DC Comics 60s Hippy Hero: Brother Power The Geek
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Over the years there have been some strange superheroes that have adorned the pages of DC Comics. One of the coolest hero hep-cats must surely be Brother Power the Geek. A character that was almost lost to obscurity, having only originally appeared in a two comic series, Brother Power was given a new life as by cult comic book creator Neil Gaiman in the 1990s. Brother Power the Geek, Pow to his friends, is a cloth tailor's dummy found in an abandoned tailor's by a group of squatting hippies. After the group were attacked by a biker gang, for simply being "The Flower Children", one of the group "Nick" puts his wet and bloodied clothes on the dummy to dry out and stop them shrinking. They all must have been stoned at the time, as they forgot about the clothes and the dummy. It laid there in the shop, next to a radiator through the summer, fall and winter. That is until a stormy night when a bolt of lightening strikes the radiator and passes through the pile rags that is the forgotten dummy. It slowly convulses into life, just as the self same biker gang show up again. The newly born "thing" fights off the biker gang, and Brother Power is born!
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Brother Power the Geek was created in 1968 by Joe Simon, the co-creator along with Jack Kirby of Captain America. The conceptualisation of Brother Power was heavily influenced by Mary Shelley's story of Frankenstein, even down to the reanimation by lightning. Joe Simon is quoted as saying he wanted to create some sort of "wandering outcast philosopher", as a rival to the successful Silver Surfer character that Marvel Comics had created, and had become a cult figure among college students of that time. According to Scott Shaw, comic book artist and historian, originally Brother Power the Geek was going to be called "The Freak", but DC Comics thought that the drug related connotations would be negative under the strict guidelines of the Comic Code Authority.
In the story shortly after his creation, Brother Power was kidnapped by the "Psychedelic Circus". 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 Simon. After being found, and brought back to life by an electric shock from a falling spotlight, Brother Power escapes from the circus. He was fixed up and given a face by one of the hippie gang named Cindy, who happened to be an expert seamstress, having spent time at the "Singer Sewing Institute". She gives him his "flower power" logo, to identify him as their leader. And finally a superhero for the hippy generation was fully formed. Leading the revolution by immediately standing for Congress. But his plans are thwarted by the circus owners and that damn biker gang again. Soon Brother Power is a misunderstood anti-hero on the run. |
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Covers of the two editions of Brother Power the Geek 1968.
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The comic wasn't particularly popular, with its weird mix of hippy culture parody, the comic biker gang and other over-the-top villains, while covering issues from corporate corruption, through to arms manufacturing and the space race. All in the space of two short issues. Brother Power was not popular among the staff at DC Comics. And internal politics, brought an end to the series. It's claimed that Mort Weisinger, the editor of Superman hated the hippy counter-culture, and thought that Simon was portraying the culture too sympathetically in the series. It may also not have helped that in the second edition, someone made the choice to feature a Nazi influenced street gang. According to Simon, a third issue was in development, but was cancelled just before the finished artwork was to be set up for print duplication. Simon would neither discuss the plot of the third issue nor release any of the original art, so it remains a lost issue of Brother Power to this day.
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Read the two only original editions of Brother Power the Geek that were published, the first in October 1968 and the second in December of the same year. See for yourself the weird innocence with which the hippies are portrayed, avoiding the wrath of the Comic Code Authority, and the fears of Weisinger, no reference to drugs appears anywhere in the comics. It should also be noted that Simon didn't actually do the artwork for the comic, but it was ghosted by Al Bare who Simon had worked with on the satirical magazine Sick which he had created in 1960.