Brother Power the Geek #1
creator/writer: Joe Simon
art: Al Bare (uncredited ghost artist for Joe Simon)

grade: B-

What stands out the most about this first outing with Brother Power is how all-over-the-place it is, as if Simon himself was entirely unsure what to do with the character, or at least kept changing his mind. Perhaps it's the result of an attempt to placate Weisinger or others who were uncomfortable with the original premise. Whatever the case, we get the following:

Chapter One: A Thing is Born is, without a doubt, the strongest installment in the volume. It provides a highly sympathetic view of hippies (Simon even says in his column at the end of the issue that, "The hippie scene fascinated me...I felt this should be the background for a contemporary story") as they are literally overrun by Neo Nazi bikers and yet refuse to resist with violence, as well as an incredibly compelling first introduction of Brother Power, little more than a mute, animated rag doll, lost in the world, and propelling itself through the air with chaotic super-powered leaps because "...he wants to savor life...to soar like a bird." It's a highly sympathetic update of the mute Boris Karloff Frankenstein monster, and I have to admit to being hooked after reading this first installment. Al Bare's ability to depict what such self-propelled leaps would look like for a rag doll with no bones is similarly compelling.

Part 2: The Mind Blowers of PS 23 quickly switches gears in the most abrupt of fashions, though. Beginning with the end narration of the first chapter, Simon's sympathetic hippies are suddenly labelled as "lazy," and this chapter now makes them clearly incompetent. Brother Power, after attending elementary school in order to gain speech and basic knowledge ("He'll have a bad trip without an education") is then randomly kidnapped through an overly elaborate deception by a traveling circus in the way that only a 1960s DC villain could. In response, the hippies, realizing they cannot resort to violence, dress up as hippie superheroes, bearing signs saying "Flower Power," "Love," and "Peace," approach their regular villains (a motorcycle gang of pseudo Neo Nazis who, by the way, DON'T have Brother Power) with apparently no plan in mind other than to vaguely resemble the American Revolutionary Army, and proceed to get thrashed by the bikers. What the heck was that about? They finally do find Brother Power who, coincidentally enough, gets struck by a SECOND bolt of lightening, and now he's more super powered than ever before. The story then randomly cuts to Brother Power getting a make-over, now looking cutesy (see the images in the first post of this thread) as opposed to creepy/mysterious/anonymous, and then he decides to run for congress.

Essentially, everything Simon attempted to develop about Brother Power in the first chapter is now gone. Instead of being a creepy, sympathetic mute, he's a cutesy, eloquent idealist fighting for flower power, and even one of the more intelligent hippies in the final panel is going "yecch!" in response. Both Brother Power and his hippies have suddenly become the butt of a joke.

Note also that this chapter feels like a clear prototype for Simon's later Prez character, even in basic appearance.


Dragnet in Hippieland, the third installment, has the evil circus owner from the previous chapter run to the cops, demanding they arrest Brother Power. It's exactly as silly as it sounds, ending in Brother Power's apparent death as he crashes a motor cycle off the Golden Gate Bridge and into the bay, leaving us to wonder "Is Brother Power dead? Maybe, maybe not...Find out in the next swinging issue!" Gee, I wonder if he really is dead, and the next issue will just contain 24 pages worth of panels of the San Francisco Bay.

In the end, I have no idea what to make of this first issue, nor what to expect from the second. Simon has now given us three different ideas of what this series is going to be about -- a sympathetic monster/outsider, a hippie political activist, or a mistaken fugitive on the run? And the hippies -- are they sympathic pacifists or lazy teens to be made fun of? Does Brother Power reject their limited viewpoints or embrace them? It's been played both ways.


Minor Details:

- Why would pacifists condone and, in fact, embrace a violent defender? Isn't asking Brother Power to go fight for them a contradiction of their beliefs?

-Why would a tailor keep a rag doll in his shop? I could see using a mannequin, but Brother Power was far too floppy to be useful for modeling clothing.

- Yes, I think most public schools would happily accept a living rag doll, apparently in its late teens or early twenties, without any paperwork whatsoever, and then put the creepy thing in a classroom with children.

- The cover promises that Brother Power is "a thing that lives and fights for its soul!" In what way has this been true, thus far?


Plot synopsis in one long sentence:

Hippies are being persecuted by Neo Nazi bikers, after a particularly brutal raid, one of them leaves his bloody clothes to dry on a rag doll in an abandoned tailor shop, for whatever reason he leaves them to sit there on the doll for four months, engine oil is spilled on the doll, lightening strikes the building and goes through the radiator to electrocute the blood and oil covered doll leaning against it, this brings the rag doll to life, it defends the hippies when they are attacked again, they therefore name it Brother Power, he goes to school for a few days and then gets kidnapped by a travelling circus side-show, gets struck by a second bolt of lightening, becomes even more powerful and escapes, gets a make-over and decides to run for congress, gets chased by the cops for damaging the circus side-show, and crashes into the San Francisco bay, apparently dead.