Blue Beetle (1986) #1
The first in an ongoing review of a much overlooked book.
Bulletpoints
This issue is good if you like:
A classical superhero storyline
Ted Kord being snarky, competent and smart
A gratuitous but welcome mention of Dr. Ruth
A dude named Dombrowski fanboying our Blue Beetle
—Ted’s actual shrine to Dan Garrett
The first introduction of Ted’s pretty awesome supporting cast
Ted being perfectly acceptable in the romance department
A glance at his debatable fashion sense, but it only gets worse
A fiery cliffhanger!
This issue sucks if you’re looking for:
Good art; it’s not horrific (much), but it’s definitely uneven, to say the least
A Giffen/DeMatteis-style characterization
Ted being a hopeless woobie
The Actual Review
Just to start off, I have to say that it’s actually this run that gives me my favorite characterization of Ted Kord, both as himself and as the Blue Beetle. Even though Ted’s more famous in the JLI-era, I’ve never quite liked how rarely he was allowed to show how incredibly versatile he was as a hero or as a person; while him being broke, jokey and hopeless with women made him funny, it swept a lot of his better qualities under the rug to do it and that included pretty much this entire comic run.
That disclaimer out of the way, let’s review!
The opening of this book is just delightful:
Chicago: They call it the Windy City—
— but the chill spring wind that blows this day blows ill indeed —
— carrying only the plaintive wail of congregating fire engines and the acrid stench of smoke and fugitive sparks…
Not only is it just absolutely classical in its rhythm — this kind of narrative can only come from a comic book! — but it’s also just the exact style of slightly overwrought prose that doesn’t let you escape from the medium. We open right away on the firemen spotting Ted in his Bug flying in to help with this dangerous blaze and commenting that they thought he’d retired. Or, more specifically, the Chief lamenting, “Oh geez, not him…” which cracks me up. Like damn, Ted, way to cultivate your reputation.
Mind you, they’re talking about Ted himself, not Dan Garrett; Dan never flew in the Bug and the costume differences are completely unmistakable. This means there was at least a period of time between Ted’s debut and this issue, long enough for him to become established and then apparently also to take a break that made people think he’d retired. He was integrated fully into the DC Universe in Crisis on Infinite Earths, before that residing with the other Charlton heroes on their own Earth, which means his backstory’s been updated to match.
It makes for an interesting question about his hiatus from hero work, though.
Anyway, that brings us to a totally awesome splash page:
I mean— I’m sincere here. I’m not speaking facetiously, I’m not being ironic, I straight up adore the similarly overwrought language to describe our boy in blue. The art’s meh, but the description of a bolt of azure fury is delightful. It invokes the Golden Age in a lot of ways; it’s just as easy to imagine Dan Garrett having that same description, and no doubt he’s had similar.
An important thing to remember is that Len Wein genuinely did love and respect Ted Kord and thought quite highly of him as a character; in the Blue Beetle Companion by Christopher Irving, Wein says: “I asked DC to let me do Blue Beetle. Since I was my own editor for the first batch of issues, I essentially picked my own approach. I decided to do Blue Beetle as the Spider-Man book that Marvel wasn’t doing at that point.”
His direction on the book followed Perez’s art and Wolfman’s writing in Crisis on Infinite Earths, who in turn had followed Steve Ditko, who co-created Spider-Man and who brought Ted’s Blue Beetle to life. I have my issues with both Perez and Wolfman, but their writing of Ted as sharp, smart and willing to punch way above his weight class in CoIE — as well as being completely unintimidated by heroes much more powerful than him — is one I’ve always appreciated.
Established in this timeline, Ted’s now no longer a peer to Dan, but his student, as established in Secret Origins (1986) #2, also written by Len Wein. That origin is one of those ones where Dan doesn’t cradle Ted’s face as he dies, instead opting for a more ‘manly’ and less tender hand on the shoulder.
I do believe in later books, though, it reverts back to the first one. It’s definitely something that’s notable, though I’m less sure if it’s intentional or just subconscious; social stigmas were different in the sixties versus the eighties, especially in 1986 where AIDS was terrifying people. (And I’ll certainly have more to say on that over time.)
Anyway, I digress. Back to Blue Beetle (1986) #1! The Azure Avenger!
