{"id":264,"date":"2007-05-04T12:49:12","date_gmt":"2007-05-04T17:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/?p=264"},"modified":"2016-02-18T21:16:25","modified_gmt":"2016-02-19T02:16:25","slug":"yo-blue-beetle-addendum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2007\/05\/yo-blue-beetle-addendum\/","title":{"rendered":"yo - Blue Beetle addendum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So in today's review of the excellent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/yo\/dcdfa4bb.php\">Blue Beetle<\/a> figure from DC Direct, I said BB has \"a long and surprising history.\" Let's take a look:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The original Blue Beetle was patrolman Dan Garret, a policeman who wore a bulletproof costume to work outside the law. His partner, Mike Mannigan, thought the Beetle was a criminal mastermind, not a hero, but never figured out Dan was the one in the suit. Eventually, Garret befriended a local pharmacist, Dr. Franz, who developed the mysterious \"Vitamin 2X,\" which would temporarily give the Beetle superpowers. There was never any in-story reason why he chose the name \"Blue Beetle\" - out of story, it was just a rip-off of the Green Hornet. This is the version that had the radio program and the newspaper comic strip.<\/li>\n<li>When <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/yo\/amhe1_ssw.php\">Fox Features Syndicate<\/a> went out of business, the Blue Beetle was one of the properties bought by Charlton Comics, who revamped the character. Archaeologist Dan Garrett (note the spelling [and job] difference) found a strange blue scarab talisman while on a dig in Egypt. The amulet gave him both his name and his powers. This version only lasted about two years before getting replaced.<\/li>\n<li>The third Blue Beetle was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/poe\/dcuc7_bb.php\">Ted Kord<\/a>, a former student of Garrett's. This version, created by Steve Ditko, was a millionaire inventor, much like Iron Man. When Charlton went bankrupt, their properties were acquired by DC Comics, and Blue Beetle was introduced to the DC Universe post-Crisis. The fanboys got their panties in a twist when Ted died in <i>Countdown to Infinite Crisis<\/i> - they had a big soft spot for this character whose biggest claim to fame was being turned into a complete joke two decades prior.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The original \"one T\" Dan Garret version of the Beetle doesn't exist in DC continuity - he's somehow found a home at AC comics under the name \"Scarlet Scorpion.\" The various Blue Beetles were the inspiration for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/yo\/dcdwatch2n.php\">Nite-Owl<\/a> in Alan Moore's <i>Watchmen<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>DC's newest Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes, found Dan Garrett's scarab, but gained much different powers than the original owner. He's been getting a hard time from readers, who are still pissed off about Ted Kord actually being used for something better and more important than a joke. Ted's final story returned some of the heroism that had been missing from the character for years, so I'm not sure why the fanboys are all so angry.<\/p>\n<p>The new <i>Blue Beetle<\/i> book is really very good, a fun read with great art. You should definitely check it out, even if you were a big fan of Ted Kord - after all, Ted replaced Dan Garrett, so the legacy just lives on...<\/p>\n<div class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Posts\"><H5>&lt;i&gt;And now, some more OAFEry:&lt;\/i&gt;<\/H5><ul class=\"entry-meta\"><li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Wendy's DC Heroes 2025 Set 5 exclusive review\" href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2025\/06\/wendys-dc-heroes-2025-set-5-exclusive-review\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Wendy's DC Heroes 2025 Set 5 exclusive review<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Soon Forget: Total Justice Series 4\" href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2007\/05\/soon-forget-total-justice-series-4\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Soon Forget: Total Justice Series 4<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Soon Forget: Total Justice Blue Beetle\" href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2007\/05\/soon-forget-total-justice-blue-beetle\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Soon Forget: Total Justice Blue Beetle<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Flippin' through Previews - May '15\" href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2015\/05\/flippin-through-previews-may-15\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Flippin' through Previews - May '15<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So in today's review of the excellent Blue Beetle figure from DC Direct, I said BB has \"a long and surprising history.\" Let's take a look:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,27,35,37,7],"tags":[315],"class_list":["post-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-addendums","category-dc","category-dc-direct","category-lists","category-mattel","tag-blue-beetle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21890,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions\/21890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}