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Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Captain Comics

The Blue Beetle story may have a chapter or two left

By Andrew A. Smith / Scripps Howard News Service

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I've always maintained that every character, no matter how lame, is somebody's favorite -- which, I've come to discover, includes the late Blue Beetle.

Some of you may be asking, "What? How did Blue Beetle die?" But most of you, I suspect, are asking, "Who the heck is Blue Beetle?"

I'm so glad you asked.

Dan "Blue Beetle" Garrett first appeared in the back pages of "Mystery Men Comics" No. 1 in 1939, by Fox Features Syndicate. This generic superhero leaped full-blown into four pages of crime-fighting action with zero backstory or explanation. All we knew at the time was that he had bulletproof chain mail (like the later Shining Knight), a reporter girlfriend (as with Superman), a secret ID as a policeman (like Black Hood) and a ripped-off name (think Green Hornet).

And for reasons I still find inexplicable, this completely unoriginal character became a hit. He took over the lead spot in "Mystery Men," received his own title in the winter of '39 and gained a short-lived radio show in 1940.

And along the way he also acquired the usual complement of early Superman powers (super-strength, invulnerability, etc.) from something called "Vitamin 2X." This was poorly explained, too, but never you mind -- "Blue Beetle" stuck around until 1948, long after most wartime superhero books had been canceled. Still, after a brief revival in 1950, Fox went under, and the Beetle was no more.

Temporarily. Like a roach, the Beetle was hard to kill. A company named Charlton Comics bought the character and trotted out some Beetle reprints in 1955 (that went nowhere). Undeterred, Charlton launched a (mostly) new Blue Beetle in 1964 -- wherein Garrett was suddenly an archaeologist and gained his super-powers from a mystical Egyptian scarab instead of Vitamin 2X.

Which lasted all of two years.

Still undeterred -- and at this point you have to wonder why -- Charlton allowed writer-artist Steve Ditko (fresh from co-creating some character called Spider-Man) to have his way with the concept. In 1966, Ditko launched an all-new Blue Beetle, a masked acrobat and inventor named Ted Kord, who fought crooks in a style uncomfortably similar to Spider-Man's, and who flew around in a big bug-shaped airship with a funky new costume and a bunch of scientific gimmicks. (Garrett, it was explained, was now dead and his scarab lost.) Blue Beetle II managed five issues of his own title ... until Charlton collapsed in the late '60s.

Seeing a pattern here? Anyway, the new, hip Beetle and the old, dead Beetle (plus all the other Charlton characters) changed hands again -- this time moving to venerable DC Comics. Which re-introduced the Ditko version of the Beetle in 1985 in a special miniseries called "Crisis on Infinite Earths" -- whereupon BB spun off into his own book once again.

Which -- wait for it -- was canceled after a couple of years.

This was hardly surprising, given that this masked acrobat with a lot of cool toys was now competing at a company famous for a more popular masked acrobat with a lot of cool toys: Batman. Once again, Blue Beetle was looking like a pale rip-off of another character.

But by this time, the Beetle was ensconced firmly in the Justice League. You'd think he'd be even more superfluous there, with Batman already a major Leaguer. And you'd be right. But this actually worked out well, since writers had stumbled on the idea of characterizing Ted Kord as a guy who was aware that he was derivative (and faintly ridiculous). Surrounded by other B-level, misfit heroes in lighthearted adventures, the new, played-for-laughs Blue Beetle finally had a unique niche.

And so it came as quite a shock earlier this year when he was killed off in a spectacularly unfunny way. You see, DC Comics has embarked on a gi-humongous, company-wide storyline that is marching through most of its superhero titles throughout 2005 -- and probably beyond. And to kick it off in whiz-bang fashion, and to add drama and motivation, an 80-page special called "Countdown to Infinite Crisis" put a bullet through Blue Beetle's head.

Poor Ted Kord. His tombstone will probably read "death by plot device." Which will likely stand right next to Dan Garrett's tombstone, which probably reads the same way.

And this resulted in an unexpected outpouring of grief from Blue Beetle fans -- fans I didn't know existed. (Given Blue Beetle's sales, you can't fault DC for not knowing, either.)

But to those fans I say: Remember my roach analogy. Blue Beetle has survived umpty-ump origins, a couple of defunct publishers and a host of lousy stories. And he's a valuable trademark. I predict an all-new, all-different Blue Beetle III by 2006 at the latest.

Which, like Dan Garrett and Ted Kord, will inevitably become somebody's favorite character.

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