The Occult Files of Doctor Spektor

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I must admit I’ve never read even a single issue of The Occult Files of Doctor Spektor. But the archival reprints of old Gold Key material from Dark Horse and other publishers have piqued an interest in the output of this company that is not one of the “Big Two.” The series is written by Don Glut (who also wrote the introduction to the archive) and represents his most personal comic book work. I know him from his work at Marvel, notably his writing of a handful of Invaders stories toward the end of the series’ run and a number issues of What If..? as well (he scripted the first appearance of the Avengers of the 1950s, for example) under the editorship of Roy Thomas. Glut also wrote the novelization of The Empire Strikes Back. The Doctor Spektor series was drawn by Jesse Santos, who came from the influx of Filipino artists prevalent in comics during the early to mid 70s.

The series is interesting in several ways. First, the behind-the-scenes relationship Glut had with his editor, Del Connell. Glut had to fight almost every step of the way to write the comic he wanted to, against his editor’s wishes. Glut also single-handedly attempted to establish a “Gold Key Universe” (also against his editor’s wishes) by tying the hereditary lineage of Dr. Adam Occult with that of Dagar the Invincible and the titular character of Tragg and the Sky Gods, two other series written by Glut. Dr. Solar also guest-starred in two later issues, and Glut included crossover elements from his other Gold Key (and non-Gold Key) work as well.

Connell wanted Doctor Spektor to be the host of a mystery anthology series (along the lines of Gold Key’s Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery series) with three standalone stories per issue, but Glut wanted Spektor to be an actually participant (more along the lines of Marvel’s Dr. Strange). Connell reluctantly gave Glut the go-ahead to write a full 25-page story about “an investigator of the unknown, a kind of combination of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Van Helsing.”

All of these things went against not only his editor’s wishes, but also the publisher’s. According to Glut’s introduction, “Del and Western in general really disliked crossover stories or even continuity between issues of the same title, assuming that almost nobody would read two consecutive issues or remember a character or story element introduced in an earlier story.” Another surprising aspect of this behind-the-scenes drama is that this point of view was still held as late as 1973! On the other hand, it may have been a self-fulfilling prophecy for Gold Key.

Everything I’ve written so far I gleaned just from reading the introduction.

Maybe next week I’ll have something to say about the comics themselves!

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I actually did read this over the weekend of October 2-3 but I forgot to follow up last week. The Occult Files of Doctor Spektoris a good, solid, middle-of-the road suspense title you'd expect from a Gold Key title. what makes it unique (or at least unusual) is the the main character is both a "host" as well as a participant in the main feature. Except for #1 which is issue-length, the rest of the comics in this collection have two stories: one about Doctor Spektor, and one he relates from his "files." There is also a stand-alone or two from a mystery digest featuring artwork by Dan Speigle.