“Yesterday’s” Comic> Blue Beetle #53

Come on, even Holyoke put the Beetle prominent on the cover and they seemed to be trying to ditch the character.

Blue Beetle #53

Fox Feature Syndicate (February, 1948)

Seriously, who designed this cover? Kids looking for an image of the Blue Beetle fighting crime will see this true crime type cover and unless they catch the title and see Dan in the small bubble won’t know it’s a Blue Beetle cover. Unless that’s supposed to be Dan tying a woman up. I mean, what he and Joan…never mind. Let’s get on with our two Blue Beetle stories and a true crime story.

[Read along with me here or for some reason here]

I’m not sure what the difference is between the two versions outside of the download format, which from Comic Book + you can only due if you sign up. As if I’d want a copy of Otis’ terrible Blue Beetle adventures.

“Murder On Strange Street”

Apparently the Daily Planet is now the Daily Banner, though given how terrible this run has remembered things down to spelling Dan’s last name, what powers he has, and how he got them, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s another mistake. Although somehow they brought out the old calling card tiny beetle thing instead of the spotlight symbol. I wonder if National Comics had words with them as well? The story…is oddly good for one with “Otis” as the sole credit. Crooks take over for fake movie crooks, planning to use a fake movie robbery to commit an actual crime. Dan’s excuse to be left out is still lame but compared to what we’ve seen the story was actually a decent read, if not otherwise kind of bland.

“Suicide For Sale”

The mistakes continue. Now MIKE is a rookie policeman as well. Why? Don’t know. It is, however, more of what I expect around this time…sadly. The plot has alleged suicide victims all connected by a woman who hired them to deliver part of a series of plans for a new bank vault…and it just gets confusing from there. We have a crazy old man out of nowhere, the suicides are murders, there’s an exploding clock…I’m not completely sure what happened in this story.

Jack “Legs” Diamond: Scorpion Of Crime

Our true crime story in which Dan again breaks the fourth wall but has to change into the Blue Beetle to narrate this story. I fear this is going to be a trend. He also ends by going back to his police uniform to go to headquarters. In between is the story of Jack Diamond, earning the nickname “Legs” because he could run fast in his early days and distract the cops. It doesn’t matter in the rest of the story since what he actually avoids is the Grim Reaper, getting shot multiple times by rival gangs until they finally decided to make sure he was dead. This did nothing for me one way or another.

overall

One good story, one “meh” story, with one “bleh” story in the middle. Not really a fan of this one.