“Yesterday’s” Comic> The Blue Beetle #16

“Who’d you blackmail to get flight?”

The Blue Beetle #16

Holyoke Publishing Co. (November, 1942)

Let’s see: blackmailing unnecessary sidekick? Check. Bumbling sailors who keep ending up in trouble? Check. V for victory themed superhero? Check. A character I never heard of? Also check. So far I’m not too keen on Holyoke’s run of the character, and offering a chance to win a live puppy will not make the stories better. Wonder how they shipped it if the winner was outside New York? Batman and Captain America have kid sidekicks, so Blue Beetle gets one whether his stories need one or not. Then again, given how many times the dope’s been knocked out cold, maybe he does. I’m starting to think the chainmail only goes around his body because nothing seems to be protecting his head. All right, let’s get into this issue’s nonsense.

Read along with me here…if only to see the surprised face on the butler in the first story.

The Blue Beetle stories

• “The Monster Mechanic” by Art Barely: Blue Beetle and Sparky end up in a Scooby-Doo decades before there was a Scooby-Doo. Someone is kidnapping people and making it look like aliens from the future with a teleporter. The ending is rather fast to make room for the puppy contest I mentioned earlier but a decent story
• “Mystery Of The Walking Torches” by Chas M. Quinlan: Where’s The Flame when you really need him? Nazis with flamethrowers are attacking a local shipyard, and the Blue Beetle and Sparky have to take them done. Mike actually manages to be useful in this story but just when you think he’s finally over his fixation to arrest our hero he complains that he won’t get to arrest him after thinking he’s died. Also they manage to sneak an ad for Cat-Man Comics into the dialog, which was rather weird despite being the end of the story.
• “The Amateur Magician” by Oliver Ashford: Our last Blue Beetle story of the issue. It’s a short one, as magician and thief Dascomb Dinsmore and his strangely red skinned and big headed partner Seidlitz…oh the names this issue…try to steal a jeweled necklace. I’m hoping these aren’t recurring villains. They’re kind of lame given what the Blue Beetle usually deals with, even in the Holyoke period.

This issue’s guest stars

• Likkity Split: From the “what the hell were they thinking” department comes the town’s toughest kid and his rubber band powered plane that can take him all the way to the North Pole. He’s going to need it when a fake Santa drops leaflets in America (must be a city named America or something) saying that nobody’s getting a present this year, but fake Santa will be giving the German kids presents. Yes, let’s get kids to hate the German kids in their neighborhood when it’s not their fault their former homeland got taken over by history’s greatest scumbag. Likkity, and you have to wonder why his parents would do that to a kid, heads up there to stop him and learns he’s a fake. To be continued next issue unfortunately. That means we need to see this kid again.
• V-Man by Sol Brodsky: A painter wants to resume painting his anti-Nazi posters, which considering he’s in France is not a safe move. V-Man, Ginger, and V-66 are on other business in France when they hear about the painter’s wife and gardener, two members of the Underground, were murdered and V-Man races to save the painter, who gets caught up in a plot by one of the Nazi soldiers to murder his commander and assume command. It’s not a bad story.
• Pvt. Narcisco Ortilando: Our “real life war story” for the issue. Our title character is a Filipino scout in Douglas MacArthur’s group in Bataan. If this story is to be believed he held off an entire Japanese attack squad by himself and only lost a thumb. I’m sure these stories are exaggerated but it’s quite a story if you don’t mind the…terms of the time. Points for acknowledging the non-Americans taking part in the war though.
• Spark Stevens: “Now Follow Me” by Oliver Ashford: Nazis kill the author and it’s up to Spark, Chuck, and Squawks to avenge him…except the parrot was just making the whole thing up. Did he draw it, too? The art is terrible and doing a story where you get hanged by Nazis is something even Grant Morrison wouldn’t do to himself. I think.

Overall this was not an enjoyable read, and not for the usual review reasons. The stories themselves just aren’t very good this issue. Holyoke should have kept the Fox Features team on because most of the time the replacements aren’t making the grade. Yeah, they weren’t the best either, but they were better than this.