Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Tuff, Cool, Fab, Gear! Tuesday!

When the Golden Age Blue Beetle revival in 1964 was euthanized, it was replaced with the Ted Kord version, which was the earliest time in comic book history that the rebooted character was actually an improvement on the original. And it's not just me:


Which is also a record that our parents used ridiculous, mis-spelled slang just like kids today do, so I'll try to keep that in mind the next time some stupid young 'un says, "It literally killed me. You feel me?"

While the Golden Age Blue Beetle seemed like a knock-off of Superman, the Silver Age version was kind of a cross between the gadgetry of Batman and the swashbuckling lightheartedness of Daredevil. He was also drawn by Steve Ditko, who had just come off of drawing the early Spider-Man issues, and you can tell:



Because with Steve Ditko, you always get a bunch of henchmen getting the snot beaten out of them by the title character. There are pages just like that one in almost every Ditko-drawn issue of Spider-Man. Why? Because we like seeing a bunch of henchmen getting the snot beaten out of them. We still like it in our comics today, and most video games rely heavily on that formula.

Equally awesome was the character of The Question, who was also drawn by Steve Ditko. How do we know? Thusly:


These pages actually appeared in the same issue, yet two different stories, of Blue Beetle #1. Never let it be said that Ditko tried to slip one past you. You were going to read a few pages involving groups of henchmen getting pummeled, and you were going to sit there and like it. If not, they might have brought back the Golden Age Blue Beetle, and believe me, you didn't want that!

And, because they were too awesome to be contained, both characters have been unceremoniously killed in the last few years. But both the CMNS Character Hall of Fame and the Costume Hall of Fame welcome ye, Ted Kord Blue Beetle and Vic Sage Question.

See you tomorrow!

6 comments:

LissBirds said...

I love me some Ted Kord and Vic Sage. Ted has one of the best costumes designs ever, in my opinion, and how awesome was it to have a character with a good sense of humor? Of course because they were both favorites of mine, DC went off and killed them just to ruin my day.

Anonymous said...

Don't be hating on Dan Garrett, Adam. I have about 15 of his GA books, the oldest is #4.

I do think your website is especially gear, though.

Allergy said...

If one one-liner is funny, then one in every panel must be six times as funny, right?

It seems that the Question also has the power to make his opponents' faces disappear, if that guy in the blue suit in the last panel is any indication.

SallyP said...

The pummelling of henchmen is always LOADS of fun.

Anonymous said...

Keep posting stuff like this i really like it

Zocktastic said...

We certainly do love watching henchmen getting beat up, Adam! In fact, the love of watching henchmen getting beat up crosses national borders!

As any fan of "tokusatsu" (a blanket term for the Japanese live action equivalent to our own comic books) will tell you, every evil organization or alien army will have a specially regimented group of underlings in identical costumes for the express purpose of giving the hero(es) some poor fools to whale upon in the early parts of action scenes.