Doctor Occult
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Doctor Occult is a fictional magic user in the DC Comics universe. He was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, best known for creating Superman.
He first appeared in New Fun Comics #6 in 1935. He was a supernatural detective, whose detecting style was very much in the style of Sam Spade, only with major supernatural abilities; easily in the same weight class as Madame Xanadu, Zatanna, and Doctor Fate, as evidenced by his membership in the now defunct council that kept watch over the magical landscape of the DCU. He was assisted by his butler Jenkins. Later in the series he acquired a girlfriend/partner called Rose Psychic.
He also appeared in Centaur Publications' The Comics Magazine #1 under the name Dr. Mystic. This was the same character because his story "The Koth and the Seven" began in The Comics Magazine and continued in DC's More Fun Comics #14-17 (issues also designated as vol. 2 #2-5). In this story, he travels to a mystic realm where he flies and wears a cape, making him the first caped comic book superhero. This story also introduced the Seven, a group of mystics who would later be retconned into having raised Richard Occult and Rose Psychic. Doctor Occult made his last original appearance in More Fun Comics #32 in 1938.
He returned nearly fifty years later in All-Star Squadron, a World War II-set title written in 1985. Unlike some of the other Golden Age characters Roy Thomas resurrected in that book, this did not lead to a renaissance for the character, possibly because he was actually pre-Golden Age, and possibly because he joined around the time the book was being affected by the Crisis on Infinite Earths, in which he played a significant role. In his current look, Doctor Occult wears a trenchcoat and fedora and wields a magic multi-faceted disc, the Symbol of Seven, as his primary magic weapon.
In 1991 Neil Gaiman brought the character back to public awareness, when he featured him in the miniseries The Books of Magic. In the third issue he acts as Tim Hunter's guide to otherworlds. When visiting Faerie, he transforms into Rose, something that is not explained in the story. Later stories would continue the idea of Occult and Rose Psychic being one. Eventually, in the miniseries The Justice Society Returns, it would be explained that Doctor Occult was killed in battle with an otherworldly entity, and Rose bonded their souls together to restore him.
Doctor Occult was one of the Sentinels of Magic, a group created to prevent artifacts such as the Spear of Destiny falling into the wrong hands. He is a JSA reservist and a member of the loose affiliation John Constantine calls "The Trenchcoat Brigade".
[edit] Reference
- Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide (35th ed.)
[edit] External links
- Golden Age Heroes Directory: D
- Joe Shuster Pt. 2
- Toonopedia entry
- Unofficial Guide to DC Comics entry
- A comprehensive index of Dr. Occult's appearances
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