For many of us comic fans, there are two Blue Beetles we’re aware of. Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle, and Jaime Reyes, the third and current (as of this article) Blue Beetle. There may be awareness of the first Blue Beetle, Egyptologist Dan Garrett, but by the time DC Comics purchased the Charlton heroes he was long gone, mere backstory for Ted and for Jaime’s scarab.
What you may not have known was that there was a fourth Blue Beetle, the original version of Dan Garret (note the one less “T”). I knew him from three sources: Linkara’s “Blue-Sky” retrospective on the character dating back to his earliest appearances to his most recent at the time of the retrospective’s completion (I think it was still during the New 52), the old radio dramas I had started listening to on my walks, and during my suffering through Seduction Of The Innocent where comic hater Fredrick Wertham actually thought Dan turned into a giant beetle to fight crime because somehow the child therapist couldn’t translate the words of a child. That’s a summer that I and those of you who joined me in reviewing that insult to non-fiction will never get back, and I apologize to both of us.
On the other hand, I learned that some of those older comics are in public domain and thus websites could legally post them. So using Comic Book Plus (a better “plus” than most streaming services) I delved into the early adventures of Dan Garret, rookie patrolman, in coordination with the movie based on his namesake that kind of does turn into a giant bug man. I started with his original 1940s appearances in Mystery Men Comics, which I am considering going back and finishing but at the time I opted to jump straight into his solo comic…which was still an anthology like the comic he came out of for awhile, then got sold to another company, then went back to the original company, and then went to Charlton who did four comics with that concept and cast before doing the total re-imagine we know today and will be getting into in the Friday verison of “Yesterday’s” Comic.
As “Yesterday’s” Comic says good-bye to Officer Garret and his friends and before saying hello to the archeologist Dan Garrett and his friends, I wanted to look back on the forgotten history of the Blue Beetle and see what we missed out on, and what went wrong as the series went on. This isn’t a deep retrospective, just me going over my afterthoughts on the whole series up to this point and the Beetle that continuity forgot, plus what if any legacy came from it. Watch the video I linked to earlier for a closer retrospective on all the bearers of the Blue Beetle mantle. This is the highlights.
Dan Garret made his debut in the pages of the anthology Mystery Men Comics, published by Victor Fox’s Fox Features Publications. While originally resembling the Green Hornet’s costume, it would slowly evolve into the chainmail armor outfit we know today, at least for de-canonized Dan. The backstory kind of got scattered around between his solo comic, but here’s the combined history.
Dan’s mom died of illness at an early age, leaving his police officer father to raise him solo. While Dan was away at college, Dan’s father would be shot and he came home just in time to say good-bye to his father. After college, Dan joined the police force and worked alongside his father’s old partner, Mike Mannigan. To get revenge on the men who killed his dad, Dan took up the costumed identity of the Blue Beetle, and would continue fighting criminals the cops couldn’t catch with the help of Doctor Franz, who owned an apothecary shop, essentially a drug store before the modern pharmacies, who would help Dan create gadgets and maintain his bulletproof chainmail armor, though apparently it couldn’t handle all the knocks to the head the Blue Beetle would get. Dude could rival Hal Jordan for how often he got knocked out by head trauma. Franz also invented Vitamin 2X, which would give Dan superstrength and a quicker recovery time, but it would be the radio drama that gave that an origin story rather than the comics. Franz tested the formula on Dan to save his life after being shot, with the enhanced strength and recovery time being a side effect.
Over the years and various publishers, Blue Beetle would get more powers as the writers between the original Fox run, the later Holyoke run as Victor Fox tried to work things out with creditors, and the second Fox run as Fox Features Syndication couldn’t keep track on what powers he had, or didn’t care and just broke out a power the story needed. The ones that stuck were superstrength, flight, “electronic hearing” (which could be another gadget), and X-Ray vision. During the Holyoke run Dan would have a sidekick for a few issues before joining US Intelligence to join in the war on the Nazis, including learning Hitler was a demon before ripping his mustache off to send to a guy he met on a train. Yes, this happened, and while it wasn’t the first time he dealt with the paranormal (sadly not the last if you remember my reviews of the Saturn criminals “serial”) he mostly fought criminals but also fought the Nazis in World War II
It’s too bad the comics seemed to go downhill as the series went on. The first Fox run was okay more often than not but suffered from its page space as they kept it anthology style with multiple stories per issue, even sharing his book with other characters at times. That was how the Golden Age rolled. Holyoke was also when the inconsistencies in Dan’s powers really came into play as nobody seemed to keep track of what powers or tools the Blue Beetle had, just giving him whatever they wanted him to have for the sake of the story. I was hoping that would change when Fox got the rights back but I guess he couldn’t get the good writers back, and thus the stories suffered much of the same problems as during the Holyoke run. Near the end things got better, Doctor Franz even returning for a few issues under the name Kranz before disappearing forever. Having gotten use to Dan and Franz’s discussions at the start of each radio show story, that disappoints me. The radio show is really good, but we’ll get into that tomorrow.
