“Yesterday’s” Comic> The Blue Beetle #17

No, really, when did Sparky gain the power to fly?

The Blue Beetle #17

Holyoke Publishing (December, 1942)

At this point I’m starting to have the same issue I have as we get closer to the end of a book review for Chapter By Chapter. I’m running out of ways to fill space. That’s another problem with reviewing anthologies. Usually I can do the credits, even if we’re getting two or three stories an issue, tell you which story we’re on, and it’s all good. Here we have three Blue Beetle stories, the next part of the Likkity Split story (God help me), V-Man, and another Spark Stevens (God help me again). I don’t have any real trivia, anything else will be said in the review, but because on the homepage I want to have some space before the “continue reading” button I need to say something. So what I get is rambling, which thankfully I’m done with for this installment. Let’s get to the reviews.

Read along with me at Comic Book Plus.

The Blue Beetle

• “The Case Of The Twisted Minds”: A Nazi scientist has found a way to turn American soldiers into traitors for the Nazis. It’s a World War II story in a superhero comic. So of course it involves mad science and Nazis. I’d joke about how the Blue Beetle and Sparky have to be rescued by the general they’re trying to help, but I think it was done on purpose, the whole “Americans can’t be Nazi traitors” theme they want to go with. It’s a longer story than I was expecting, almost full length by modern comic standards. Too bad there’s a couple panels they mix up the dialog in and by now you’d expect Mike to at least believe Beetle wasn’t a Nazi. Even being a criminal is a hard one to believe at this point, but a Nazi? We’re just trying too hard at this point to make Mike a dope, aren’t we?
• “The Walking Tank” story by Eddie Murphy (not that one); art by Chaz M. Quinlan: In a South American country with the most exaggerated Spanish accents the comic could get away with, the Nazis sent their own overly exaggerated accented men to hire a giant of a man to kill the Blue Beetle. The narrator breaks the fourth wall at one point by acknowledging the writer, the Nazis try to kill Blue Beetle like he’s in the 60s Batman show when the giant has him dead to rights, and the story overall is just kind of weak.
• “Who Is The Mimic?”: So remember that part about Americans not being traitors to the Nazis? Well, forget all that. We have “The Mimic”, an ex-con named Chalmers who learned theatrical make-up and prison and now can make himself look like almost anyone. Seems like a bad idea out of our prison system. What could have been just a regular crime story turns into another war story when the Nazis want to pay him to frame the Blue Beetle. They should have left it a regular crime story, though that wouldn’t have helped our final Blue Beetle story be any less mediocre. It starts out okay but the ending is a bit disappointing.

The guest stars

• Likkity Split by Oliver Ashford: It’s two pages, over half of one page being a splash and catch-up, and the other just Likkity beating up fake Santa. Honestly this could have just been in the previous issue, or with this being the Christmas story put the last one in with this one. The teaser threatens more stories but unless they’re longer than this one I may ignore them in the future.
• Benny Bumps: I guess we have one more Blue Beetle story kind of sort of. This is another comedic two-pager but it seems to be a promo for buying war stamps. I never understood how that worked but I was born in 1973. We didn’t have those in my youth. Benny decides to dress up like the Blue Beetle to stop a Nazi spy but ends up having to be saved by the real thing, cue advertisement, and end. I would have prefered another exaggerated war hero story than these two comics.
• V-Man by Sol Brodsky: At this point I’m wondering why they bothered having V-Man be American. He does so much in France he should have been part of the French resistance instead of this V-Group or whatever. Anyway, here’s another story involving traitors, like the writers got together and came up with a theme for the issue. A French traitor helps the Nazis expose the French Underground, but soon gains a conscience and V-Man is barely in this story. Not terrible but not that great. Speaking of which…
• “Spark” Stevens: A sparrow steals Squawks’ hat for some reason and despite beating the sparrow we never see him with it again. Instead he leads Spark and Chuck to what appears to be an abandoned baby, but instead deals with the kidnappers. While trying to return him they’re met by two cops who accuse them of doing the kidnapping without even checking their story. And apparently kidnapping a baby in this state equals the death penalty. Even I think that’s harsh. So now our heroes have to clear their names. So once again our heroes get caught up in some mess but for a “Spark” Stevens story it isn’t that bad. Granted I don’t care for these characters but at least they aren’t getting in trouble fighting over a girl anymore.

Overall I’m still not enjoying the Holyoke run. The company is just trying to make back the money Fox Features owed them and you can tell in the quality of the stories. Only 13 more chances to improve.