Brother Power the Geek
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Brother Power the Geek was a comic book character created in the late 1960s for DC Comics by Joe Simon. He first appeared in Brother Power the Geek #1 (October 1968).
According to Simon, the concept behind Brother Power was derived heavily from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, right down to reanimation with the use of lightning. At the same time, Simon was also attempting to capture the sort of "wandering outcast philosopher" characterization that made Marvel Comics' Silver Surfer a cult hit amongst the college student readers of the period.
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[edit] Original appearance
The original series lasted only two issues. The plot synopses for both issues are as follows:
Brother Power was originally a mannequin abandoned in an empty tailor's shop. The shop was taken over by hippies Nick Cranston and Paul Cymbalist, who dressed up the dummy in Paul's wet and bloodied "hip threads" to keep them from shrinking, having been attacked by Hound Dawg and other war hawks. Forgotten for months, but eventually struck by lightning, Brother Power was brought to life and endowed with super power and speed.
Shortly after his creation, Brother Power was kidnapped by the "Psychedelic Circus". After escaping, he was fixed up and given a face by another hippie named Cindy, and attempted to run for United States Congress. His misadventures with the establishment led to finding work and encouraging other hippies to do so, eventually getting hired by the J.P. Acme Corporation just as it was taken over by the wicked Lord Sliderule. Brother Power's ingenuity still made the assembly line run more efficiently. Brother Power was last seen being shot into space on orders from Governor Ronald Reagan, after trying to prevent the sabotage of a rocket launch by Mad Dawg and his gang, knowing it would be blamed on hippies.
While sales of the title were modest, Brother Power was not popular among the staff. DC Comics artist Carmine Infantino claimed in several interviews following his retirement from comics that Superman editor Mort Weisinger disliked the character very strongly, and petitioned DC publisher Jack Liebowitz to shut down the title. According to Infantino and others who knew and worked with "Unca Mort", Weisinger harbored an admitted dislike for the hippie subculture of the 60's, and felt that Simon portrayed them too sympathetically. It didn't help that Mad Dawg and his cronies appeared with uniforms and gadgetry evocative of Nazis in the second issue. According to Joe Simon, the third issue was cancelled just before the finished artwork was to be set up for print duplication, and to this day Simon refuses to discuss exactly what the plot of this issue was about, nor release any of the original art.
Simon was not, in fact, the artist on the book's two issues. The actual artwork was by Al Bare, who had been working with Simon at Sick. Simon had hired Bare to "ghost" the art, and was subsequently credited with the art as was custom for the industry at the time.
[edit] Later appearances
The character was revived briefly in the 1990s, first in a short story by Neil Gaiman in Swamp Thing Annual #5 (reprinted in Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days), and then a Vertigo one-shot by Rachel Pollack and Mike Allred titled Corruption of the Innocent or "Homeland of the Dolls".
In Gaiman's story, Brother Power is revealed to be an imperfect elemental, similar to the Swamp Thing, and he is connected to all human simulacra (dolls, dummies, statues, etc.). The story resumes with the rocket's return to earth, guided into Tampa Bay by Firestorm after an unsuccessful attempt to destroy it. His newfound ability to change his size at will led to a call to Batman, who deferred to Abigail Cable. Ultimately, a former hippie named Chester was able to calm him down. Pollack's story featured a brief return of Brother Power's adversary, Lord Sliderule, now in a business suit, and depicted Brother Power being forced to perform as a circus geek (for the first time). Eventually, after more misadventures with the establishment, he is reunited with Cindy, now a prostitute, and is destroyed saving her life, but survives by possessing one of her dolls.
He appeared briefly in Tom Peyer's graphic novel Totems, as a guest at John Constantine's 1999 New Year's Eve party.
An alternate-universe human-like version of Brother Power the Geek appeared in the Elseworlds mini-series Conjurors.
[edit] Trivia
- Although more open to the topic for the first two decades after the book's cancellation, Joe Simon has been reluctant to discuss Brother Power in recent years. His official website has no mention of the book, and his son Jim Simon responds to all queries about his father and Brother Power that "Joe prefers not to discuss that particular work". He has also refused to comment on the two Vertigo revivals.
- According to Scott Shaw!, the character was originally supposed to be called The Freak, but was renamed to The Geek due to concerns by DC Comics management over the possible drug reference "freak" implied at the time.
- During the 1980's, several aspiring comic book writers attempted to pitch revivals for the character to DC Comics. All of these were rejected with the justification given that Steve Englehart - then-writer of DC's Green Lantern - had plans to rescue the Geek and make him a member of the Green Lantern Corps. This never occurred.
- The "costumed" gangs of the original two issues have been theorized as having been inspired by the film version of A Clockwork Orange. However, both issues appeared three years before Stanley Kubrick's film premiered in the United States, and Joe Simon has claimed at convention appearances that he hadn't heard of the Anthony Burgess novel until he first saw the film in 1978.
- Despite Mort Weisinger's concerns over the Hippie subculture and the level of drug abuse it represented, drug, substance or alcohol intake is not depicted.
- The freaks in the Freakshow at the "Psychedelic Circus" were all based on the styles of "Big Daddy" Ed Roth and Harvey Kurtzman, both of whom were good friends of Joe Simon.
- Three years after Brother Power was cancelled, Simon created Prez, a tale about the "first teen President of the US". In later years, Simon has hinted that some of the more "psychedelic" elements of Prez were recycled from plot ideas he had for Brother Power that were never used due to that book's sudden cancellation. Some comic book historians have speculated that Simon's idea of having a young adult as President was derived as much from the Geek's attempt to run for Congress as it was from the film Wild in the Streets. Again, as Simon has been highly reluctant to discuss the Geek in recent years, this remains as speculation.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Rovin, Jeff (1985). Encyclopedia of Superheroes, The. Facts on File, 122. ISBN 0-8160-1168-0.
- "Brother Power the Geek". Don Markenstein's Toonopedia. Retrieved on December 20, 2005.