Dan have other people helping him. The aforementioned Mike Mannigan was his dad’s old partner and until the Charlton short run, Charlton Comics buying the characters when Fox Features Syndicate shut down for good, they got along really well. For some reason the Charlton writer for the four issues they had with him decided that Mike loved picking on rookies, and Dan somehow was a bit more incompetent despite being a rookie for years, never showing incompetence before, and the Blue Beetle still helping out US Intelligence after the war. Presumably they also knew his secret identity as even the Nazis seemed aware of it. See what I mean about Holyoke’s writers and returning Fox writers not really understanding the character? Mike was a good cop, only going after the Blue Beetle for being a vigilante, but would work with him and seemed to be gaining respect for him and even eventually accepting him as an ally like the rest of the force, until that was tossed out again. Poor Mike. Some stories had him a decent cop while others made him look like a buffoon.
Then there’s Joan Mason, a reporter for a newspaper that had a few different names, one of them being Daily Planet. There was also the Daily Register and that’s my favorite, but I was also never sure what city this took place in. Joan would be popular enough that she would eventually have her own solo feature in the pages of Blue Beetle, working with other cops or with Mike to investigate a crime, but not Dan as that would have brought in the Blue Beetle. There were times when Dan couldn’t seen to fight crime without his alter ego despite being a cop. Joan and Mike also appeared in the radio show, but Joan would have a rival in the form of the commissioner’s daughter. While Joan favored Blue Beetle, even going on adventures when the comic had kids write in for a contest to be featured in a Blue Beetle story, the daughter in the radio show was more into Dan Garret, though with the radio episodes I’ve gotten through thus far nothing really came of it, and Joan didn’t appear nearly as often as she did in the comics. She would eventually be romantically paired with Dan because even in their love life they weren’t consistent. Joan also had three different hair colors as the series went on.
Then there’s…sigh…Sparkington J. Northrup, an American kid adopted by a British lord who sent him back to America to escape the Blitz. Sparky, as he was nicknamed, would find Dan unmasked and basically blackmailed him into becoming his sidekick, taking the Bucky Barnes approach by using his known nickname as his hero name, later changed to Spunky possibly to avoid an connection to Spark Stevens, and I can understand that. I wouldn’t want to be connected to Spark Stevens either, though at least the Holyoke stories there were less dumb than the Fox stories. Still dumb, but for less dumb reasons. Sparky/Spunky would eventually disappear without explanation but unlike Franz/Kranz would never be seen again, and that’s okay with me. He’s only sidekick I won’t defend. He was only there because of the success of Robin and Bucky but never really seemed to fit in like they did. Of course, Bucky was pretty much there from the start and Batman needed the balance and someone to talk to. Dan already enough supporting cast close to one or both identities to play off of.
Blue Beetle didn’t have a lot of recurring enemies, and what he had won’t be missed by not making the transfer to new versions. Mostly fighting criminal syndicates and Nazis, Blue Beetle did hit the occasional bit of paranormal and an really annoying “villain” in a zoot suit that sadly showed up twice. He’s so annoying I don’t remember his name and I’m okay with that. You’ll find him in my reviews. There weren’t a lot of science fiction elements beyond some of Dan’s gadgets and the Vitamin 2X, plus the inconsistent power set. I would have been happy with just the enhanced strength and gadgets myself.
So what legacy would Dan leave behind? Sadly not much of one since he was replaced by a namesake with a totally new backstory, which spawned Ted Kord, and this would be the version DC Comics would take up after the original Charlton Comics folded. (There’s a new namesake Charlton Comics that started up recently but I’ve only heard of them at local comic conventions. I live in Connecticut and it was a Connecticut comic company, so there’s history in that name for local comic historians.) Dan is the only one to survive to the new incarnation but with an entirely new life and origin, plus an extra T to his name that will be a relief to my spellcheck. It grumbles about the one T but I don’t get the red line at least.
The closest he’d have to a legacy is Beetle Girl, created for Lucky Comics. Since the original version is in public domain because Charlton had no interest in protecting it even when they existed, Dan could be used. However, because DC has the copywrite on the name, they went with Dan’s daughter, Dani Garret. My theory is Joan is the mother, but that hasn’t been stated on what I’ve read about her thus far, and from what I’ve seen she’s not doing a good job living up to her dad’s legacy. Check out the Lucky Comics Free Comic Book Day reviews to see what I mean.
Otherwise, this incarnation of the Blue Beetle has fallen into obscurity, and even his replacement is a footnote in the histories of Ted Kord and Jaime Reyes. We’ll get into those explanations as we move through the series, but it’s a shame the original Dan Garret, Mike Mannigan, Dr. Franz, and Joan Mason have vanished from canon, nothing more than trivia for die-hard comic fans curious about the Golden Age versions of their favorite superheroes and not much else. Under good writers, our quartet really had something good going, but their stories won’t be reprinted. Their tales will never be revisited. Their legend will never be known, and that’s a shame. I liked the comics for the most part until the stories went downhill, and I still really like the radio dramas. Lucky for us the internet has found a way to save these stories, though many of the second Fox run has been lost to time, tossed out by parents who saw comics as disposable entertainment and kids who grew up and moved past superheroes. So here’s to one “T” Dan Garret and his friends. You were a great idea who lost their way but what would come after wouldn’t exist without you. May time never truly forget any of you. Yes, even Spunky.
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