AC Comics has reprinted many, many Fox Features characters in a variety of books. Painstakingly taken from the original comics, these wonders of modern technology have preserved the great American art form, the comic book! You can go to our Online Store and place "Fox" in the search engine and up will come the many books with these characters.

Victor A. Fox and business associate Bob Farrell launched Fox Feature Syndicate at 480 Lexington Avenue in New York City in the late 1930s. For content, Fox contracted with comics packager Eisner & Iger, one of a handful of companies creating comic books on demand for publishers entering the field. Writer-artist Will Eisner, at Victor Fox's request for a hero to mimic the newly created hit Superman, created Wonderman for Fox's first publication, Wonder Comics #1 (May 1939), signing his work "Willis". Superman owner National Periodical Publications, the company that would evolve into DC Comics, cited copyright infringement and quickly obtained a permanent injunction. Wonderman did not reappear.

After Eisner testified against Fox at trial, Fox dropped the packager and hired his own stable of comic creators, beginning with a New York Times classified ad on Dec. 2, 1939. Joe Simon, a former Eisner-Iger freelancer, became Fox Publications' editor.

As one of the earliest companies in the emerging field, it employed or bought the packaged material of a huge number of Golden Age greats, many at the start of their careers. Lou Fine created The Flame in Wonderworld Comics; Dick Briefer created Rex Dexter of Mars in the eponymous series. George Tuska did his first comics work here with the features "Zanzibar" (Mystery Men Comics #1, Aug. 1939) and "Tom Barry" (Wonderworld Comics #4).

Future comics legend Jack Kirby, brought on staff here after freelancing for Eisner-Iger, wrote and drew the syndicated newspaper comic strip The Blue Beetle (starting Jan. 1940), starring a character created by Chuck Cuidera in Mystery Men Comics #1 under the pseudonym, "Charles Nicholas", which Kirby retained. (The strip lasted three months.) Kirby created and did one story each of the Fox Features "Wing Turner" (Mystery Men #10, May 1940) and "Cosmic Carson" (Science Comics #4, same month).

The Iger Studios provided material to Fiction House, Quality and Fox, among others. When Quality Comics built their own in-house artist stable, Iger was let go taking with him Wonder Boy, Phantom Lady and several other characters mistakenly believed to belong to Busy Arnold. In 1946, Matt Baker, one of the few African-American comic book artists of the Golden Age, revamped — in more than one sense — the Phantom Lady, creating one of the most memorable and controversial examples of superhero "good girl art."

Post war heroes at Fox were THE BLUE BEETLE, RULAH- JUNGLE GODDESS, DAGAR, JO-JO, THE PHANTOM LADY and many other jungle girl features. The editorial emphasis was put on producing "good girl art" but cranked up a notch or two. Fox titles were famous or infamous for displaying "headlights," a slang term for prominent, jutting breasts, on their covers. Also bondage scenes were frequently featured. Beyond heroes, Fox issued many crime comics which were far more lurid than those from other publishers. In stark contrast, they also published animated humor comics obviously targeting young children rather than their usual teen and young adult audience.

Fox went out of business prior to the establishment of the Comics Code Authority in the mid-1950s. Some of their characters such as THE BLUE BEETLE were picked up by Charlton Comics who had a habit of taking on discarded features of other publishers (NYOKA THE JUNGLE GIRL, IBIS THE INVINCIBLE, DON WINSLOW, LANCE O'CASEY, BULLS EYE, ROCKY LANE, MONTE HALE, etc.). The Fox characters made a comeback in the 1950s through the establishment of AJAX COMICS. This company was also headed by Robert Farrell and the art was supplied by the Iger Studio. Their best selling title was the Western, THE LONE RIDER, based upon the newspaper strip Universal Phoenix launched in 1940 drawn by Jack Kirby. At Ajax, THE PHANTOM LADY, WONDER BOY, THE FLAME and SAMSON were all awarded their own titles. So was THE BLACK COBRA, a left over character from the old Harry A. Chesler publications. This revival was short lived, however, and they all were canceled in 1955. All of the above mentioned features have been reprinted by AC Comics.

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