including the 1962 Alley Award for Best Script Writer, the 1962 Alley Award for Best Book-Length Story ("The Planet that Came to a Standstill!" in Mystery in Space #75 with Carmine Infantino), the 1963 Alley Favorite Novel ("Crisis on Earths 1 and 2" from Justice League of America #21 and 22 with Mike Sekowsky), and the 1965 Alley Award for Best Novel (in Showcase #55, an untitled story with Murphy Anderson).
Fox wrote over 100 novels in genres such as sci-fi, sword and sorcery, spy, crime, fantasy, romance, western, and historical fiction. His pen names included Jefferson Cooper, Bart Sommers, Paul Dean, Ray Gardner, and Lynna Cooper. He is estimated to have written over 4000 comic stories.
Gardner Fox died on December 24, 1986. He is survived by his wife Lynda, his son Jeffrey, his daughter Lynda, and four grandchildren.
In 2002 the Cartoon Network aired an episode of the Justice League titled "Legends", an homage to Fox's Justice Society and his Justice Society/Justice League crossovers. The episode was dedicated to the memory of Gardner Fox.
References [1] Comic Book Awards Almanac