This issue’s true crime story: the peeping tom!
Blue Beetle #54
Fox Features Syndicate (March, 1948)
Unless Joan suddenly went redhead (as a redhead…fan, I’m not complaining) we have another cover that doesn’t feature the Blue Beetle or his cast. The first story does involve nudity I guess, so you could count that. Still, I’m wondering if this is that time period in the Golden Age where superheroes started going out of style, after the end of World War II? I don’t have dates on when that downturn started, only for the Silver Age to restore superheroes to their usual status in the comic book world.
What I do know is that this superhero comic for the past few issues has sold itself more for the true crime back-up than the superhero, and that feels like lying on a technicality to me. Three stories, two of which have a superhero, so let’s get going.
“The Vanishing Nude”
I’m going to pick on the opening narration for a moment, since someone forgot that Dan doesn’t just fight crime as the Blue Beetle but also as Dan Garrett (still two “t”s), eternal rookie patrolman. He’s still a crimefighter, but I think among the many thing this comic forgets (like how many “t”s are in Dan’s last name), it’s the idea that Dan should only become the Blue Beetle when it’s a crime the police aren’t equipped for, or there’s too much “red tape” involved. Why does a sculptor kill the nude model after he finished sculpting her? The answer feels forced in, like Otis didn’t have an answer until the last minute. Mike is almost an afterthought in this story and I don’t know why he’s here. Admittedly the villains’ plan turns out to be clever, but everything else feels so unnecessary. I think he did this just to have a chase scene in a fun house.
“House Of A Thousand Corpses”
So…stuff happens. The plot, what there is of it before it becomes just a bunch of fighting, is that some guy wants to buy an old lady’s hotel, knowing the interstate will soon come through her area. With a mortuary convention in town (though we only see one mortician), the crooks get the idea of killing a bunch of people and putting them in coffins (like the one Dan TAKES…A…NAP…INSIDE), wanting the lady to get blamed…somehow. It’s another story that exists for a fight and not much else, and I’m still not sure how the crook hung himself with a rope he was supposed to put around his foot.
Before we go to the final story, this one page strip, supposedly about women in other countries, is highly suspect. Having a semi-enough-to-still-count racist depiction of a Sumatra women in the supposedly latest headdress just makes it worse.
Victor Gelson: “The Murdering Showoff”
The story of a guy who turned criminal to buy things for his girl, only for that girl to rat him out after he and his three pals end up killing a cop. It’s an okay story, but considering the competition this issue that’s not exactly a high compliment. I do want to know why the police were hiding their guns at a high school unguarded for Vic and company could swipe them just by beating up a security guard. That seems kind of dumb even by 1940s standards.
overall
I’m actually missing the strange adventures with real life kids. They were dumb but it didn’t seem so bad compared to this. Also, look at what we have this issue, especially if you read along. The first story involves a nude model, the second has a man hanging himself and we see him hanging outside the window he fell out of. The final story has censored swearing, something I haven’t seen much if at all of previously, and a dude bleeding out the back and mouth. Are we sure this was still a kids’ superhero comic?
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