75 Years Ago Today... Blue Beetle begins

[markseifert]

Mystery Men Comics #1's "official" date of publication is June 15, 1939, according to the copyright office records. Quite an interesting publishing history between then and now, and evolution of the character (and Charlton introduced the Ted Kord version in the Silver Age), but still one of the longest-lived superhero names / general concepts in comics.

 

 

[rjpb]

Mystery Men Comics #1's "official" date of publication is June 15, 1939, according to the copyright office records. Quite an interesting publishing history between then and now, and evolution of the character (and Charlton introduced the Ted Kord version in the Silver Age), but still one of the longest-lived superhero names / general concepts in comics.

 

 

Unfortunately the longevity of the character and his sporadic publishing history that hits every decade since 1939 is just about the only thing interesting about the character. Okay, a few nice illustrations by the likes of Fine and Ditko help a bit, which is probably reason enough to start posting your favorite covers featuring The World's Dullest Hero. Let's see them!

[Marty Mann]

BLUE BEETLE COMICS were not easy to find on the newsstand,

these are the only three I could ever find.

 

 

mm

[markseifert]

Unfortunately the longevity of the character and his sporadic publishing history that hits every decade since 1939 is just about the only thing interesting about the character. Okay, a few nice illustrations by the likes of Fine and Ditko help a bit

 

Beetle as part of the late 80s / early 90s JLA by Giffen / DeMatteis / Maguire (and later Adam Hughes) was great. That's some pretty definitive material of that era.

[Straw-Man]

[ComicConnoisseur]

Mystery Men Comics #1's "official" date of publication is June 15, 1939, according to the copyright office records. Quite an interesting publishing history between then and now, and evolution of the character (and Charlton introduced the Ted Kord version in the Silver Age), but still one of the longest-lived superhero names / general concepts in comics.

 

 

Unfortunately the longevity of the character and his sporadic publishing history that hits every decade since 1939 is just about the only thing interesting about the character. Okay, a few nice illustrations by the likes of Fine and Ditko help a bit, which is probably reason enough to start posting your favorite covers featuring The World's Dullest Hero. Let's see them!

Blue Beetle even had his on radio show. It just goes to show if you don`t have a big corporation like Marvel/Disney and Warner/DC to keep the character relevant,then there is a good chance the character will fade into almost obscurity.

I have noticed this with Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. The only times people think of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon now is if they had watched the Buck Rogers TV show or saw the Flash Gordon movie of 34 years ago.

Not too many fans left that actually read the great comic strips or bought the merchandise.

 

 

[Marty Mann]

Not too many fans left that actually read the great comic strips or bought the merchandise.

 

 

 

mm

[markseifert]

Blue Beetle even had his own radio show.

 

It's interesting that there appears to be no surviving memorabilia or photos of the NY World's Fair Blue Beetle Day. And apparently Fox sponsored contests for kids (relay races) at Brooklyn theaters leading up to the day. I will have to dig through some newspapers on that... some day...

[ciorac]

 

Three awesome comics

[BitterOldMan]

Latest win from CL.

 

[cheetah]

[cheetah]

[Cat-Man_America]

Mystery Men Comics #1's "official" date of publication is June 15, 1939, according to the copyright office records. Quite an interesting publishing history between then and now, and evolution of the character (and Charlton introduced the Ted Kord version in the Silver Age), but still one of the longest-lived superhero names / general concepts in comics.

 

 

Unfortunately the longevity of the character and his sporadic publishing history that hits every decade since 1939 is just about the only thing interesting about the character. Okay, a few nice illustrations by the likes of Fine and Ditko help a bit, which is probably reason enough to start posting your favorite covers featuring The World's Dullest Hero. Let's see them!

 

I would argue the exact opposite, for much of the same reason as you've described the BB as the World's Dullest Hero.

 

Think about it: Is there a costumed hero with more potential for film acquisition and exploitation?

 

Food for thought!

[lou_fine]

Okay, a few nice illustrations by the likes of Fine and Ditko help a bit, which is probably reason enough to start posting your favorite covers...

 

Personally, I absolutely love the run of MM covers from issues #1 right through to issue #11!

