When DC Entertainment dropped their Blue Beetle movie with Jaime Reyes, I got the idea to look at the previous versions of the Blue Beetle before DC acquired the character…and really screwed him over before Jaime was even a concept. Created by someone using a pseudonym shared with three different creators (one of them Jack Kirby, but I don’t he was involved–I’m just going by ComicVine’s file on Charles Nicholas Wojtkowski) the Dan Garret that first appeared in the pages of Mystery Men Comics was not the same Dan Garrett from Charlton Comics, and I don’t just mean the extra “t”. He would be replaced in Charlton by Ted Kord, and this the version that was Blue Beetle in the DC Universe.
Starting with Fox Features, then Holyoke Publishing, then back to Fox Features, and finally Charlton, the hero known as Blue Beetle has undergone some big changes as we reviewed their many any adventures before DC picked them up. Some were good, some were bad, and some had about as much interest in character accuracy as Marvel Studio today. Let’s take one last trip through the history of the Dans and Ted. You can catch up by looking up the reviews on this site, including posting Linkara’s “Blue Skying” retrospective of all the Blue Beetles. I’ve run out of public domain reprints at Comic Book Plus. I have not read the Americomics appearance because it’s not public domain as far as I’m aware, or at least Comic Book Plus doesn’t have it.
What follows is a brief overview of each period and my thoughts on it since reading it. Spoiler for the article: this series peaked early.
Dan Garret: The First Fox Years
Originally appearing in the anthology Mystery Men Comics alongside heroes like The Flame, this is proof that good superhero origins and powers don’t have to be complicated. It’s a simple story, and the one used for the Blue Beetle radio dramas. (If you like audiodramas, I do recommend checking them out. A bit dated at times but they made my walks more interesting. I’ve seen the same street since I was a child, so there’s nothing exciting there.) Dr. Franz created a special Vitamin, Vitamin 2X (patent pending), which he uses to save the life of his friend Dan Garret, a rookie patrolman shot by bad guys. The vitamin speeds up his healing because science used to work that way, but also gave him enhanced strength. I’m guessing that’s why they kept it to themselves, because you don’t want to risk the wrong people getting superstrength. They also created a few gadgets and an armored costume made of bulletproof chainmail. As the Blue Beetle, Dan’s costume underwent a number of design changes before settling on one.
Rounding out the supporting cast, we have Mike Mannigan, Dan’s partner on the force and former partner of Dan’s father, a cop who died from his shooting. Mike had a stereotypical Irish accent, the hardness of which depended on the writer at the time. He wanted to take down the Blue Beetle for interfering with police matters, even though the Beetle saved the day. Because every superhero needed a reporter friend in the 1940s, Dan also gained Joan Mason, a pretty girl reporter that was basically Lois Lane if she were allowed a bit more competency back then, but she still had to be saved by Blue Beetle now and then despite being more cautious than her colleague. The newspaper’s name would change many times over the various incarnations, one of them even being Daily Planet. In the radio show she’d be replaced with the commissioner’s daughter, and while Joan seemed more like a platonic friend in these days, Mary Donnelly clearly wanted to get cuffed to Dan, while still thinking the Beetle was a great guy. Yes, a love interest who favored the secret identity instead of the hero. That’s a rarity.
No supervillains in those days, but there were plenty of crooks, mobsters, cheats, and revenge seekers for our hero to fight against. Dr. Franz provided him the vitamin, which was phased out of the comic, and was also a gadget tinkerer. The radio drama specifically made use of his “magic ring”, which had no actual magic but was a mini laser that also made a noise the hero would use as his calling card. In the comics he would use a small beetle figurine as a calling card, and his flashlight would flash his symbol as well. These were my favorite stories of the character. Simple but effective, as Dan ran over crooks and ran from his partner in the pursuit of justice. My only annoyance was that the solo comic was still an anthology. Maybe you get two Blue Beetle stories sandwiching other character I didn’t care about, like “Spark” Stevens. Speaking of “spark”…
The Holyoke Years And Sparky/Spunky
When Fox Syndicate got into financial trouble, their printing company took over the characters for a while. While they seem to have published a few leftover Fox stories, they would end up making their own, and the quality drop is rather obvious. Dan starts getting new, random powers, knocked out way too easy despite wearing a chainmail helmet, and then there’s Sparky. Or Spunky. Sparkington J. Northrup was sent to the US to be safe during the Nazi attacks on England, and happened to see Dan change into the Blue Beetle outfit. And so he did what any kid would do…blackmail Dan into letting him become his sidekick! Yes, this is how Blue Beetle got his own Robin despite not needing one. Batman got Robin to lighten the comic for the benefit of younger readers, but Blue Beetle wasn’t a darker comic. He didn’t do a lot outside of save our hero maybe twice. Again, he was blackmailing the hero to bring him on!!!! Plus his nickname in both identities was “Sparky”, and when the hero name became “Spunky” for some reason, so did the alter ego’s nickname. That’s Bucky Barnes levels of not trying to come up with a new name.
