#dan garret

[lilsnuffklins]

The three tiny beetles

[why-i-love-comics]

Blue Beetle #11 (1942)

art by Al Carreno & Louise Cazeneuve

[thebestpesto]

More blues beetles pls

I lost my pen so this is the best you’re getting for the time being

[transgwender616]

What your favorite Blue Beetle says about you

Jaime Reyes: You learned about him through adaptations and were surprised to find out there were other Blue Beetles. You like Teen Titans and Young Justice. You're sick of people calling him an Iron Man ripoff.

Ted Kord: If you like him from Steve Ditko you're an objectivist. If you like from JLI then you want him and Booster Gold to fuck. You're sick of people calling him a Spider-Man ripoff.

Dan Garret: You are either old as fuck or you just like him for being public domain. You're sick of people calling him a Green Hornet ripoff.

[maximproving]

@thebestpesto asked for some Dan Garret fanart and here he is!

Never drew Dan before, hope you like him ❤️💙

[professorzoomie]

And now the sequel to boobster gold

Blue beeble(s)

[velvetvexations]

The Blue Beetle legacy is fascinating not only because of it being a relatively early example of a hero being killed off and passing on the name, but also because it's one in which all four to use the name have had wildly different looks, powers, and power source, and only two knew of each other's existence.

You could say that at least in-universe 60s Dan and Jaime both use the same power source and have the same powers, technically, but even putting aside 40s Dan, the Scarab is simply shown to not operate in the same way in spite of the retcon. Like, 60s Dan is a flying brick with energy blasts, he never turns his arms into canons and his suit is clearly just a generic supersuit.

And what's weirder, this has held even the extremely few times 60s Dan has been referenced. Actually, that's probably not true, because I know DC brought him back recently-ish and probably touched on it there since I know it was ambitious enough to fully recreate scenes from 60s Dan's original run. But still, at least prior to that DC has never tried to make Dan's Scarab cohere with Jaime's, and considering Jaime was introduced twenty years ago, that's a very long time to be so blatantly incongruent.

[chernobog13]

MYSTERY MEN COMICS (vol. 1) #1 (August, 1939). Cover By Lou Fine.

This issue contains the very first appearance of the Blue Beetle.

(And no, that's not the Beetle coming through the window on the cover, despite the placement of the name - or am I the only one who mistakenly thought that.

(It's actually the Green Mask, even though his mask is definitely NOT green in this image.)

The Beetle was very much a Green Hornet wannabe in his first story. He poses as a criminal to infiltrate gangs, and is wanted by the police as well. Like the Green Hornet, the Beetle only wears a suit with a mask (in this case, a pair of goggles), with a large scarab medallion. Also like the Hornet, the Beetle has a powerful, specially made car (which unfortunately we don't get a good look at in this story). The Beetle also possesses absolutely no superpowers at this time in his career.

This is the only time he appears in the business suit outfit. By the next issue (which I'll cover in a future post) he has started wearing a version of his famous chainmail costume, albeit with no mask at all.

There is no origin of the Beetle in this story. We can determine from context, though, that he has been operating in the city for some time, and is well known to criminals, police and the public.

Apparently, the Blue Beetle (aka police officer Dan Garret) is also the inventor of the wireless telephone.

Makes me wonder why Garret didn't patent it and make a fortune. Cops were paid notoriously low salaries back in those days.

The script for this story is believed to be by Will (The Spirit) Eisner, with art by Charles Nicholas.