And so finally we come to the end of our journey through the pages of CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE #2, the second of two volumes of material that remained unpublished in the wake of the DC Implosion of 1978 that saw the company’s output reduced by 40%. A total of 35 copies were made, one each for the assorted contributors plus a set to go to the Library of Congress in order to secure DC’s rights to the material contained therein.
VIXEN was intended to be a newly-launched title, and house ads for the series had run in assorted DC comics in the months leading up to the Implosion. But it failed to launch as a result of the cutbacks and remains unpublished to this day, though the character was later introduced properly in a Conway-penned issue of ACTION COMICS and later became a member of Conway’s Detroit-set re-envisioning of the Justice League of America.
Conway had been building himself his own little corner of the DC publishing line after returning from his short stint as Marvel’s EIC. Two of his other creations, FIRESTORM and STEEL, THE INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN were also casualties of the Implosion, reducing his workload significantly. In order to fulfill its contractual commitments to Conway, he was assigned a series of strips in their place that he had limited interest in writing. But, hey, work was work.
Bob Oksner drew the issue and designed the character, though his design didn’t stick around for too long. When Vixen was brought into the new JLA, she was completely redesigned, and it’s this later version that has stuck around for all the years since. Even here, Oksner’s usually fun and energetic work is dulled down a bit by Vince Colletta’s functionary inking.
If I’m not mistaken, VIXEN would have been the first DC title to headline a black women, a thing that wouldn’t wind up happening for another couple of years yet. While no comic book company of the era was especially expansive when it came to representation, DC in the 1970s tended to lag a bit behind the rest of the field, conservativism woven into the corporation’s DNA. That would change as new leadership pushed DC into the 1980s.
Apparently, letterer Karen Kish took the pencils down order very seriously, as only the very last page of VIXEN #1 remains unlettered. CCC #2 consequently also included Gerry’s script for this final page.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
Makes me think of Ertha Kitt. I liked how Vixen was used by John Ostrander in his “Suicide Squad” retooling. Then decades after that, Ivan Reis drew her in “Justice League America” with short hair that reminded me of Halle Berry’s Bond girl Jinx in “Die Another Day”.
Bob Oksner was best when he inked his own drawing. I also liked his inks over others’ drawings, including Jose Louis Garcia-Lopez.
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Wasn’t Colletta on a shortlist to ink stories with female leads due to his long list of romance credits? This ink job looks pretty complete to me at least… with quite a few spotted blacks and a solid holding line…. as opposed to a lot of errant feathering and scratchy lines.
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Colletta was DC’s Art Director from 1976-1979, and I kinda got the impression that if it featured a pretty girl, he assigned it to himself.
But certainly, he was inking pretty-girl stuff for DC even before that, so I may be being ungenerous. Still, he sure ruined a lot of Oksner and Vosburg pencil jobs.
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. . . /. and Grell (but not Adams, put another way “. . . . but Colleta will not hurt you.”) . . . .”
Clearly, you remember”. . . . but Bork can hurt you@, given Power Company.
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Bork was no pretty girl!
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I like Vixen. I like the Tantu Totem ( sure it grants her similar powers to Animal Man ). While this costume gives her a secret identity, her later maskless costumes were much better. The golden age hero Tabu [ Jungle Comics#1 ( January 1940 ) ( Fiction House ) 100+ appearances ] could also mimic the ability of jungle animals and magical abilities.
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It occurs to me that DC has three fairly prominent animal-powered superheroes (the third being Beast Boy), and can’t decide which to promote.
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it seems like Beast Boy is more suited to being a utility character in a group than being a lead character in their own feature. (The same seems true of The Beast and The Vision. at Marvel,
That seems to also be true of The Vixen (based on how she has been used)..
Freedom Beast has not reach that level (not that a level like that is bad).
Buddy Baker seems to be the one who has stuck,,
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I recall one of the pages costumed panel being used to advertise the book. It was in in nearly every book the last month (with the .50 price) before the DC Implosion. I waited and waited and it never appeared
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Recognizing that comic art inevitably involves a degree of caricature, that p. 5 (p. 6 according to the numbering) is…unfortunate.
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I’d say the one listed as story p4 is the stinker.
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It’s not even that much of a caricature, since the character is based on Idi Amin, who looked very much like that.
Though certainly, since Amin has been out of the spotlight for so long, and thankfully so, it starts to look like just an exaggerated cartoon of a Black man, rather than a portrait of a specific dictator.
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Amin is not that well remembered, in part because he was deposed right after this book was done in 1979 (after attempting to invade Tanzania). A fictionalized Amin (played by Forrest Whittaker) in the main Characeae in the 2006 film, The Last King of Scotland
Amin got a lot of news coverage in the 1970s and was parodied on SNL, evidence of late 1970s pop culture cred.
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