Blue Beetle (1986) #2

Rollin', rollin', rollin', though the streams are swollen--

The art might not be the best, but I love the coloring on these.

Bulletpoints

This issue is good if you like:

• One delightfully tense and intense opener

• Dombrowski, adorable Blue Beetle fanboy

• Ample evidence that Ted’s Got Game

  • —also, possible evidence that Mel likes him Spicy™

• The fact that even Ted’s horrific fashion sense doesn’t destroy his charm

• A continually excellent supporting cast

  • See above. Also, Murray being hella cute

• Ted being badass, which is everywhere in this volume! 🥰💙

• A quick and decent resolution to the initial Firefist plot

This issue sucks if you’re looking for:

• Realistic healing times

• Good art (last time to mention this, as it’s a given it’s pretty meh)

• Anything like a JLI plot (also last time to mention this, also a given)

• —more to complain about than the above three points

Some Opening Notes

Unlike with Booster’s book, I don’t normally feel the need to write out any major disclaimers when it comes to Ted’s. I think part of this is because Len Wein might not be a flawless writer, but he really was a very good and experienced one with an impressive list of credits, including him being editor of Watchmen. No small thing — whatever your opinions on Watchmen’s effects on comics, it was truly excellent storytelling — and Len brought that skill to Blue Beetle.

“Much of what I did was continue what had been given to me by Ditko,” Wein said. “I love those stories, which is why I wanted to do the book. There was an element of closure in coming back with Dan Garrett, wrapping it up and putting the scarab out there as a threat to the future.”

-From the Blue Beetle Companion, by Christopher Irving

You can’t easily date Ted’s book the way you can Booster’s; while there are peripheral mentions of 80s pop culture in Ted’s book, Booster’s entire Vol. 1 essentially revolves around that time and place. That’s fun and unique in some ways, but it also means that a lot of Booster’s early character is so rooted in that era that detangling him from it is almost impossible, and updating him without losing important context is difficult. (Which is probably how we technically ended up with more than one version of him with the same memories, but we’ll get into that over on his side of things— eventually.)

By contrast, though, Ted’s characterization here is so solid that I can easily move him forward into the modern era with little in the way of tweaking, and he’d still come across as the same funny, smart, sometimes-goofy, but also seriously competent guy. Giffen did essentially that with Blue Beetle Rebirth, even, when DC decided to have Ted as Jaime’s mentor (a move I heartily approve of); he didn’t stand on the his and DeMatteis’s JLI characterization. Instead, it almost seems he decided to come back here, to Ted’s DC roots.

(I wonder a little if that choice had anything to do with some of the things Len Wein has said about it all, too; he was very much a critic of how Ted was handled after this book was canceled, and I don’t actually blame him.

I don’t hate Giffen’s and DeMatteis’s JLI-version of Ted. Sincerely. I just don’t think he’s the best possible version of the character and that they sacrificed a lot of his most charming qualities to make him a pathetic, funny everyman. But as this book here proves— Ted really is already a funny everyman in a lot of ways. He doesn’t need to lose his competence or brilliance to be relatable. Further, though, their version of Ted is lacking an essential empathy that this version still has, which I think is probably the most off-putting change of all.)

Another reason why I don’t need to disclaim Ted’s book as much is because there’s a lot less inherent sexism in the text. And a lot more diversity in the supporting cast. Everyone around Booster screams WASP¹. Meanwhile, Ted has a Black man he works closely with and a Japanese-American man as one of his closest friends; Booster’s receptionist is the beautiful Trixie, while Ted’s is the more humble (though adorable) Angie. Two out of four of Ted’s supporting cast from the outset aren’t white. That’s a damn decent ratio, and it doesn’t feel forced. Meanwhile, we eventually get Jack Soo in Booster’s book and— that’s it.

Mostly, though, people in Ted’s book feel more genuine. More like real people.