 

From my point of view, one of the best cover runs from the GA time period!!

[jbcomicbox]

Okay, a few nice illustrations by the likes of Fine and Ditko help a bit, which is probably reason enough to start posting your favorite covers...

 

Personally, I absolutely love the run of MM covers from issues #1 right through to issue #11!

 

From my point of view, one of the best cover runs from the GA time period!!

 

 

 

Except for the WW run (only kidding.....both are great...... PLEASE NOTE THIS IS FROM MY ARTICLE on FOX WHICH ADVERTISES A "BLUE B EETLE DAY " AT THE WORLD'S FAIR.

 

http://www.comicartville.com/victorfox.htm

 

The second “costumed hero” to be created by the Eisner Shop actually started as second banana to the The Green Mask which was the lead cover feature for most of the earliest Mystery Men Comics issues. Created by Charles Wojtkowski (Charles Nicholas), the Blue Beetle was derivative of the Green Hornet and was to spawn another colorful insect hero with the Red Bee in Hit Comics when Eisner created a new universe of characters for Quality Comics in early 1940. In his initial adventure he sported a suit and mask ala the Green Hornet. He was rookie cop, Dan Garrett. In the second issue he wore an all blue garb, but with face exposed. Realizing by his third adventure that it was tough to be a masked hero without a mask, he began to don the well-known domino mask. “When crime shows it head, The Blue Beetle is always on hand!” It is not until issue 13 that it is stated that Dan Garrett obtained his super-energy by ingesting “Vitamin 2X”, which was distributed by his local super-hero helping pharmacist, Dr. Franz. (Also, rather novel for comics, the cover for issue 13, is derived directly from a panel in the Blue Beetle story.) The Beetle would flash a Blue Beetle light before he pounced on the bad guys. (And I thought the Spider-Man light was all Spidey.) By issue 14, he confronts his first nemesis, “The Skull”, who is leading attacks on America to promote the interests of the “fatherland”. (Interestingly “The Skull” appeared as the protagonist the following month in a different strip, Lt. Drake of the U.S. Naval Intelligence.)

 

 

Mystery Men Comics #13 (August 1940)

Edd Ashe renders a portrait cover of the

Blue Beetle with gun ablazing.

 

Fox, noticing that the Blue Beetle was the most popular of his characters aggressively pursued “marketing” of this character in manner of Superman. First appearing in Mystery Men Comics #1 (August 1939), the Blue Beetle made his first cover appearance and moved to the first feature in Mystery Men Comics #7 (February 1940) followed by his own comicbook appearing in January 1940 (cover dated March 1940). This was not a coincidence as the newspaper syndication of Blue Beetle also began in January 1940. Syndication only lasted until mid-March. Undaunted, Fox attempting to emulate the marketing success of Superman, Blue Beetle began a radio show on May 15, 1940 starring Frank Lovejoy that continued for forty-eight episodes until September 13, 1940. During this time Fox Features sponsored a "Blue Beetle Day” on August 7, 1940 at the New York World’s Fair.

 

 

"Blue Beetle Day" was August 7, 1940

at the New York World's Fair.

[markseifert]

Here's a nifty find... episodes of the 1940 Blue Beetle radio show at archive.org via the Old Time Radio Researchers Group:

 

https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Blue_Beetle_Singles

 

 

 

[General Zod]

Unfortunately the longevity of the character and his sporadic publishing history that hits every decade since 1939 is just about the only thing interesting about the character. Okay, a few nice illustrations by the likes of Fine and Ditko help a bit

 

Beetle as part of the late 80s / early 90s JLA by Giffen / DeMatteis / Maguire (and later Adam Hughes) was great. That's some pretty definitive material of that era.

 

Agreed. Was plenty mad they killed Ted Kord, though. The new(er) kid, Jaime, just doesn't do it for me.

[porcupine48]

I only have the Charlton stuff ,but this is wonderful!

[HRCostigan]

 

Personally, I absolutely love the run of MM covers from issues #1 right through to issue #11!

 

From my point of view, one of the best cover runs from the GA time period!!

 

Except for the WW run

 

Yes!

[cheetah]