“Yesterday’s” Comic> The Blue Beetle #35

The day Mike Mulligan went crazy!

The Blue Beetle #35

Fox Features Publication (October, 1944)

Let’s see. During the second Fox run this title has been back and forth in quality. Two issues ago was good, last issue…was not. What fate awaits our blue-clad hero in this issue? I’m ignoring the O’Brine Twins because they’re annoying, but I will go over the multi-part stories (plural) from the previous issue. I can only hope part two of those two stories comes out better.

And according to Comic Book Plus this issue was distributed by Fawcett. I guess Holyoke wasn’t going to trust them again even after getting paid back and giving them Blue Beetle and friends again. Then again I’m not sure I want them involved after their run.

[Read along with me here]

“Sabotage On The Scrap Pile”

This is the story featuring the winners of last issue’s mail-in contest to be in a Blue Beetle comic. Most of us have to either become comic creators or know/piss off a comic creator to get that honor. So congratulations to Alvin, Esta, and David Kanigher. Those are the names as listed at Comic Book Plus, so I don’t know if they’re siblings or if David was the only one who got his last name in. (Trying reading the story and see if it says, idiot!) Okay, they’re siblings. Also, kid me would have enjoyed that soapbox car, but I did have a cool pedal fire engine as a younger kid.

Also, the comic is breaking the fourth wall, as the Blue Beetle leaves his office to answer the first of the letters asking to be in the comic, which Joan says is a first in the history of comics. Takes some of the fun out of it when Blue Beetle is literally hiring kids to do a comic adventure with him instead of them being drawn into a Blue Beetle adventure…figuratively as well as literally. And I hope David enjoyed being the butt of the joke all the time. When a crime ring loses an important document in the kids’ scrap paper collecting they do a poor job of hiding they’re bad guys. I can’t tell if Dan is using his sudden size-changing power again (just how strong IS that Vitamin X, Franz?) or if it’s bad perspective when Blue Beetle fights the steamshovel on the cover. The story is okay, but could have been better. Hope it made the kids happy to be part of, though. Even poor David.

“The Threat From Saturn” chapter 2: “The Blinding Ray”

This is our serial. We last left our hero who only flies when the story calls for it falling into the blades of Saturina and Gloat, now called THE Gloat. Why? Who cares? He survives by grabbing and snapping the spears and plunging into the ground. So they try using a giant prism and local thugs to…interfere with the war effort? Space Nazis? The cliffhanger has the duo about to run our heroes down with a truck full of TNT and I really hope this has a better resolution than King Of The Rocketmen.

Joan Mason: Reporter> “The Beauty Parlor Murders”

Hey, Dan gets to appear in one of Joan’s stories. No Blue Beetle, just Dan and Mike, so Dan actually gets to be a cop the full story. Joan’s trip to the beauty salon turns into going up against a dope smuggling ring. I’m not sure how they come up with the conclusions they did but otherwise it wasn’t a bad story.

Still not reviewing the O’Brine Twins story because I just don’t care and there are a lot of stories to go through. While spinning past them I did see them make a Superman radio show reference (the “it’s a bird, it’s a plane” part of the intro), which is weird. Why not reference the Blue Beetle radio drama?

“The Artist Who Painted Death”

A supposedly prophetic painter paints Mike getting hit by a pie and the death of three people. When the pie thing happens the Blue Beetle races to save the three people from their fates. It’s a pretty good story and did the mystery angle a bit better than Joan’s story this issue, though it doesn’t present clues very well. Mysteries are hard, which is why I don’t try. I’m not good at it, either. Also, can we just drop the bit about Mike wanting to arrest the Blue Beetle? It doesn’t even make sense anymore.

overall thoughts

An improvement over the previous issue (except for the serial). I hope the kids liked being in the comic and apparently we’ll be seeing this for a few issues, hopefully with less fourth wall breaking.