And finally, Ted’s fans seem to take it as given that we’re all gonna look at him from a Watsonian point of view, too. 🤣 Booster still has enough detractors in the world that I did feel it important to point out that I love him, genuinely and unreservedly, even when I wanna smack him. Ted, on the other hand, is pretty well-loved by everyone, if not always for all of the same reasons, and part of that love is shown by viewing him as a person instead of as zeitgeist, an icon or a pariah.

—so maybe this did turn out a little disclaimer-y. But now, onto the story!

The Actual Review

We left our beloved BB in a real, very hot pickle at the end of the last issue. Though we all know logically that he’s not gonna die in #2 of his book, it’s easy to relate to Dombrowski’s worries:

I love the opening here, both for the tension and for the actual words, ‘The heart of Chicago: Where the red-brick building that once housed Ladder Company No. 47 is rapidly becoming an oversized briquette...’

Ted’s slightly contentious but ultimately decent relationship with the Fire Chief is another example of him having a strong cast. Ted feels like a hometown hero because that’s what he is, and if the other hometown heroes — the unmasked ones — occasionally have beef with him, it’s in a pretty understandable way. (Like skipping the paperwork!) While Ted doesn’t escape the oft-fickle affections of the in-universe public in this book, he doesn’t seem to find himself viewed to the same extremes his not-yet-best-friend is, either.

Back to the issue, though, poor Ted might be pinned in an inferno, but that doesn’t stop him from a handy-dandy flashback to last issue telling us how he got into this mess. It’s a little hamfisted, but it’s very characteristic to the genre, too; it’s not an amateur mistake, but an intentional recap.

I really appreciate just how cool a head — metaphorically speaking — that Ted’s able to keep here. His fireproof suit’s not gonna save him from baking like a Thanksgiving turkey—

I know, I know, that’s much later, but I couldn’t resist.

—and indeed, he’s trapped under the weight of what has to be an unnavigable amount of debris, but instead of panicking, he takes a few seconds to feel defeated and lament, mentally apologize to Dan for somehow failing him, then— Ted does what Ted does and grits his teeth and gets to work. Using a combination of mind and muscle, he starts working his way free.

All jokes about roasted Blue Turkey aside, it’s gotta be terrifying hearing that noise overhead, but damned if the man doesn’t stay as chill as one possibly can in that overheated situation.

All the while, it’s imminent that this building is about to cave in the rest of the way, but with some actual effort and maneuvering, Ted manages to twist himself around, using a handy pipe for a brace to hold up the debris, and get his feet up to use as leverage. Even though this is a pretty long sequence, it doesn’t really feel unnecessarily drawn out, though I’m not sure how even Ted’s particularly beefy legs could quite push that much weight up.

Despite a perfect opening — “Push!! PUSH!!!” — I’m going to refrain from making any jokes about labor and childbirth here. You’re welcome. Instead, I’ll just once again admire Ted’s movement, because it’s a genuine pleasure to do so.

I don’t know which part is better: The use of the word ‘stygian’ or Ted’s posing at the end. Let’s go with both, yeah?

It’s actually taking quite a lot for me not to just drop whole giant sections of this issue into this post because there are so many little details I love about it. But I will include this next bit because it’s yet another charming moment similar to that page with Ted and the firefighters in the last issue:

Once more with the well-rendered relationship dynamics. And Dombrowski’s heart-eyes. 🥰 And Ted with his blanket cape. It’s cool, Dombrowski, I’m right there with you.

Having finally freed the Beetle from the inferno, though, we take a little jaunt over to the Southside, where we find out a little more about Firefist, a somewhat pathetic fellow named Lyle Byrnes — and oh god, that name — whose entire grudge is based on the fact that he set his own lab ablaze and then couldn’t be heard over said blaze when the firemen came. Taking that as somehow being an intentional thing, he survived disfigured and proceeded to vow revenge. It’s very much the typical comic book plot and motivation, but given this is only Ted’s second issue, you don’t really need a whole lot more than that going on.

After the scenery-chewing melodramatics of Lyle’s, uh, meltdown—

🗞️ ← A rolled up newspaper for your convenience.

—we head back over to KORD—

I love them, your honor.

