One of the most popular concepts in crime fiction of the 30s-40s was a policeman who felt too constrained by the letter of the law and decided to take up a masked identity to "serve justice rather than the law"!
Every rank from beat officers (
The Guardian) to police commissioners (
The Whisperer) donned a mask (and usually a skintight outfit) to fight criminals in their off-duty hours.
One of the longest-lasting was
Officer Dan Garret aka
The Blue Beetle.
Garret had good reason to be disillusioned about the power of law and order.
His late father was a police officer killed by a criminal who evaded prosecution even after
Dan himself joined the force.
Seeing the fiend once again go free due to an unbreakable (though false) alibi,
Officer Garret took matters into his own hands.
Donning a mask, fedora and business suit (ala
The Green Hornet),
Dan adopted the
Blue Beetle identity to harass the felon and force him to to commit a crime in front of witnesses, including
Garret's reporter girlfriend and her photographer!
It worked, and undeniable retribution was finally delivered to the killer!
In the next issue, after saving scientist Dr Franz, from racketeers, the grateful chemist gave Garret a suit of bulletproof chainmail, as well as a supply of an experimental vitamin, 2-X, to enhance his strength and reflexes!
Combined with a pair of lethal .45 automatics, that chainmail and "power pills" made the "upgraded"
Blue Beetle a formidable foe indeed!
The Beetle's adventures began in Fox Comics'
Mystery Men Comics #1 (though he didn't make the cover until #7) and ran thru all 31 issues.
He gained his own title
The Blue Beetle, which published 60 issues between 1939 and 1950 and also appeared in
every issue of
Big 3 Comics, an anthology title featuring the most popular characters from Fox's various titles!
Blue Beetle was popular enough to be the
only Fox Comics character to warrant both a newspaper strip
and a dramatic radio series, both of which were, regrettably, short-lived. (The newspaper comic strip featured art by a young Jack Kirby!)
In the mid 1950s, another publisher did a reprint series which proved so successful that they published a reworked new version of
the Beetle that ran into the 1960s, was revived again in the 1980s and runs on-and-off to this day. (In each of these revivals,
the Beetle has a
new secret identity and powers.)
But
Dan Garret, the original
Beetle, hadn't been seen since the mid '50s, until Alex Ross revived him in the acclaimed
Project SuperPowers
in 2007.
Atomic Kommie Comics™ has also revived
The Blue Beetle as part of our
Lost Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics™ line with
several of his best covers from his own title and
Mystery Men Comics on t-shirts, mugs, and other goodies.
Heck, we're so proud of him that we gave him
his own 2010 12-Month Calendar with a rarely-seen comic cover for each month!
The Blue Beetle's waiting to scuttle under your Christmas tree or lurk in the stocking of your favorite pop-culture aficionado!
FREE Christmas bonus for our dedicated fans: mp3s of
The Blue Beetle radio show!
And BUY
Project SuperPowers, the BEST Golden-Age revival comic (er...graphic novel) out there!
At this time of year, Christmas carols are in continuous rotation on the stereo in the Atomic Kommie Comics™ office.
series which presents the "next issue" of comic books that last saw print over 60 years ago, Erik Larsen has just released 
