At this point I’m fully expecting this to be a time travel story.
The Blue Beetle #46
Fox Feature Syndicate (July, 1947)
Except it’s isn’t, or at least not what I had to use. For whatever reason (these are very old comics) Comic Book Plus uses the right cover but gets the stories from reprinted adventures in 1963’s Human Fly #10, published by Super Comics. It even includes the reprint’s cover after the one we’re expecting. They’re the same story, and only three adventures.
Two of them will feature The Blue Beetle while the third is a character called The Puppeteer. What was and wasn’t in the actual comic? I couldn’t tell you. Still, this is what we have to go with, so that’s what we’re reviewing today.
The Unlucky Wishbone
In the version we’re reading from the story opens without a title, but it’s the one listed in the site credits and Grand Comic Database. At an auction a man buys a supposedly lucky wishbone dirt cheap even for 1940s prices, and it turns out to be very lucky…until he’s murdered. The wishbone’s real power must be convenience. How did Blue Beetle know that after saving the rich guy he and Mike were protecting that Mr. Shy, the wishbone’s buyer, was also in trouble? How did he tied it back to the auctioneer so quickly just because of the red hair? And if the cop car has a top how were Dan and Mike tossed into the air when the bad guys’ car crashed into theirs? It’s a big case of “because the plot said so” and it’s a very weak story. Also, we’re still back to Mike trying to arrest the Blue Beetle. Guess he only hates the Beetle when he has his accent. I miss his mustache.
The Toga Terror
The copy being used has Otis as the writer (never a good sign) but it looks like someone wrote it on the comic page with a ballpoint pen. GCD seems to think it’s him, so we’ll go with that theory. Also, Dan gets the double Ts in his last name for this one. And I called it: time travel! Joan is riding with Dan and Mike (I have heard of journalists riding with the police and Joan is practically dating them and Dennis at this point) when they spot a man in a toga, claiming to come from the past in a beam of light. Sure enough he goes back with the same beam, with Mike and Joan dragged in with him, so the Blue Beetle follows. And so our trio joins in the fight against the ancient Roman tyrant Dablo. I’ll leave that to you historians and tell you this story is…better than the last one. If this is an Otis story, that’s the best you can hope for.
The Puppeteer: “The Adventure Of The False Rajah”
You’re reading along with me, right? You see the costume I do? American flag motif, big V on his chest, eagle sidekick…what part of that screams puppets! Don’t get political on me, you know what I mean! It’s an okay costume but it doesn’t fit the name at all, has no mask, rides a “v-beam” to fly, and apparently he transforms by playing Beethoven’s Fifth on a piano in our hero’s puppet workshop. Sure, Alan Hale actually does make puppets, and his eagle, named Raven for some reason, can talk…wait, that’s supposed to be a RAVEN? And nobody cares that he can talk? The hell? Sense just went on vacation but still…anyway, story. Fake Rajah, thieves after diamonds. It could be an okay story if anything about this character was thought out.
final thoughts
If these really were the stories from this issue, we might have been better off not having this issue. Again, we don’t really know what was properly reprinted but what I saw didn’t impress me. Hopefully the next issue was found and scanned intact.
BW Media Spotlight 