Monday, March 8, 2010

The Brief Life and Fortunate End of the Golden Age Blue Beetle Monday!

The bad news is, I went through the copies of the 1964 revival of the Golden-Age Blue Beetle and, since I went through the pain of reading them, I'm going to get a post out of them. This was the worst kind of bad. The kind of bad where you can't even laugh at it. Team America bad. U.S.1 bad. American Idol kind of bad.

The good news is, I only have enough material for one unfortunate post. After which, we can put this unpleasantness behind us.

The highlight of the run? Praying Mantis Man, of course!:


You can't stop Praying Mantis Man? In theory, why would you want to stop a character with as much promise as Praying Mantis Man?

But alas, even Praying Mantis Man can't save this mess. My favorite of the few issues I found is right here:


Got that? He's in his civilian ID, and he's protecting his secret by having the girl close her eyes.....


.... and then he just appears as the Blue Beetle, knowing that she won't see through that clever scheme. And she doesn't. Which is awesome. But you wouldn't believe what I had to read just to find that part.

And a few issues later, more giant insects and Praying Mantis Man!


Which, unfortunately, doesn't live up to the potential that an army of giant insects led by Praying Mantis Man kind of promises.

So, how do you defeat Praying Mantis Man? With bug spray, of course. You can't accuse the writers of Blue Beetle of over thinking things.


Now, it is worth noting that by the time Praying Mantis Man has his giant flying insect zapped out from under him, the remaining giant insects have been neutralized. So, Blue Beetle actually had all kinds of time he could have spent saving Praying Mantis Man, but he probably found out his character was going to be replaced with the awesome Ted Kord version and didn't see why he should bother.

Had it been me writing the comic, I would have created a Praying Mantis Woman to seduce Praying Mantis Man, who then would have eaten him alive at the end of their first date. It seems like a more natural conclusion to me. But not even Charleston Comics seems interested in having me write for them. It's a tragic waste of my talents, really.

See you tomorrow!

5 comments:

Aurora Moon said...

yeah, Mantis man had so much potential. :P

Mantises are actually pretty much Ninjas of the insect world when you think about it. They're masters of camouflage and most species make use of protective coloration to blend in with the foliage and any other backdrops in order to avoid predators themselves, and to better snare their victims. some species of mantis even can turn black to better hide!

So usually the insect's live dinner NEVER see them coming at all...

So the dude should had been like a Ninja that had a Mantis theme going on. :P
The bug spray was fail.

D.B. Echo said...

So did the Golden Age Blue Beetle wind up attached to a board with a giant pin through his back?

Allergy said...

This Blue Beetle looks very awkward in all of his poses, like he doesn't know what he's supposed to be doing.

Ugh. Thanks for taking this bullet for us, Adam.

LissBirds said...

"I would have created a Praying Mantis Woman to seduce Praying Mantis Man, who then would have eaten him alive at the end of their first date." I just lost it when I read that line....

Anonymous said...

The Golden Age books ewere great Holyoke published at least 44 issues. I hated the way the lettering was done, it was the same here as with Captain Atom and Strange Mysteries before it.

I bought all my Charlton books from a store where the guy always watched The Bionic Woman on VHS.