Blue Beetle
Blue Beetle (Eng. "Blue Beetle", more freely translated "Azure Beetle") is the title of a series of comic publications that has been published since 1939 by the US publishers Fox Comics , Charlton Comics , Americomics and DC Comics . Today the comics appear on DC.
The Blue Beetle comics depict the experiences of a masked adventurer of the same name, who, equipped with an arsenal of elaborate technical aids and with recourse to his remarkable physical and mental abilities, against "evil" (criminals, Nazi spies during the Second World War, communists in Cold War era etc.) takes to the field. The character owes its name to the fact that his blue insect-like costume makes him look a bit like a blue-colored beetle.
classification
The series is traditionally assigned to the (sub) genre of “ superhero comics ”, a specifically American version of science fiction comics, but occasionally also uses elements from areas such as detective or humor comics. As in many other such long-lived American superhero comics, the protagonist of the Blue Beetle comics, i. H. the “man behind the mask” of the “Azure Beetle”, has been replaced several times over the decades: While the original Blue Beetle stories of the 1940s focused on a man named Dan Garrett (Blue Beetle I), he was hiding in the stories from the 1960s to early 2000s have another man named Ted Kord (Blue Beetle II) behind the title character, while the latest Blue Beetle stories revolve around a young Latino named Jaime Reyes (Blue Beetle III).
Release dates
The first Blue Beetle story appeared in the August 1939 comic book Mystery Men Comics # 1. The American Charles Nicholas Wojkowski was the author of this story and the artistic father of Blue Beetle. The author is unknown, although the Grand Comic Database cautiously suggests that the author could have been Will Eisner . At the same time, a comic strip about Blue Beetle appeared, which was printed in various American daily newspapers.
The first series appeared from 1939 to August 1950 (sixty issues, numbered # 1-42 and # 44-60), the second from February 1955 to August 1955 (four issues, numbered # 18-21), the third from June 1964 to March / April 1965 (five issues), the fourth from July 1965 to February / March 1966 (five issues, numbered as # 50-54), the fifth from July 1967 to November 1968 (five issues), the sixth from June 1986 to May 1988 (24 issues) and the seventh from May 2006 to February 2009 (36 issues).
The first series (Volume 1) was originally launched by Fox Comics and reached a total of 60 issues. Issues # 12 through 30 of the series were then published by Holyoke Publishing before issues # 31 through 60 were taken over by Fox Comics. The series was initially published every two months (up to # 13), then monthly up to issue # 36, quarterly from # 3 to 40, every two months from # 41 to 44, and finally monthly from issue # 45 to 60 again.
The second to fifth series (Volume 2 to 5) under the title Blue Beetle were published by Charlton Comics, who had taken over the rights to Blue Beetle in the late 1950s from the now bankrupt Fox Feature Syndicate. The sixth and seventh series were or are finally published by the publisher DC Comics, which has held the rights to Blue Beetle and many other Charlton characters since 1983, after Charlton had to cease operations shortly before. DC integrated the figure of the Blue Beetle shortly afterwards, in 1985, in the course of the parallel earth crisis into its main continuity (which until then was located on the parallel earth, Earth-4), so that Blue Beetle with long-established DC heroes like Batman and Superman but also everyone else could interact and experience shared adventures. The second and fifth to seventh series were launched on a monthly basis, the third series initially (up to # 4) monthly, then every two months (from # 5), the fourth also first monthly (up to # 53) and then every two months ( from # 54).
The authors who have worked on the Blue Beetle comics over the decades include Gary Friedrich (1st series), Joe Gill (3rd and 4th series), Len Wein (6th series) and Keith Giffen . Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko stand out from the ranks of the cartoonists who worked on the "Beetle" . Kirby drew some of the newspaper trips of those years under a pseudonym in the 1940s, and Ditko was essentially the creator of the character of Ted Kord, the second version of Blue Beetle that Charlton launched from 1966. Ditko created the appearance, personality and environment of the second variant of the character.
Other illustrators were Tony Tallarico (3rd and 4th series) and Dick Giordano .
Plot and main character
The first four series, which appeared under the title "Blue Beetle", centered around a man named Dan Garrett, a typical middle-class American of the 1930s and 1940s who advocated traditional values of mainstream America. In contrast, the fifth and sixth Blue Beetle series focused on the cheerful millionaire Ted Kord, a much more unusual figure. With the young Latino-Texan Jaime Reyes, the seventh series finally focuses on a member of an ethnic minority.
Dan Garrett
In his debut story from 1939, Dan Garrett is introduced as a young police officer who - disaffected by the possibilities of dealing with the rampant crime in his hometown using conventional methods - slips into a special beetle-like costume in which he takes on the fight against the underworld. His equipment consists of a bulletproof suit and " vitamins " called 2X , which he regularly takes to temporarily gain super strength and stamina for his missions.
Garrett is supported in his actions by the pharmacist Dr. Franz - who supplies him with the 2X vitamins and disappears from the series without explanation in later issues - from his girlfriend Joan Mason , a reporter for the newspaper "Daily Blade" and Mike Mannigan , who is Garrett's partner in his identity as a police officer. Mannigan, a stereotypical Irish-American, is consistently unable to see that his partner and the superhero he supports are one and the same person.