Luckily, Sparunky was also phased out as Dan himself went to war. Going to work for military intelligence, Dan once ripped off Adolph Hitler’s mustache…on his first assignment, no less…to send to a new friend just as he learned Hitler was actually a demon if not Satan himself. It was a weird time, folks. He also got so bad at maintaining a secret identity that I’m surprised Mike didn’t figure it out, despite his descent into brainless comic relief that would continue into the next phase of the series. The government seemed to know, the Nazis knew well enough to make a fake Blue Beetle, and of course some kid who had only been in the country a day figured it out almost immediately. On the plus side, with Dan only showing up back home when he was on break to fight normal criminals, Joan stepped up as a crimefighter. Not in her own costume but as an investigative journalist getting her own stories. Without Dan she relied on Mike or another officer, but she was the one solving mysteries and saving the day. Way to go, Joan!
Oh yeah, I should mention that Blue Beetle got a recurring villain for a short time named Dinsby Dillmore. There, I mentioned him. Let’s never speak of him again!
The second Fox Features run
Eventually Fox Features got the licence back, rebranding as Fox Features Publication, I was really hoping to see this series go back to being good. It didn’t. The one-shot powers still happened, Dan could fly now because Superman was out there, Joan lost her feature for awhile, Mike went full goofball, and Dr. Franz had long since vanished from the series during the Holyoke period. Apparently Victor Fox couldn’t get the writers and artists he had before back and Holyoke let them go, so what we got were some weird paranormal stories at times, a very annoying serial about invaders from Saturn that just wasn’t very interesting, and even the regular crook stories weren’t up to the original run’s quality.
They also tried this bit for awhile where kids could write in and the winners would appear in issues of the comic. This sounds good in theory, but in execution this did not work out. The in-universe explanation should have been “these kids happen to be tied to the adventure and we have to let them be part of events”. Instead it was “Blue Beetle sets up a secret office that Joan finds rather easily so she could be in on it, Blue Beetle selects letters from kids to find the kids who will join him on a fun adventure (doxxing them along the way), and then ending up getting them into peril because the plans kept going…well, they ended up in the past once. There was the land that time forgot, I think an alien or crook or two, and it was usually something our hero didn’t plan for. Eventually they realized having the hero take kids on dangerous assignments was a bad idea and dropped the feature, and nothing of value was lost.
Fox would go out of business for good since it wasn’t tied to the motion picture company of the same name, and that would have been the end for our hero’s adventures if not for a new publishing company who bought and relaunched the series.
The short Charlton run–the last of 1″t” Dan Garret
When Charlton Comics first got their hands on the character, it was a mix of what came before. For four issues, Dan’s revolving power set was back but so was Dr. Franz (renamed Dr. Hanz for some reason) and Joan’s solo adventures, where Dan would help without his powers and costume. Mike went back and forth between finally accepting Blue Beetle as an ally and still being convinced that he was a crook. No return for Sparky/Spunky. That would be the last we’d see of Dan G-a-double r-e-single t until later creators took advantage of his public domain status.
Well, not quite. Dan Garret (single “t”) is public domain, as is his supporting cast, including Sparkington, but the trademark for Blue Beetle and the double “t” Dan Garrett are still owned by DC Comics. This has led to his being renamed, or stories focusing on his daughter, Danielle, as Beetle Girl. Rights issues are a weird situation. For the most part, this era of Blue Beetle is lost, and that’s because after this, Charlton decided on a total re-imagine of the character.
