Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Heroes Case File #275: Vext

So, I’ve done so many of these that if I didn’t number them, I would have lost count.  Maybe.  Probably.

Anyway, last week, I brought up a creator owned series from DC Comics that is available on their streaming service.  For this week, I think I’m gonna go with a similar such series that, well, isn’t available among the comics on the DC Universe streaming service library.  This week, I’ll be covering Vext, and given how long that series ran, well, this won’t take long.

Vext was, well, a god.  A fallen one from the Jejune Realm, a minor pantheon that, in the first issue of the short-lived series, was shut down due to a distinct lack of worshippers.  Vext himself was the god of mishap and misfortune.  Basically, if he was around, bad things would happen either to himself or to other people around him.  He had no control over it, and the “bad stuff” wasn’t all that fatal as much as it was annoying.  Vext then “fell” to Earth, one of four such gods from his realms to go there, and that was more or less all you really needed to know.

Vext starred in his own self-titled series, written by Keith Giffen and drawn by Mike McKone.  And it ran for exactly six issues, so if there was a major storyline coming out of it, I couldn’t tell you because I sure as heck didn’t see more than a hint of one as an amoral, murderous adventurer named Aaron Caldwell sought out a god to steal immortality from.  He took it from another god from Vext’s pantheon named Rypta Gud’n, the god of ill-timed flatulence, after which, Rypta died a mortal and Caldwell couldn’t stop breaking wind.  I am sure whatever plot was going on, he would have turned his attention to Vext later, perhaps as a way to stop farting.

And…that’s more or less all there is to know.  Vext settled down in Delta City, home to another of Giffen’s creator-owned DC heroes, the Heckler, and Vext’s adventures, or more like misadventures, were set firmly in the DC Universe.  How do I know?  Well, in his first issue, he rented an apartment from a half deaf landlord and the toilet wouldn’t stop gurgling.  Various neighbors and the landlord told him he had to jiggle the handle.  Then Vext got a surprise visit from Superman and Zauriel, there to remind Vext he was not to use his divine powers due to the nature of his removal from the Jejune Realm…or else.  And then the Man of Steel suggested Vext jiggle the handle of his toilet, adding afterwards, “I can’t believe I said it either.”

And, to his credit, Vext didn’t use his divine powers.  You know, aside from the bad luck that followed him everywhere.  The closest he came to actively saving the day is when he ate a fast food burger that had been contaminated with hyperintelligent bacteria that, had they been eaten by anyone else, would have started a new plague.  Instead, Vext’s divine anatomy easily took care of the germs.

Again, that wasn’t even close to intentional, and Vext didn’t even know he did that.

Now, the series did say four gods came to Earth, but aside from Vext and Rypta, the only other one mentioned before the series’s cancellation was Vext’s ex-wife Paramour, the goddess of relationships that went hellishly wrong.

And yes, she moved in with Vext whether he wanted her to or not and she could stop the toilet’s gurgling by snapping her fingers.

I have some fond memories of that series as a fun and silly bit of comic book weirdness.  Whether or not Vext counts as a hero or not, I couldn’t say, but I got a kick out of his short-lived series all the same.