“Yesterday’s” Comic> The Blue Beetle #14

I mean, he’s not actually in a story, but we’re introducing him.

The Blue Beetle #14

Holyoke Publishing (September, 1942)

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For whatever reason Sparky’s actual origin story wasn’t ready by print time so the comic suggests his convoy was attacked by Axis subs so he’s going to be a bit late. Guess he should feel lucky he survived. I know you Sparkington J. Northrup fans are going to be so disappointed…but at least we still have Spark Stevens!

Yeah, that is the booby prize.

We’ll also see V-Man if that helps.

Let’s just get started.

The Blue Beetle stories

• Red Robe Of Death; No writer credited but the artist is Chas M. Quinlan: Dan and Mike are almost off patrol when they hear screaming coming from a mansion and investigate. They find Joan (of course) and a Nazi agent in a robe and skull mask. What follows is Blue Beetle running around the house and finding dead bodies, Mike actually saving and teaming up with Blue Beetle at one point (after of course being embarrassed by the superhero again because even the Holyoke writers want to mess with him, and a surprisingly decent story considering they barely leave the house and never leave the grounds.
• The Terror Of Yellow Fang: No credits on this one. This time it’s the Japanese agents up to mischief…and it’s a 1940s comic so you know what that’s going to entail. Actually it’s not as bad as you’d expect. Yellow Fang and his fellow Mikado agents have the accents you’d expect a Japanese person who is still learning English if not slightly better, and they aren’t heavily yellow or bucktoothed. The Yellow Fang’s mask is just what we know now as an oni mask. Our villains want to stop scientist from coming up with a counter agent to their poison gas. For a war-inspired story it’s actually fairly decent. Too bad the writer and artist aren’t credited.
• The Blue Beetle Matches Wits With The Eye: In our final Blue Beetle story of the issue a hypnotist turns people into murderers, and it barely matters to the plot. Blue Beetle, Mike, and Joan each separately join in the search for the villain, who wants to hold the city for ransom to stop doing these shenanigans. There’s really not much to this story unless you want to see BB and Mike fighting alongside each other again.

The Guest Stars

• V-Man in “The Plot To Kidnap Hitler”: V-Man is back…and blonde now for some reason. As the story says, V-Man and Ginger are in Germany with Carl to kidnap Adolph Hitler…and they almost pull it off. This is one of those stories meant to make Hitler and his Nazis look like idiots and it works for that goal.
• Spark Stevens in “The Mystery Of The Blue Ribbon”: Well at least this time it isn’t bad guys trying to force our alleged heroes to do bad things. Out of money, Spark and Chuck decided to enter Squak the parrot in a pet show and uncover a Nazi spy ring. That’s all I have to say about that. I really have no interest in this series. There’s also a lame Lone Ranger parody earlier in the book but it’s one page and I can ignore that, too.
• Official Story Of Midway Battle: Allegedly a true story from the Battle Of Midway, this is the last story of the issue. I am not a historian so I can’t confirm the authenticity given that hiding our failures and pushing are successes is something the Pentagon used to do before Vietnam and the rise of television. It’s a decent story but it’s just telling a version of what happened. Nobody really stands out as a character except America!

Overall this was a decent issue. Holyoke is starting to find its stride as comic creators though this is still a semi-anthology rather than the comics I’m used to. It is one of the better issues since the takeover.