“Yesterday’s” Comic> The Blue Beetle #52

“Wow, your roof really does need fixing, lady.”

The Blue Beetle  #52

Fox Features Syndicate (January, 1948)

Well, this should be interesting. The last story isn’t about the Blue Beetle and his friends but Beetle does narrate it. Three “full-size” stories and Blue Beetle is only in two of them. Not sure how I feel about that, given that at one point I was certain Holyoke was trying to push Blue Beetle out of his own comics.

If you’ve been reading along with the Comic Book+ links you may have noticed last week that the first inside page had no color except for blue. The same happens this issue, and I’m wondering if that happened in the actual issues, the scans, or if blue was the only color not to fade. I hope this doesn’t turn into an ongoing problem.

One more item: next week The Blue Beetle reviews will be moving to Fridays, as part of the beginning restructure of BW article posting as I slowly run out of comics to review in the “Yesterday’s” Comic format and rather than replace them, try to come up with a way to free time to do other projects in addition to BW. So if you’re here to see me complain about some dude named Otis ruining what used to be a good comic, mark your calendar accordingly.

[Read along with me here]

“The Fiddling Crooks” by Otis

Dan buys ice cream for the kids in the neighborhood and his friends, but one of the bars was secretly passing a coded message to unlock the bank vault. Using music notes from a fiddle rather than numbers was clever, but somehow the bad guys found out and copied the notes down. Too bad. Also too bad is how the Blue Beetle comes off in this story. He gets knocked out with the mini music sheet on him, so he gives them what they want, has to steal a guy’s car and wreck it to stop the villains, and he still sucks at coming up with an excuse for Dan Garret’s absence. Why does this guy keep getting the writing gigs every issue?

“Twas The Night Before Christmas” by Otis again

Otis can’t even remember Dan’s last name has one “T’. I’d also like to know just when Dan and Joan became a couple. It’s Christmas and long story short, Joan gets caught up in a scheme to rob street Santas, rival mobsters, and the Blue Beetle taking a kid’s sled in a rather silly way of stopping the main crook. It’s a comedy of errors…minus the comedy.

“Murder, Incorporated”

Question: why does Dan have to change into his Blue Beetle outfit after one panel just to tell a supposed “true crime” story? Just have Dan do it or have him already in his Blue Beetle costume when he breaks the fourth wall to play narrator. It’s the story of Frank Nash, who apparently had a longer career than the comic tells us…also, he was a bigamist as well as a train and bank robber. Enough of the story checks out though. It’s the closest thing to an interesting story this issue.

overall

I don’t know who this “Otis” is but the sooner he’s off the comic the better. The continuity is falling apart, the stories have good plots but failed execution, and I’m not sure how this comic lasted as long as it did. When your best story is an uncredited “true crime” story narrated by the Blue Beetle, maybe it’s time to rethink your approach. I’m not surprised Fox Features never reached the heights of National Comics/DC Comics, who would buy the characters from the company Fox will eventually sell them to, kill Dan off after a total re-imagining, and give us Ted Kord, while DC killed him to bring him Jaime Reyes. Dan Garret deserves better than this.