The Bronze Terror wears a skull mask along with a rainbow colored headdress into battle. His bare chest has white war paint that grants him a vaguely skeletal appearance. He also wears buckskin trousers and moccasins. When riding his horse into battle (who also wears a white skull mask!), he is an especially impressive sight. His secret identity is Jeff Dixon, attorney and full-blooded Apache. As the Bronze Terror, he is also known as Real American #1.When his father was framed for murder, Dixon returned to the reservation and adopted the identity of the Bronze Terror to combat the exploitation of his people that he found there.

Dixon is a gifted athlete who was a champion swimmer, runner and football player in college. As such, he is a formidable fighter and horseman. A rare Native American costumed hero, the Bronze Terror devotes himself to righting wrongs perpetrated against Indians. As for Dixon, he gives up his big city law practice to move back with his people. His father is White Falcon. Lilly is Dixon’s childhood sweetheart who still lives on the reservation.

Dick Briefer’s Progressive Vision for the Bronze Terror

There’s really been nothing quite like the Bronze Terror, from the forties to the present. Jeff Dixon is a sophisticated and successful lawyer comfortable in high powered East Coast business meetings. As the Bronze Terror, he’s a kick-ass costumed hero who uses traditional Native American attire and methods (bow and arrow, horsemanship) to deliver violent justice to those who would try to oppress his people. The whole portrayal is very evocative–trafficking in stereotypes even as it attempts to explode them.

In some ways, the portrayal of Jeff Dixon goes too far in the opposite direction of putting aside the reader’s presumed assumptions about Native Americans. As a “savior” of his people, Dixon does so having fully embraced the White man’s way. Or has he? Does his costume as the Bronze Terror suggest he embraces both ways simultaneously? But then there’s all those feathers. And being the “Bronze” Terror and not just the Terror anticipates all those early African American superheroes who just had to have “Black” as part of their hero name: Black Panther, Black Goliath, Black Lightning. Then again, perhaps the “Bronze” part of his moniker was strangely appropriate as his stated goal was in essence to evoke terror in White people who would do his people harm.

Of one thing I’m certain–the White writer/artist had good intentions.

The writer/artist of the Bronze Terror was Dick Briefer, who is best known for his comedic version of the Frankenstein Monster. The monster turned decidedly horrific with shifting comic book tastes in the 1950s. Briefer also drew Rex Dexter, a science fiction series. What is less known is that Briefer had very progressive politics and was the rare adventure writer/artist to actively portray those values in an entertaining fashion. Briefer also produced the Pirate Prince for the publisher Lev Gleason, which explored progressive ideas regarding the slave trade.

A rare Indian superhero in 1940s comic books, Dixon truly was a real American hero for the times.

To check out another significant Native American hero who straddled his two different cultures, this time in the 1950s, check out this article on DC’s Pow-Wow Smith. 

Appearances of the Bronze Terror

Daredevil Comics 2-11 (1941-42) Lev Gleason, publisher

Mark Carlson-Ghost