DOCTOR SAX

Real Name: Jack Dulouz

Identity/Class: Human, technology user

Occupation: Professional criminal, musician

Group Membership: Partner of Johnny Guitar

Affiliations: Techmaster;
    formerly Beefer, Hunch, Marx

Enemies: Beefer, Dazzler, Hunch, Marx, Justin and Dora Panasci

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Mobile

First Appearance: Dazzler#20 (October, 1982)

 

 

Powers/Abilities: Not so surprisingly, he was a talented musician, specializing in the saxophone. He used a specially designed saxophone that could go beyond the blues, causing desperation, insanity, and/or severe, potentially suicidal depression
    He is blind, though he at least previously had a special visor which allowed him to see shapes and movement and to determine general location of nearby objects (allegedly similar to radar), though not color or details.
    He is also a relatively experienced safe cracker.

 

 

 

History:
(Dazzler#20 (fb)) - Jack Dulouz and Johnny Logan, a.k.a. Dr. Sax and Johnny Guitar, were the saxophonist and one of the guitarists in a rock band alongside drummer Beefer, and other guitarists Hunch (bass?) and Marx, the latter three just starting their music careers.

(Dazzler#20 (fb)) - After the Soule St. Marie, Michigan show during their midwest tour, Beefer, Hunch, and Marx walked in on Sax and Guitar robbing their manager Mr. Holman. Sax grabbed an acetylene torch and Johnny picked up a crowbar, intending to prevent their fellow band members from interfering with their plans. Sax nearly set Beefer's face on fire with the torch, but Hunch managed to kick his arm away, and the torch ended up hitting Sax's face instead; his eyes were badly burnt, permanently blinding him. Johnny was captured as well, and they were both turned over to the police.

 

 

(Dazzler#20 (fb) - BTS) - After Sax and Guitar were released from prison, they went to the Techmaster, who outfitted them with some special hardware. Sax received a saxophone able to affect emotions as well as visor to partially restore his sight, while Johnny's guitar was granted destructive powers. They used their new equipment to pull a few very rewarding jobs.

(Dazzler#20) - Seeking vengeance, Sax and Guitar tracked down their former band members, confronting them all (as well as Hunch's wife, Dora, and toddler son, Justin) at Hunch's loft. Johnny Guitar blew their door to pieces and destroyed some of their belongings, after which Sax played an eerie wail that plunged the listeners into the depths of madness. When Johnny planted a big kiss on Dora, Hunch tried to stop him, but Sax tossed him across the room.
    Dazzler had been running late getting to Hunch's loft and she arrived after Sax and Guitar, but due to a combination fear of the two and her recent vow to never use her powers again, she stood by and watched in secret as the two tied up the adults. However, when Sax began torturing Justin, Dazzler could wait no longer. She skated in and grabbed Justin, intending to take him to safety, but Johnny let loose with a cord riff that shattered her skates, causing her to fall on her butt, as well as her radio. However, the next time Johnny assaulted her, she transformed the noise from his guitar into a dazzling blast that incapacitated him. Sax turned his maddening blues on her, but she managed to rally against the madness and disintegrate his saxophone. Sax, bigger and stronger than Dazzler, advanced on her; she turned on the blender, but she was still too shaken from the intensity of Sax and Guitar's attacks, and she was afraid that she might not be able to control the aim or intensity of another blast, which might end up being fatal. Thinking quickly, as Sax grabbed her wrist Dazzler hurled a pot of cold coffee into his face, shorting out his visor. Sax continued to swing blindly, hoping to catch her with a lucky shot, but Dazzler's dancing skills enabled her to dodge his blows and then drop kick him, knocking him out.

(Dazzler#20 - BTS) - Sax and Guitar were taken into police custody.

(Marvel Year-in-Review '92) - Doctor Sax and Johnny Guitar later played at the Springdale, Connecticut branch of the Bar With No Name.

Comments: Created by Danny Fingeroth, Frank Springer, and Vince Colletta.

I'm surprised they didn't have Johnny play the violin!

   Doctor Sax's name is also the title of a book by the Beat(nik) novelist Jack Kerouac, and it seems that many of the members of his band are in fact psuedonyms Jack used in his semi-autobiographical works. "Marx,' would be Carlo Marx, the name Kerouac gave Allen Ginsberg in the Dharma Bums. Likewise, Hunch is quite close to Herbert Hunke -- Hunke was a con man and writer who, among other things, inadvertantly got GInsberg kicked out of Columbia University by storing stolen goods in the latter's dorm room. And Jack Duluoz, of course, is Keruoac himself, also fromt he Dharma Bums.
 
   Johnny Guitar is a 1954 comedy /western starring Joan Crawford as Vienna and Sterling Hayden (best known as General Ripper from Dr. Strangelove). The plot revolves around Crawford and another woman as feuding saloon owners, while the wry Johnny Guitar is alternately manipulated by and manipulates them.
 
Sample dialogue:
 
Johnny: How many men have you forgotten?
Vienna: As many women as you've remembered.
Johnny: Don't go away.
Vienna: I haven't moved.
Johnny: Tell me something nice.
Vienna: Sure, what do you want to hear?
Johnny: Lie to me. Tell me all these years you've waited. Tell me.
Vienna: [without feeling] All those years I've waited.
Johnny: Tell me you'd a-died if I hadn't come back.
Vienna: [without feeling] I woulda died if you hadn't come back.
Johnny: Tell me you still love me like I love you.
Vienna: [without feeling] I still love you like you love me.
Johnny: [bitterly] Thanks. Thanks a lot.
  
Thanks to Omar Karindu for the above information concerning the names!

Profile by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Dr. Sax and Johnny Guitar have no known connection to:

Johnny Guitar

Johnny Logan

    He worked with Doctor Sax along with the future members of Dazzler's band until their partners caught them in the act of stealing from their manager. Johnny used a crowbar against them, but after Sax was taken out of action he fled, only to be tackled by Marx. After being released from prison, his guitar was transformed into a powerful weapon by the Techmaster. They made some money using their new weapons for crime, after which they sought vengeance on their former band members. Johnny used his guitar on Hunch's apartment and belongings, and later on Dazzler's skates and radio, but she incapacitated him with a blinding blast of light which she had created from the very sonic attack he had used against her. He was arrested again, but later played alongside Sax at the Springdale Bar With No Name.

His guitar could produce devastating sonic attacks, able to shatter every day equipment, and even dense objects like doors and locks.

--Dazzler#20 (20(fbs), [20(fb)], 20, [20], Marvel Year-in-Review '92

 

 

 

 

images:
Dazzler#20, p9, panel 4 (Sax and Guitar full bodies)
            panel 5 (Guitar face)
        p10, panel 6 (Sax pre-injury)
        p12, panel 8 (Sax in action)
        p14, panel 4 (Sax face)

Marvel Year-in-Review '92 (1992)

Last updated: 04/27/05

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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