Michael Fleisher, R.I.P.
The name may not be terribly familiar even to those who have followed comic books, but writer Michael Fleisher, who I just found out yesterday had passed away on February 2nd, was an amazing talent who left behind at least two series of stories I absolutely love.
The first, and probably his best, work ran only some 10 issues/stories. While I lament the fact that it lasted such a short period of time, in retrospect it might have been just long enough. These stories featured the Spectre, a character who to that point was never terribly well written even though he’d been around since the “Golden Age” of comics, but Mr. Fleisher made him a vengeful spirit who took gave evil doers their just -and often very icky- reward. The stories were found in Weird Adventure Comics and drawn by the always amazing Jim Aparo…
His other great series lasted a much longer time, over a dozen years and many, many issues, and involved DC’s western anti-hero Jonah Hex.
While Mr. Fleischer wasn’t the man who created the character, he was the one who handled him the longest and, in my opinion, offered the best take on the character as well. The character has gone on to appear in his own -not very good- movie as well as appearing on DC’s TV shows on the CW.
Perhaps the most fascinating story Mr. Fleisher wrote regarding the character appeared in the book presented below, Jonah Hex Spectacular, which gave us the story of the fate of Jonah Hex. What happened wasn’t pretty, though DC would return to the story and present a happier ending years later (this story was written by others)…
Michael Fleisher would be bad mouthed in an interview by noted sci-fi author Harlan Ellison in the Comic Journal. In that interview and among other things Mr. Ellison stated Fleisher was and his Spectre stories were the work of a “lunatic” (he would offer other derogatory things, some even more foul mouthed). Mr. Fleisher sued for defamation and eventually lose the case while Mr. Ellison claimed the things he said were in jes and that he didn’t mean them to be taken series. Regardless, the interview and the lawsuit spelled the end of Mr. Fleisher’s career in American comic books.
He would leave comics completely by 1995 and after doing some stories for the British comic series 2000 AD. His later career was spent in studies and college and he was 76 years old at the time of his passing.
Tonight I’ll have to go through my books and re-read those Spectre and Jonah Hex stories.
The Spectre stories were collected in a TPB called The Wrath of the Spectre…
As for his Jonah Hex stories, DC released two black and white (and 500 some pages long) Showcase volumes which feature quite a bit of Mr. Fleisher’s material…
If you’re at all intrigued by what I’ve written above, get these three books.
They’re that good.
