“Your tire need filling, mister?”
The Blue Beetle #25
Holyoke Publishing (September, 1943)
Well, two Blue Beetle stories, one actually starting the book. That’s something I guess but it’s why Golden Age comics are remembered for the stories themselves and not the presentation. I wouldn’t want to spend a whole dime (that’s a whopping $1.77 in today’s money, for a bigger comic with ads than you can get today for $4) on a comic and only enjoy two or three of the stories where are like eight to ten of them. I know, comics were still new and these were being published like any other story magazine (which seems to have disappeared long before the print media decline) but it’s often all I have to discuss before starting these anthologies and it’s a system I’m glad isn’t the norm anymore. One or two would be okay in certain situations but these weren’t it.
The Blue Beetle: “Deception” according to the Grand Comics Database, who wants to credit Gil Kane but isn’t sure
Dan pretends to be a Nazi agent…under his real name…to sneak into Japan, rescue a downed pilot during the bombings of cities the letterer clearly doesn’t know how to spell, and escape by capturing a Japanese sub. The dialog here is not very good. I don’t mean the Japanese speaking bad English. Even if this wasn’t war propaganda I’d expect that from the 1940s, but Dan and pilot Larry’s dialog is clunky and Dan has to do a lot of back and forth as the Blue Beetle to fight. It’s not good, it’s not bad, it’s just kind of mediocre, at least by modern standards.
The Devil’s Highway
In this Old West story, would-be prospectors travel through the “Superstitious Mountains” via the Devil’s Highway, but those darn Injuns have this funny notion to protect their land from trespassers and get the gold for themselves. Yeah, as presented I’m on the Native Americans’ side here since nobody seems to be evil so I’m going with the guys who actually live there.
Ali-Baba
Okay, pick a time period and stick to it, guys. We’ve left the Arabian Knights behind at this point. Ali starts a victory garden and takes them to market in a truck. This is after a previous story where Ali finds a tire in the water and notes cars weren’t invented yet. Now we have hijackers taking his victory garden veggies to sell on the black market, Ali buying a robot bloodhound to find them, and then giving his vegetables away to the people who rightly refused to support the black market. It’s not a bad comedic story on its own. I just want them to choose what this strip is supposed to be. No Murhad the donkey despite being his loyal companion, but also thankfully no nagging wife. Is this an Arabian Knights parody or not?
“Caught By Dusty Hands” by Montgomery Mulford as told to Geo Tukel
A rather short story in which a guard figures out which of a group of people tried to sabotage one of the plant machines during lights out. It’s okay. You get the gist of the story without overstaying its welcome. Is it true? I don’t know.
Crime Reporter
A couple of guys working at a defense plant use their location and a plane to rob banks miles away and avoid police roadblocks. Eventually they screw up and die thanks to a lucky shot at the plane. It’s actually an interesting idea but I want to know where they landed the plane without it being spotted and still have room to take off and land. Wait a few years and use a helicopter. I guess you can’t now that you’re dead.
The Blue Beetle: “The Left-Handed Killer” according to the Grand Comics Database
They keep finding ways to get Dan back to the city to do normal superhero work. This time the Intelligence bureau send him to help find a killer. How does Dan know he’s left-handed? Beats me. Things just seem to happen in this story with no connection between events. It’s just an excuse for Dan to hang out with Mike and Joan. At least Sparky’s gone.
Escape Of A French Girl as told to Geo Tukel
Why does this story open like a movie trailer of the period? When the Americans liberate French Africa (first I’ve heard of any of that, including a French Africa, presumably a French-owned area of Africa) from the Nazis, a young woman believes the Nazis will take it out on people in South France and with the help of a rich former horse smuggler and bribed Nazis (including a former “love” of the girl’s), manages to escape to Spain and then the US. It’s a pretty good story for the space allowed and there were times I was wrong about where it was going. I don’t know if this story is true either.
“The Case Of The Empty Envelope” as told to Geo Tukel by Montgomery Mulford
I don’t know who this Mulford guy is (a quick search didn’t help but I didn’t really go hunting) but he’s giving George here some work. This story has detective Peter Brave going over the story of how he found a killer. I don’t know if that bit about being able to pick up the impression of the paper underneath the one you wrote on works, but a lot of detective stories used to use that trick, and that’s the case with the envelope. I didn’t follow a lot of what happened because it doesn’t have time for all the follow throughs from sequence to sequence but it had potential to be a decent story.
The D’s To The Rescue
We sure this wasn’t meant to be comedy? A Nazi sub attacks a merchant ship and a US Destroyer moves to get survivors. One of the sub fires and ends up hitting the other sub, then gets blown up by naval depth charges. I guess this was to show the enemy as incompetent but it’s just kind of silly.
Netje, The Little Dutch Girl by Montgomery Mulford and Geo Tukel
They keep calling her a little girl but drawing her either as a teenager or an adult woman. Whatever she is, she’s darn good at messing with the Nazis invading her town in Holland. Poison cookies, various acts of personal sabotage…it sounds good but these are Nazis. If they didn’t find more ways to kill them off they’re going to shoot everybody just to prove a point…mainly that they’re in charge and that they’re evil. It was a fun story to watch though.
Overall…it’s hit and miss. Some stories were okay but not great. Others were just not that interesting. It’s not the worst issue. I didn’t hate of the stories but I wasn’t exactly wowed by them, either.
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