Ted leaps into action to help with the fire and rescue someone he sees in it and immediate gets clocked in the face by the dude he’s gone to save who is named, with infinite subtlety, Firefist. Ted’s first foray in his own solo and he gets punched right off the bat, but I think this does a good job showing us that the man’s human; he lands on his back, rubs his jaw, and his vulnerability is established from the outset. He asks a pretty sensible question: “Just what the heck is wrong with you, Mister?”
One of the things I do love about the art in this book is Ted’s dynamism. We see it so much less by the time JLI rolls around, but here in these early days — much like in the 60s when he debuted — this iteration of Ted is an athlete and acrobat, and often genuinely fearless. This dude’s trying to crisp him, and he’s dancing out of the way and bringing up sex-expert Dr. Ruth.
Now, I can’t say I know why, but I love that he did. For you younger people, Dr. Ruth was one of the first sex therapists to talk openly and shamelessly on national media about topics that a lot of people considered taboo or dirty or bad. She lived an extraordinary life and only just died last year, having helped so many people with her candid sexual education and judgment-free approach. So, I find it interesting that Ted not only knows of her, but also knows her full name; this was the era she was rising to prominence and certainly a lot of people did know those things, but I like wondering why he brought out her name here specifically. And, while we’re at it, whether he was a regular fan of her shows. LOL!
Back to the fight, though: Firefist and Beetle grapple for it, then Firefist takes Beetle’s distracted worry about another fire victim and clocks him again. Firefist ends up getting away, but Ted does get one in the win column by using his Bug and trusty skywire to save a fireman, though it’s a nailbiter as the building literally collapses around them.
What follows is, of course, a delightful little interchange between Ted, his rescuee, the Fire Chief and the adorable Dombrowski.
Later on — years later — there’s so much ado made about Ted supposedly wanting out of the hero business. But here, in these pages, he grins and quotes poetry and thinks about how much he missed it during his yet-unexplained hiatus. It’s quite a journey from this young, bright-eyed version of Ted to the one who eventually looks at himself as barely better than a joke; if you ask me, it’s a heartbreaking one, too, in a number of ways. Here, he’s about twenty-five, a local hero with a gift for tech, quick-witted and at least somewhat loved; in another twenty years, he’s being gruesomely shot in the head.
After his adventure, Ted takes the Bug back to his hiding place under KORD, Inc. and we’re treated to yet another recap of Dan Garrett’s death, sadly still sans tender face-touching. We also get another glance at Ted turning himself into the Blue Beetle via brains and hard work.
We discover, aside Ted’s very distinctly reddish hair, he also has a straight up shrine to Dan Garrett. I can certainly get eulogizing the man, I can even get maybe having the picture, but Ted. Ted, buddy. Do you actually need a shrine? With candles??
After that head-scratcher, we go upstairs to meet the rest of Ted’s supporting cast, all of whom are actually pretty interesting. You have Angie, his adorable and slightly nerdy secretary. You have Ted’s Newsboy Cap and Fashion Sense, which are 100% supporting cast members all their own. You have Jeremiah Duncan, scientist and an old friend of Ted’s absentee father. And finally, you have Melody Case, who’s cute and clearly adores Ted, proving that the man’s not nearly as hopeless or lecherous in love as later writers keep painting him as.
(—unless we’re chalking his later hopelessness and incompetence up to his whole twenty-year thing with Booster Gold, where the words It’s Complicated encompass only the top 2% of that particularly interesting, rainbow-shaded iceberg.)
Jokes and sincere-queer aside, though, I do love this Ted, who isn’t into get-rich-quick schemes, who twirls his girl and kisses her, who is light and funny and playful and yet still perfectly capable of getting down to business.
His big issue, as this series goes on, is that he wants to be the Blue Beetle a lot more than he wants to be Ted Kord, CEO. And that’s legitimate. Ted cares about his work as a hero, and it shows; you don’t get any sense that he’s in this for fame or attention, unlike his shiny not-yet-best-friend halfway across the country. Everything Ted does looks, feels and is true-blue heroism in this series, all promises to Dan aside; he might have a shrine to the man, but he also clearly loves being the Blue Beetle, too.
