Tracking the guy at Holyoke trying to push him out of his own comic.
The Blue Beetle #24
Holyoke Publishing (August, 1943)
Well, two stories in his own comic. Except he’s not the starting story. If you didn’t want to make a Blue Beetle comic, why did you? If they hadn’t, Fox Features might not have been able to continue the character, we wouldn’t have Charlton’s reimagined Dan Garrett (they used the two “T”s), Ted Kord, or Jaime Reyes. I can still question their lack of thought in this manner even if keeping him around was beneficial in the future. It’s just a shame to see a character playing second fiddle in his own book!
Ali-Baba: The Time Machine
I’m not sure this one comes out of Arabian Knights, but given how the story in the last issue couldn’t decide what time period it was in (“wow, I found a tire but cars won’t be invented for years”) I’m not sure what the point of a time travel story in this strip is for. Swami Salami (oooookay) has built a time machine. He won’t agree to Ali’s request to send his wife into the future because “the wife’s place is in the home” because that stupid gag is running strong. Sorry, when you keep running back to her at the end even when you’re doing better without her, I’m not feeling sorry for you. Neither is agreeing to get into something that…well, let’s just say the TARDIS it isn’t. So Ali and Murhad go into the “future” (aka 1940s big American city), find out they don’t like it after being attacked by a bunch of punk kids, and…wow, was that a pointless story.
The Blue Beetle: “Babbo The Babbling Beast”
A USO entertainer going by Doc trains an ape to steal so when he returns to England he can rob the place. Nazis hire him to steal mission plans, but Agent Dan Garrett (because Holyoke’s writers couldn’t keep the number of “t”s straight–no wonder Charlton was confused) is investigating. Doc turns out to be a Nazi sympathizer…who has a big swastika tattooed on his chest so he can’t swim with the other guys, which seems rather stupid. Meanwhile Blue Beetle is force to knock the ape off a building in a rather quick ending so they can tell us next week will have a really good Blue Beetle adventure. I wish this was. The plot was okay but the execution just didn’t work for me.
“G”-Men Of The Radio War
This issue is not winning any points with me. This story, about an American tanker already dealing with an explosion suddenly being attacked by a Nazi sub, was filled with clunky dialog. Then their SOS is picked up, everyone’s rescued, and suddenly the narrator goes on about fake distress calls by supposedly neutral countries actually being a signal to the Nazis to attack. This story was not every well thought out.
Crime Reporter
Tony Zacco (at first glance I read that as Tony Zucco and wondered if Dick Grayson was okay) gets out of prison and two days later does a jewel robbery. Some people never learn. He ends up killing one of the jewelers so now he’s looking at the death penalty. He has the idea of stealing a boat but the police have a plane. They accidentally blow up the boat but Zacco survives…to meet with ol’ Sparky. Seemed an unnecessary extra step and now the playboy who had is boat stolen has no boat. It’s one of the better stories thus far…but look at the competition!
A True Story Of Jane G. Plant (by George Tuska)
I wonder when they stopped using “Geo.” as a short version of George? Anyway, this is a brief history of Ms. Plant, who started learning to fly when she was 11, got her license at 18, and by 19 was training other pilots until joining the Women’s Reserve at 20, a year early but she was that good. Fascinating for the time period more attention is paid to her age than her gender when it comes to becoming a pilot, the only gender acknowledgement being that she looks like someone’s little sister and joined the Women’s Reserve. So points to this story for not falling into the “women shouldn’t be flying planes” nonsense.
Blue Beetle: “The Learning Lantern” by Chas. M. Quinlan
For those of you reading along…did the splash page make you think this was going to be a different kind of comic? Instead Mike and Joan are looking into strange doings at an abandoned mansion (though Mike has to be talked into it) and find Nazi spies. Good thing Dan is on vacation again. It might have been more interesting to see a story of Mike and Joan doing something without the Blue Beetle around, but it’s nice the comic didn’t forget them. And next issue they’ll tell us how the Nazis did the headless ghost trick…a month later when the kids probably won’t care. Really, Chas? Congrats on not forcing the story to fit but you couldn’t do it this issue?
Tales Of A Warplant Guard: “The Fainting Saboteur”
I’ve never really heard of Nazi or Japanese spy rings operating in the US during World War II, even all these years later, but it sure made for good storytelling at the time. Oddly, none of the other Axis members had their own spy organizations in these stories, not even Italy. This time we have a saboteur attacking a plant that makes cables for the military and a guard who comes up with a clever plan to surprise him at the right moment with spotlights, stopping his plans and causing him to pass out from the surprise. Exciting, no, but clever.
“G”-Men Of The Radio by Geo. Tuska
This one was slightly better than the one earlier. Still a bit of clunky dialog in this story set just after Pearl Harbor. The G-Men are picking up a strange radio message and eventually track it to the German embassy, shutting it down before Germany declares war on the US. The dialog is better but the story itself still isn’t that interesting.
Apparently Tuska thought this was interesting because after a lame gag strip (all three thus far have been) he starts talking about ham radios with the characters. A couple of ham radio operators visit the Radio Intelligence Division (RID) and ask about events of the previous radio G-Men stories in this issue. Basically it’s a recruitment drive for amateur radio operators to help keep track of illegal operators in case they’re Nazi spies. Probably more interesting back then that today unless you’re big into that stuff and its history.
“The Bishop And The Halo” by George Tunkel
It’s three stories competing to take over. Losing is the horror angle, with the not-quite-Cryptkeeper narrator. Then you have a crazy man who wants to commit three supreme crimes and for some reason wants to taunt a bishop. He wants to take commit a murder representing music, one representing love, and one representing religion, which he does yelling “Heil Hitler” for absolutely no reason whatsoever other than getting to be called a Nazi when he dies at the hands of the Halo. Oh, that’s where it becomes a superhero story when the bishop takes off his make-up to reveal he’s a younger masked hero named The Halo, who put the villain in the nuthouse to begin with. This time he knocks him off a cliff during a fight after the baddie has already done his murders. George, choose a path and stick to it. At least this didn’t involve radios this time.
So this was…something I read. TL;DR: “Meh” was the best reaction you could get out of the tales presented this issue.
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