Blue Beetle
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The Blue Beetle is the name of three fictional comic book superheroes.
The original Blue Beetle, Dan Garrett, first appeared in Fox Comics' Mystery Men Comics #1 (Aug. 1939), with art by Charles Nicholas Wojtkowski (as Charles Nicholas), though the Grand Comics Database tentatively credits Will Eisner as the scripter.[1] A rookie police officer, he utilized special equipment, a strength-inducing vitamin, and the assistance of a neighborhood pharmacist to fight crime. He starred in a comic book series, comic strip and radio serial but, like most Golden Age superheroes, he fell into obscurity in the 1950s.
In the mid-1950s, Fox Comics went defunct and sold rights to the Blue Beetle to Charlton Comics. That company published a few sporadic adventures of the Golden Age character before revamping the hero in 1966. In Dan Garrett's revised origin, he was an archeologist who found a magical Egyptian artifact, resembling a scarab, to fight crime.
The new series was short-lived, and in 1967, Charlton introduced Ted Kord, a student of Dan Garrett's who took on the role when Garrett died. Kord was an inventor hero, using a variety of gadgets. With the rest of the Charlton line-up, he was sold to DC Comics in 1983 and appeared with several superhero groups, including the Justice League.
In 2006, DC introduced a third Blue Beetle, teenager Jaime Reyes whose powers are derived from the scarab, now revealed as a piece of advanced alien technology.
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[edit] Dan Garrett
[edit] Fox Feature Syndicate
The original Golden Age Blue Beetle was Dan Garret[2], son of a police officer killed by a criminal. This Fox version of the character debuted in Mystery Men Comics #1 (Aug. 1939), and began appearing in his own 60-issue series shortly thereafter.
Rookie patrolman Dan Garret had invented a bulletproof costume (described by Garret as being made of a chain-mail which was "as thin and light as silk"), and temporarily gained superhuman strength from ingesting the mysterious vitamin 2X.
The supporting cast remained fairly stable throughout this original run, and included Joan Mason, a crime reporter for the Daily Blade who would ultimately star in her own backup stories, and Mike Mannigan, Dan's stereotypically Irish partner on the force. Dr. Franz, a local pharmacist and inventor of the 2X formula, played a large role in the first few issues, but eventually faded from the cast.
A popular character of the era, he had his own short-lived comic strip, drawn by a pseudonymous Jack Kirby and others, and a radio serial that ran for 48 thirteen-minute episodes. When superheroes fell out of vogue in the late 1940s, Fox downplayed the Beetle's superheroic aspects (his superhuman abilities were removed) and eventually relegated him to a host for true crime stories before the character went on hiatus.
[edit] Charlton Comics
Charlton Comics obtained the rights to the Blue Beetle, and reprinted some stories in its anthology titles and in a four-issue Blue Beetle reprint series numbered 18-21.
During the genesis of the Silver Age of Comics, Charlton would revise Garret's character for a new Blue Beetle series. Charlton's new Blue Beetle retained the original's name, but none of his powers or origin. This Beetle was an archaeologist who obtained a number of superhuman powers (including enhanced strength, flight and the ability to generate lightning) from a mystical scarab he found during a dig in Egypt, where it had been used to imprison an evil mummified Pharaoh. He would transform into the Blue Beetle by saying the words "Kaji Dha!" This version by writer Joe Gill and artist Tony Tallarico was played at least initially for camp, with stories like "The Giant Mummy who was Not Dead".
Dan Garret would return briefly in the DC comics, when he was resurrected by his mystical scarab to battle against his successor. He can be seen in flashback stories.
[edit] Ted Kord
The second Blue Beetle created by Charlton Comics, and later published by DC Comics, is Ted Kord, a former student of Dan Garrett, a genius-level inventor and a gifted athlete. Kord and Garrett were investigating Kord's Uncle Jarvis when they learned Jarvis was working to create an army of androids to take over Earth. Garrett changed into Blue Beetle, but was killed in battle. As he died, he passed on to Kord the responsibility of being Blue Beetle, but was unable to pass on the mystical scarab.
Ted had the scarab for some time, but never used it. He carried it during the Crisis on Infinite Earths when he was chosen by The Monitor to protect the multiple earths, but it only reacted when he was attacked; It did not give him super powers.
As the Blue Beetle, Ted funded his adventures through his company, Kord Industries, and was chronically short on cash. He joined the Justice League and met his best friend, Booster Gold. Each was considered a second stringer, and for many years, the Blue Beetle was a member of one second-rate superhero group or another.
In Countdown to Infinite Crisis, Blue Beetle discovered a renewed Checkmate organization led by Maxwell Lord, former bankroller of the JLA. Kord covertly entered Checkmate headquarters, where he found a database containing information on every metahuman on Earth. However, he was captured before he could return to the JLA with the information, and while in Lord's custody was executed with a single gunshot to the head. Before dying, he had used the scarab in an attempt to contact Captain Marvel, but was forced to leave it with Shazam in the Rock of Eternity when the wizard sent him back to Earth.
Though Blue Beetle did not appear in 2000s animated TV series Justice League Unlimited, he was slated to appear in the previous comic-book series, Justice League Adventures, in a story by writer Keith Giffen and artist Christopher Jones which eventually went unpublished.[3]
[edit] Jaime Reyes
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Jaime Reyes is a teenager who lives with his father, mother and little sister; his father owns a garage. Jaime has offered to help his father out at the garage, but his father has turned him down, feeling Jaime should enjoy his childhood for as long as he can. Jaime has an acute sense of responsibility for his family and friends, though he complains about being the one to sort out any messes.