After the Charlton publishing house took over the rights to Blue Beetle in the 1950s, and a few more stories about the "old Beetle" in the later 1950s and early 1960s. H. Garrett, had published, he began to develop a new interpretation of the basic theme in the 1960s.
First, attempts were made to make Garrett's backstory more interesting by retrospectively turning the metropolitan cop into an archaeologist who found an Egyptian artifact - a scarab - that gave him superhuman powers that he used in his fight against crime. After this changed recipe was unsuccessful, it was decided to replace the person wearing the Blue Beetle costume.
Ted Kord
In the place of the archaeologist Garrett, his student, the millionaire Ted Kord, has been placed, who becomes the new Blue Beetle when the dying Garrett asks him to continue his legacy. Kord takes over the beetle costume, changes it optically a little into a more dynamic variant, and from now on experiences many adventures as the new Blue Beetle.
Unlike Garrett, Kord keeps the scarab's secrets hidden. While for Garrett (at least in the later version of the character) the scarab is the basis of his extraordinary abilities, which he gives him "magically", Kord only carries it around as a "talisman" without using his magic. Instead, he relies on his amazing acrobatic and martial arts skills and his ingenious abilities as an inventor and engineer. The latter enable Kord to equip himself with a variety of technical devices for his actions, which are very helpful in tricky situations. The most important is the Big Beetle , a beetle-like flying vehicle that uses cord as a means of transport. Kord finances his expensive superhero life through his company "Kord Industries".
In the 1980s to 2000s, the Ted Kord-Blue Beetle was incorporated as the lead character in all kinds of team series, such as Justice League of America ( Justice League International ), Extreme Justice or LAW , in which he was part of superheroes -Groups faced more or less major external threats. Then there are the pitfalls of living and working in a group. As his best friend and most frequent partner, the high-profile time traveler Michael Jon Carter, alias Booster Gold, usually figures in these stories . What both characters have in common is their cheerful disposition and a good dose of humor. As congenial anchors, especially in the Justice League stories of the 1980s and 1990s, they cause many hair-raising problems within the team to which they belong. In its solo series from the 1980s, Blue Beetle (Kord) has to deal with “typical” superhero threats like the villain Chronos.
Kord is later captured by Maxwell Lord, the leader of a secret organization called "Checkmate", and shot in the head while attempting to infiltrate Checkmate's headquarters (US Infinite Crisis - Countdown , 2005). Before his death, however, he brought the scarab to safety, which he deposited with the magician Shazam, who lives on the "rock of eternity" - a magical place that exists outside of space and time. When Shazam's sanctuary is destroyed, the scarab is thrown into Texas by the force of the explosion.
Jaime Reyes
The third Blue Beetle and the first Blue Beetle published by DC alone is Jaime Reyes. Jaimes Reyes made his first appearance in 2006 in US Infinite Crisis # 3, the first time in the identity of the Blue Beetle he appeared in US Infinite Crisis # 5 later that year . It was created by Keith Giffen, John Rogers and Cully Hamner. Jaime Reyes is a teenager from El Paso, Texas who finds the scarab Kord sent away before his death near his father, an auto mechanic's workshop. He initially thinks the artifact is nothing more than a dead insect and sets it aside. However, while he sleeps, the scarab fuses with his spine and makes him the new, third, Blue Beetle.
Together, Reyes and Booster Gold, as well as Garrett and another future Blue Beetle, whose identity has not yet been clarified, finally save Kord retrospectively on a journey through time from his death by "picking" him out of the time stream seconds before the deadly bullet hits him . Since then, Kord, who is still considered dead, has accompanied Booster Gold on his time travel adventures. The main reason for this is that the damage to the space-time structure is to be avoided, which would occur if Kord, whose death was actually intended by the “spirit of the time stream” and whose survival is therefore an anomaly, stayed in one place for a long time a time remains.
Adaptations
From May to September 1940, the Blue Beetle stories were adapted in a radio broadcast broadcast nationwide in the United States. The radio series told how the comics, the adventures of a young policeman who, in his second identity as Blue Beetle, uses extraordinary means to tackle the raging crime in his hometown. Actor Frank Lovejoy provided the voice for the main character .
In Alan Moore's graphic novel Watchmen published, the DC in the 1980s, pits two characters called Nite Owl (1st and 2nd), which are the first and second Blue Beetle, Dan Garrett and Ted Kord modeled. Moore had originally wanted to use the first two Blue Beetles for his story, but from this plan at the request of the management of DC - who feared that the characters would subsequently be identified to such an extent with Watchmen that they would be “unusable for other projects “Would - refrained.
Web links
- Toonpedia entry on Blue Beetle I: Dr. Daniel Garrett (Fox Comics) (eng.)
- Toonpedia entry on Blue Beetle I: Dr. Daniel Garrett (Charlton Comics) (eng.)
- Toonpedia entry on Blue Beetle II: Theodore "Ted" Kord (Charlton Comics) (eng.)
- History of the creation of Blue Beetle III: Jaime Reyes (eng.)
literature
- Beatty Scott et al. a., Die DC Comics Enzyklopädie, Panini Verlags GmbH, Stuttgart March 2005, 1st edition, p. 51 (Blue Beetle I and II)