The Charlton Blue Beetle Reimagine
This the version DC never made but still keeps canon thank to Ted’s story. Everything you know about our hero, now officially going with two “t”s, went out the window. Now Dan Garrett is an archeologist who occasionally dabbles in other sciences so his colleagues can come to him for advice and other help. On one expedition, Dan finds a scarab that whisks him to meet a pharaoh, who states Dan was chosen to become the next Blue Beetle, Captain Shazam style. By holding the scarab and calling out Kaji Dah, he transformed into the Blue Beetle. Now he gained all kinds of superpowers and fought supernatural or superscience evils.
Dan was also terrible at maintaining a secret identity. I mean Power Rangers levels of secret identity fails. It seemed like every villain he had was aware of his dual identity and sought to keep him from transforming. Yet somehow the general populace and even most of his one-shot love interests (note I said “most”) never knew they were the same guy. The stories were…okay, but just weren’t as enjoyable for me as the original Fox run. Apparently it didn’t do Charlton any favors, either, because soon he was replaced by…
The final Charlton run: Rise Of Ted Kord
Charlton decided to replace Dan altogether and create their own character. I mean, they practically did with their reimagine, but now they really wanted to use the name and not the Dan. Dan would be killed on a mission to stop Ted Kord’s evil uncle, this being another example of people of every science running to Dan for help without knowing he had magic scarab superpowers. Wishing to honor the man who helped stop his uncle’s robot army, Ted assumed the name himself, but without access to the scarab he opted for gadgets like his blinding light gun and flying mobile headquarters, the Bug.
The early issues had Ted trying to prove his innocence to a pushy detective and even his love interest lab assistant, Tracey. Eventually, events happened that somehow cleared Ted and he was ready to take on his own villains, only one of which has made an impact in the DC years, the Madmen. At least they aren’t Dilby…no, we swore not to speak of him again! It was at this time that Charlton folded and DC would get the characters after a short appearance in Americomics with other Charlton heroes. Again, I haven’t read it. From there, he would end up in the hands of DC Comics and Warner Brothers. How did that go?
The legacy
Oh. Yeah….
Ted Kord only had two really stand out depictions. In Justice League America Ted still has his own science company from Charlton, Kord Industries, and yet still joined Booster Gold in get rich quick schemes because both were written as annoying goofballs. The other you see above, as nobody took Ted seriously during the events of Countdown To Infinite Crisis when he tried to get help from his “friends” in finding out who was trying to rob his company and stole the Kryptonite from his vault he kept away from Superman. Oracle helped a bit out of pity but she was even useless, while Booster was unreachable on vacation.
They really should have been less obnoxious to him (but this was DiDio’s Darker DC, where it didn’t take the New 52 to ruin our heroes, but it helped) because he uncovered Maxwell Lord’s heel turn and tried to stop him. It got him shot in the head execution style by Lord, and I’m surprised there isn’t a story where Booster told everyone what to do with themselves, especially Batman as he was the biggest jerk of the bunch since it was his company being used by Lord to rob Ted while Batman was too busy proving George Lopez right about Batman being a fascist. It was a horrible way to go, and by treating Ted like dirt, even Superman got what he deserved by being turned into a mind-controlled killer, Diana ruining her rep by snapping Maxwell’s neck, and nobody prepared for Batman to cover the world in killer robots because he was mad at the other heroes (justified in anger but not in reaction).
I’ve heard that Ted got resurrected in the various multiverse shenanigans and now serves as Jaime’s mentor, but at this point it’s harder and harder to care about DC’s current content, and as a DC fan from age 7 that’s not something I like saying.
Blue Beetle, a legacy of heroes that deserved better than it got. Dan’s best years were under the original run, then he got replaced with a namesake, and then a character who never truly got to be as good as the original. It’s a real shame. Reread those original Fox Features Syndicate comics, folks. It’s a great example of why it’s call the “Golden Age” of comics. Luckily I’ll get to read some more when the remaining issues of Mystery Men Comics end up on my Friday Comic Book Plus “pull list”.
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