After Ted gives his people their marching orders, he heads off to STAR. But before we go over there to meet Murray Takamoto, Ted’s former college roommate, we pause for a moment on the island of ill-omens, Pago Island, where Conrad Carapax (and what a name that is!) happens to be plotting something or another that can lead nowhere good.
It’s a short sideways jaunt, just a setup for later, then it’s over to STAR, where Ted and Murray meet up.
It’s good to see Ted with friends outside the whole cape-and-cowl community, honestly; it makes his life seem richer and fuller. While I do very much love his friendships within the hero community, it’s no bad thing for him to have ties to a life outside of that.
So Murray sideways calls Ted’s eyes pretty and then brings up promethium, which is a MacGuffin (naturally) for later stories. The bantering all through here is funny and goofy and makes me grin:
Murray: The promethium keeps eating the titanium. We’re having a hell of a time making the stuff bond.
Ted: And you want me to take a shot at it for you?
Murray: In a reluctant word— yes!
Ted: Well, cross my palm with the usual outrageous amount of silver— and you’ve got yourself a deal!
Murray: Done, you miserable mercenary!
Flawless. 🤣 Wein really did a nice job at making Ted’s world feel lived-in and in introducing the people in said world in a way that feels natural.
I’m kind of gushing a little bit, but that’s because this is such an underrated book by comparison to his JLI-era stuff, and one that a lot of people don’t know much to anything about. DC’s never done a full-color reprint of this series or collected it in trade, which seems to me to be a bit of a loss. That being said, as you can see, it has its gems in it, even just in this first issue.
Ted and Murray are being eavesdropped on by someone with the most sinister red eyebrows, so obviously there’s more bad coming down the pipes, but then we skip to Chicago PD HQ, and the office of the indefatigable Lt. Max Fisher, who — naturally — has been gnawing on the disappearance of one Dan Garrett. Ted sure is collecting his fair share of nemeses (raise your hands if you knew that was the plural of nemesis, ‘cause I sure didn’t) in this initial chapter; you know Carapax is up to no good, Eyebrows McGee is also up to no good, and Lt. Fisher here is probably trying to be up to some good, but that might not necessarily be good for our boy Ted.
Back at STAR, after a little more good-natured banter with Murray and some kinda priceless expressions that I’ll let you be the judge of, should you get to read this book, Ted gets paged! Not by work, though, but by the intrepid Bug, which has been patrolling the Windy City without him!
Ted leverages himself up in the air, proving for the 1000th time that the man’s got the upper body strength of an ox, changes into his blue union suit and heads off to the undeniable column of smoke on the horizon. Who is it? Well— you get one guess and you’ll only need one guess: It’s Ted’s new buddy Firefist!
Firefist decided to target a firehouse, which I suppose makes a kind of dastardly sense. Ted’s ready for him this time, though, with his fireproof airship and a whole load of fire extinguisher foam! It takes down Firefist, but the firehouse itself is still— uh— in flames, because there oughta be a limit on how many times you can use fire in one paragraph.
Intrepid Ted leaps from his Bug and proceeds to whip the snot out of Firefist, because it’s a lot easier to kick a badguy’s ass when you’re not being taken by surprise. And he pretty much does so successfully despite being on top of a burning building! At least— until Firefist decides to shoot out the roof and send them both plunging downwards into the flames and debris. Ted cleverly manages to stop himself from shattering on the ground floor by using the firepole in a neat, multi-panel action sequence, but unfortunately—
—it does not save our Beloved Blue Bug from either the wildly melodramatic dialogue, the painful pinning or the big ole cliffhanger!
And so wraps up Blue Beetle (1986) #1!
It sincerely is a fun book and certainly it’s worth a read, especially if you love Ted, either for himself or in greater context of the Blue Beetle legacy or the JLI. (Or that It’s Complicated with Booster.) You only see him get to show off his many skills comparatively infrequently in the JLI era, but it’s in this book you can find most clearly the man who Jaime Reyes would later on admire and ask WWTKD? about.
As I mentioned, the art’s uneven, though like— compared to 90s art, it’s a masterpiece, honestly. And it has its flaws. But there’s a reason it’s one I love, and a reason it’s one of my favorite versions of this man, and hopefully by the time I’m done reviewing the whole thing, you’ll see why!