I didn't mention this before, but much like the Golden Age Phantom Lady, the Golden Age Blue Beetle had runs from different publishers. I'm going through the Fox Publishing years right now, which appear to be from the 1940's.
And by the way, did you know that Joan Mason, the Blue Beetle version of Lois Lane, was also a reporter for a newspaper called the Daily Planet? The things we learn!
Anyway, today's panels are from Golden Age Blue Beetle #51. Here we see a rather rare installment of There Ain't Gonna Be No Trial! (tm!):
Now, it's not like this guy didn't go on a spree and murder people himself. A professor had discovered a way to convert living tissue into solid gold, so our enterprising and homicidal fellow went around turning people who had done him wrong into gold statutes. He would then melt them down and he'd have destroyed the evidence while making himself rich.
Anyway, he gets stopped before he can melt down his last three victims. So, what happens to these four solid gold statutes?
They sit in police storage:
I realize it's distasteful, considering these used to be human beings and all that, but isn't this kind of a waste of perfectly good gold? I have no idea who would have access to it, so maybe it was tied up in the courts or something. But I wouldn't have it just sitting outside the courtroom at police headquarters like it is here. And why is there a courtroom in police headquarters?
I'm not understanding much of this. Let's try some Fun with Out of Context Dialogue! (tm!):
Well, that sounds uncomfortable, and I don't think that would make you much of a hit with the ladies. Then again, I haven't been in the dating scene for over 20 years, so what do I know?
Joan's annual performance review didn't go as well as she'd hoped.
Joan also had relationship problems.
Here's one of the most interesting escapes on record:
WOW! That is dedication on both their parts!
And I'll be danged if it didn't work!
That was a pretty high-risk maneuver there. If she didn't faint at the sight of blood, they'd still be looking down the barrel of a gun, only with the Blue Beetle hemorrhaging all over Joan. That would certainly confuse the Medical Examiner: Cause of Death: Bullet wound. Although it appears that Joan stabbed the Blue Beetle in the arm for some reason...
See you tomorrow!
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6 comments:
Why is Joan standing around in her underwear holding a knife? Not that I'm complaining, mind you, but it does raise all kinds of questions about her and BB's private life.
Hmmm, I wonder how the rights for the character (Blue Beetle) were passed around like that.
I love the fact that the formula not only "converts living tissue into gold," but also transforms their clothing. What if the guy's hat had fallen off while Blue Beetle was pouring the formula down his throat?
I guess it shows that I have read way to many comics when the fact that their clothes changed didn't even occur to me. But now that that has been brought up, their hair and finger and toenails wouldn't have changed either.
The "people turned into statues" motif seems to be a favorite in serial fiction such as comics and television.
We're familiar with villains such as Vincent Price displaying the petrified people in the lair, but I expect better from the police. Anyway, the families would have filed a lawsuit to get the remains a decent burial.
At the very least the familys would have filed a missing persons report. I wonder how a son or daughter would have felt if they had walked into the police station to file a missing persons report and seen a gold statue of their father or mother standing there.
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