fiction
Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditi ...
al
scientist
A scientist is a person who conducts Scientific method, scientific research to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences.
In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, ...
, a
comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
character published by
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.
DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...
. He first appeared in ''
Strange Adventures
''Strange Adventures'' is a series of American comic books published by DC Comics, the first of which was August–September 1950, according to the cover date, and published continuously until November 1973.
Original series
''Strange Adventures ...
'' #1 (August 1950), and was created by David V Reed and
Paul Norris
Paul Leroy Norris (April 26, 1914 – November 5, 2007) was an American comic book artist best known as co-creator of the DC Comics superhero Aquaman, and for a 35-year run as artist of the newspaper comic strip ''Brick Bradford''.
Biography
Ea ...
.
Publication history
The first Darwin Jones story appeared in ''Strange Adventures'' #1 (August 1950), written by creator David V Reed, (better known for his war and fantasy stories), and drawn by artist
Paul Norris
Paul Leroy Norris (April 26, 1914 – November 5, 2007) was an American comic book artist best known as co-creator of the DC Comics superhero Aquaman, and for a 35-year run as artist of the newspaper comic strip ''Brick Bradford''.
Biography
Ea ...
and inker Bernard Sachs. This was a single appearance as opposed to the start of a series - there were no further stories until ''Strange Adventures'' #48 (September 1954). His further appearances in the 1950s were irregular - ''Strange Adventures'' #58 (1955), #66 and #70 (1956), #76, #77, #79 and #84 (1957), then #88 and #93 (1958), after which no Darwin Jones stories were published until he eventually re-appeared in ''Strange Adventures'' #149 (February 1963) and a last story in ''Strange Adventures'' #160 (January 1964). Although he utilised many of the classic National writers and artists of the day, ''Strange Adventures'' editor
Julius Schwartz
Julius "Julie" Schwartz (; June 19, 1915 – February 8, 2004) was a comic book editor, and a science fiction agent and prominent fan. He was born in The Bronx, New York. He is best known as a longtime editor at DC Comics, where at various t ...
made no attempt at continuity with the production team on the stories. In thirteen stories Darwin Jones was penned by no less than eight authors: his creator David V Reed, Gardner Fox, Sid Gerson, Bill Finger,
Joe Samachson
Joseph Samachson (October 13, 1906 – June 2, 1980) was an American scientist and writer, primarily of science fiction and comic books.
Biography
Joseph Samachson was born on October 13, 1906 in Trenton, New Jersey, the son of Russian Jewish par ...
, Otto Binder, John Broome, and Ed Herron, and an equally large number of artists, including
Carmine Infantino
Carmine Michael Infantino (; May 24, 1925 – April 4, 2013) was an American comics artist and editing, editor, primarily for DC Comics, during the late 1950s and early 1960s period known as the Silver Age of Comic Books. Among his character creat ...
,
Sy Barry
Seymour "Sy" Barry (born March 12, 1928) at the
Gil Kane
Gil Kane (; born Eli Katz ; April 6, 1926 – January 31, 2000) was a Latvian-born American comics artist whose career spanned the 1940s to the 1990s and virtually every major comics company and character.
Kane co-created the modern-day versio ...
, John Giunta,
Joe Giella
Joe Giella (born June 27, 1928) at the Lambiek Comiclopedia. Retrieved February 11, 2012 Murphy Anderson.
An oddity of the series is that none of the stories were actually headlined as Darwin Jones tales, and many do not even mention him until part way through the story.
Since then there have been no further Darwin Jones stories as such; he has only made a small number of minor appearances in other titles - ''Daring New Adventures of Supergirl'' #7 (May 1983), a cameo role in the DC Comics cross-over story '' Crisis on Infinite Earths'' #9 (1985), the out-of-continuity DC staff
round robin
Round-robin may refer to:
Computing
* Round-robin DNS, a technique for dealing with redundant Internet Protocol service hosts
* Round-robin networks, communications networks made up of radio nodes organized in a mesh topology
* Round-robin schedu ...
adventure ''
DC Challenge
''DC Challenge'' was a 12-issue comic book limited series produced by DC Comics from November 1985 to October 1986, as a round robin experiment in narrative. The series' tagline was "Can You Solve It Before We Do?"
Publication history
The ''DC Ch ...
Final Crisis
"Final Crisis" is a crossover storyline that appeared in comic books published by DC Comics in 2008, primarily the seven-issue miniseries of the same name written by Grant Morrison. Originally DC announced the project as being illustrated solely b ...
'' storyline.
Father Time
Father Time is a personification of time. In recent centuries he is usually depicted as an elderly bearded man, sometimes with wings, dressed in a robe and carrying a scythe and an hourglass or other timekeeping device.
As an image, "Father ...
, the Commander of the Super Human Advanced Defense Executive (S.H.A.D.E.) has an off-page conversation with an unseen 'Darwin'. Although this has not actually been confirmed as Darwin Jones, the two are contemporaneous heads of U.S. Government Agencies (covert or otherwise), both responsible for investigating threats to the country so a link is likely. He is referred to in the Justice League series '' JL: Cry for Justice'' (2009).
Fictional character biography
As originally created, Darwin Jones "science detective" was the Chief of Staff of D.S.I. (The Department of Scientific Investigation), a top secret U.S. Government Bureau which is "called on to solve the unsolveable...to explain the inexplicable...and to understand the things that few men on this Earth have understood". In his first known case he investigated the puzzle of a famous film star who could not die, finding that a radioactive pool in Mexico that she had swum in while filming may have been the cause. His later investigations mostly involved investigating aliens, most notably rampaging alien snowmen, although an eyeless creature from inside the Earth, a robot from ancient Atlantis, and an evil super-intelligent gorilla (actually a hoax by aliens bent on world domination) also featured.
Later Darwin was made Director of the D.S.I. He had also made the acquaintance of a group of youths called the Young Scienceers, who had made him an honorary member, and together with the club President, Tommy Dane, Jones once again defeated an alien plot. After this, nothing is known of his exploits until he was contacted by Lois Lane to help the Metropolis police solve a murder.
Later, during the '' Crisis on Infinite Earths'', he was one of the team of superheroes and scientists investigating the time and space anomalies caused by the Anti-Monitor. By 1989 Jones and other scientists had created a computer mind, 'The Gestalt' - a revolutionary brain implant that links the minds to the Gestalt and each other so they can share their knowledge directly. The Gestalt however began working autonomously, creating a cyber-villain, Humbug which took
The Atom
The Atom is a name shared by five superheroes appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of ...
to defeat. He next encountered
Superman
Superman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, and debuted in the comic book ''Action Comics'' #1 (cover-dated June 1938 and publi ...
while investigating cattle mutilations and a mysterious plane crash in Ohio, his last actual appearance to date.See note #1 above.