Dexter Knox

DEXTER KNOX

Real Name: Dexter Knox

Class: Parallel Earth (Earth-S) human

Occupation: Boy genius

Group Affiliation: None

Known Relatives: Grandmother Knox (grandmother), unnamed parents

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Fawcett City, Earth-S

First Appearance: Captain Marvel Adventures (Fawcett) #133 (June, 1952)

Powers: Dexter Knox was a brilliant inventor.

History: Dexter Knox was a boy genius and friend to Billy Batson, secretly the superhero Captain Marvel.

(Captain Marvel Adventures (Fawcett) #137) - Billy Batson showed up at work, thrilled with his job when Sterling Morris announced he was cutting his salary as well as the salaries of everyone at WHIZ so he could keep all the money for himself. Billy was bummed and stopped at Doc Quartz’ for a soda, but Doc said he hated his customers and kicked him out. The dejected Billy visited Dexter Knox, to find the boy genius sleeping instead of working on science experiments. King Kull, the Beastman, was lobbing sin bombs around Fawcett City, unleashing the Seven Deadly Sins in the hearts of mankind. Billy changed into Captain Marvel. Kull shoved him out of the way, fleeing back to his hideout underground in Evil Olympus. Marvel consulted Shazam, who told him the Seven Deadly sins were evil gods he’d long ago turned into stone and kept at the rock of Eternity. King Kull used a life-ray to bring them back to live, and the Sins were the ones producing the sin bombs. Kull started dropping sin bombs from a helicopter, and Billy was at WHIZ when he was hit. Full of hatred he almost attacked his boss before fighting off the effects of hatred and changing into Captain Marvel. Marvel confronted Kull in Evil Olympus, defeating him and using his life-ray to turn the Sins back into stone statues.

(Shazam! I #4) - During the mayor's celebration of the Marvel Family, the Sivana Family caught them and all their friends in attendance, including Dexter Knox, in a globe of suspendium. They were in suspended animation circling the sun for decades until the Marvel Family revived and freed them. April 1st rolled around, and Billy Batson was depressed because he hadn't celebrated his birthday in decades, and after being gone from Fawcett so long he thought nobody remembered it was his birthday. Billy returned home, where all his friends, including Dexter threw him a surprise birthday party.

(Shazam! I #6) - Billy visited Dexter Knox while he was working into the night in his lab on a powerful electrical generator. Dexter wanted a midnight snack, and went with Billy to Grandmother Knox's nearby home. Grandmother Knox was a fastidious housekeeper, and went to Dexter's lab to dust his equipment, but when she touched the generator she was supercharged with electricity. Every appliance she touched in her home started running without being plugged in, so Billy changed into Captain Marvel and used the supercharged appliances to clean her house until they ran out of energy. By Dexter's calculations Grandmother Knox had enough of a charge to power an entire city, and started He wondered how her temporary power could best be pout to use when a television broadcast announced that Miami, Florida was suffering from a citywide blackout. Marvel offered to fly Grandmother Knox there to power the city, but she said she hated flying. Dexter tried to convince her that flying with Captain Marvel was safer than being on a plan, but she was having none of it, and insisted they travel to Miami by train. Captain Marvel arranged for the tracks from Fawcett to Miami rail lines be cleared, and after Grandmother and Dexter boarded the train Marvel pushed the train at superhuman speed. They arrived in Miami in no time, and Grandmother generated the electricity for Miami Light & Power until they fixed their generators. Grandmother's supercharge was gone, but the owner of the power company offered her and Dexter a vacation voucher for her service. Billy returned to Fawcett, and soon got a postcard from Dexter saying he was in the process of modernizing Miami's power grid.

Comments: Created by Ottob Binder & C.C. Beck.

Dexter Knox was originally published by Fawcett Comics, which DC obtained the rights to in 1972.

Dexter Knox' appearance in Captain Marvel Adventures (Fawcett) #137 was reprinted in Shazam!: A Celebration of 75 Years.