After the wizard Shazam was killed and the Rock of Eternity destroyed, the scarab landed in El Paso, Texas, where Jaime found it. When Booster Gold came to retrieve the scarab, it had fused to Jaime's spine while the boy had been asleep, making Jaime the new Blue Beetle. After a few minor encounters locally, he was swept up in the climactic battle with Brother Eye during Infinite Crisis. At its conclusion, he is hurled back to Earth where he discovers he has been missing for a year.
[edit] The scarab
The powers of both the suit and the scarab are generally activated by the wearer, though the scarab has evinced its own persona, with hints that it is not as benevolent as it might seem. This is foreshadowed in Blue Beetle #18 (Nov. 1987) when the scarab's power resurrects Dan Garrett, driving him into battle with Ted Kord. Garrett fights off the scarab's influence, shattering it, but he dies again in the process. The story leaves unclear who or what, if anything, is behind the scarab's power. In Infinite Crisis #6, Green Lantern John Stewart found his power ring giving off sparks while near the scarab, rather than the usual "buzz" when the ring senses magic, and in Blue Beetle #1 (May 2006), Green Lantern Guy Gardner gets a severe headache while in the scarab's vicinity.
The scarab's bond with Reyes is vastly different from his predecessors: It is physically bonded with him. Under certain circumstances, the scarab crawls out from Reyes' spine and and generates what appears to be a high-tech suit of armor. When the situation passes, the scarab deactivates, and the costume retracts into Reyes' spine. The armor also produces an energy cannon and a set of dual-purpose wings/shields that enable Jamie to fly and that protect him from energy. It also provides him with a modicum of super-strength and a form of enhanced vision. In a flashback sequence in Blue Beetle #7 (November 2006), the scarab negates the vibrational frequency of Brother Eye to pull it completely into reality, and alters Reyes's vibrational frequency to push him out of reality. This causes Reyes to vanish from sight and sends him one year into the future, as seen in Blue Beetle #1 (May 2006).
The scarab was once thought to have mystical origins, but Peacemaker discovered that it is actually a piece of extraterrestrial technology.
[edit] Alternate versions
Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) was seen in Alex Ross and Mark Waid's comic Kingdom Come. He is shown with the rest of the Charlton 'Action Heroes' but not as a member of Magog's Justice Battalion, he was part of Batman's Web of Defense, and later of the MLF (Mankind Liberation Front). He would be shown later in the title in a blue beetle armor outfit, powered by the mystic scarab, working with Batman's team, before being killed with most of the other heroes by a nuclear explosion.
Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbon's Watchmen bases both Nite Owl characters on the first and second Blue Beetles, respectively.
[edit] Other media
[edit] Radio
The Blue Beetle had a relatively short career on the radio, between May and September of 1940. Motion picture and radio actor Frank Lovejoy was the Blue Beetle for the first 13 episodes, while for the rest of the shows the actor was uncredited. The Blue Beetle was a young police officer who saw the need for extra-ordinary crime fighting. He took the task on himself by secretly donning a superhero costume to create fear in the criminals who were to learn to fear the Blue Beetle's wrath. The 13-minute segments were usually only two-parters, so the stories were often more simple than other popular programs, such as the many-parted Superman radio show.
[edit] Television
On the PBS children's educational series The Electric Company, a bumbling superhero (played by Jim Boyd) would often make matters worse instead of better. He wore a mask, a hood with antennae, wings, tennis shoes, boxer shorts and a T-shirt with the name "Blue Beetle" on it. The television series The Dresden Files repeatedly references this Blue Beetle, which is unrelated to the DC superhero.
Blue Beetle has not appeared in the Justice League Unlimited animated series, although he has been featured in the comic book. This is due to the broadcasting rights of the old radio show; these rights expired in 2006, but the television series was cancelled that same year.[1] Plastic Man has also not appeared on the show for similar reasons involving his animated series, though he is mentioned by name.
[edit] Trivia
- In the DC comic book series Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Nite-Owl is the name of two of fictional characters. Moore's original intent was for Watchmen to use all the Charlton Comic characters; the two Nite-Owls are based on Dan Garrett and Ted Kord.
- In The Dresden Files, an ongoing series of books by Jim Butcher, Harry Dresden, the main protagonist, drives an ancient VW Bug he dubbed the Blue Beetle
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Grand Comics Database: Mystery Men Comics #1 (Aug. 1939). Wojtkowski's family has supplied the online comics encyclopedia The Lambiek Comiclopedia with documentation to support the overall Wojtkowski credit. Another artist, Charles Nicholas Cuidera, also drew Blue Beetle stories later, and has claimed to have been the creator, but comics historian credit Wojtkowski.
- ^ In the earliest Golden Age appearances and during the 1967 Ditko run, the original Blue Beetle was referred to as Dan Garret, spelled with one "t."
- ^ World's Finest Online: "Backstage: "Justice League Adventures #No Number"
[edit] References
- Blue Beetle entry at Toonopedia
- Dan Garrett 2 entry at International Catalogue of Superheroes
- Dan Garrett 2 entry at Toonopedia
- Index to the Earth-4 adventures of the Charlton Action Heroes
- Keith Giffen on the new Blue Beetle
- Newsarama interview with artist Cully Hamner on his design for the new Blue Beetle
- "Notes from a True Blue Beetlemaniac"