—where, after working on Ted’s mystery, Jeremiah and Melody head on out, their interpersonal dynamic completely sans the tinfoil-biting annoyance that is the rampant sexism between Dirk Davis and Trixie Collins in Booster’s book. Instead, there’s a playfulness and warmth that continues to read as 100% genuine. Mel’s teasing of Jeremiah about his age never seems mean; Jeremiah calling her ‘little lady’ just seems like affection and not like condescension.

Something that’s also true is that neither Mel nor Jeremiah are perfect people, which further distances them from seeming like tokens; both of them are going to show their flaws later on in this book. For that matter, so does Ted. I think the reason it all works so well here is that it doesn’t feel unrealistic. Much later, I do think Len dips into a sort of sexism while writing Mel — which we’ll get to — but none of that’s in evidence here. She’s Ted’s second-in-command, not just his love interest. (And even Tracey — Ted’s love interest in his Charlton incarnation — was his lab assistant and confidant, trusted with both his identities, and no wilting violet.)

Once Mel and Jeremiah are gone for the night, Ted returns to KORD to button up — uh, metaphorically — and provide ample evidence that he needs to be charged with Fashion Crimes, though trust me, this is not anywhere as egregious as he gets as time goes on. (And if anyone’s curious, those two-tone shoes are called spectator shoes.)

Ted seems to have shaken off the beating he took a little too easily; unfortunately, comic books tend to only acknowledge injuries gotten in the line of duty for just long enough to further the plot, unless you’re poor Guy Gardner and are still paying for eight years of brain-injury induced erratic behavior a few decades later.²

“—I’ll put the Beetle to bed for the night—” WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO DAMN CUTE, KORD?!

Despite being guilty of crimes against fashion, though, no one can rightfully complain about Ted’s taste in automobiles, as he cruises Chicago in a cherry-red convertible.

We take a sideways jaunt to Pago Island, now, where Len uses the narrative to make it clear what kind of place it is: “An ugly cyst on the placid face of the vast Atlantic Ocean—” Whew, don’t hold back any! On Pago, our good buddy Conrad Carapax continues to noodle around being up to no good; we find out that he was Dan Garrett’s rival, and not a friendly one. He seems to be finding the place spooky, though, which means he has momentary glances of common sense, but apparently not enough of them to, you know, leave.

Back in Chicago, we get a look at Ted’s living situation: His swanky Lakeshore Drive penthouse. And him being cute in one panel and maybe just a little full of it in the next.

“It isn’t much—” Given I wanted to slap Booster around for making a crack about having a favorite limo, it’s only fair to say Ted deserves a swat for doing the same kind of thing.

Later in JLI, Ted’s living in a single room in the JLI embassy and apparently is a total slob (and remains a total slob when he shacks up with Booster at one point), but here, his penthouse seems to be an entirely neat and put together place. It’s decorated, trendy and looks like a pretty damn pleasant space to live in. It’s a fair bet that someone with Ted’s scratch has a hired housekeeper, but having cleaned for a living myself, even a small army of housekeepers can’t combat a bad enough slob, which suggests that at least at this point, Ted’s a considerably neater guy.

It turns out that Ted’s arrival home isn’t to an empty penthouse, however, which leads into one of my favorite scenes for a variety of reasons which I’ll be glad to share with you, because I’m generous like that.

I’m not apologizing.

Okay, okay. Reasons I love this scene:

1. I love the framing, coloring and composition. Seriously, especially where it’s all blue tones and silhouettes. There’s no sense of danger there, really; you don’t get the feeling Ted’s in any trouble, aside the good kind, but there’s something compelling about the art anyway.

2. Ted’s internal monologue: A mark of a good writer is the ability to really get you — the reader — into the shoes of the POV character. Len does that by grounding us in Ted’s senses; ie, smelling like damp barbecue, wanting a shower. It’s something immediately relatable and yet another way we’re reminded of Ted’s basic humanity.

3. I love the fact that Mel no doubt has her own sonic key or some equivalent. You can bet Ted has a security system, so she certainly didn’t break in. That’s a kind of quick, unspoken way to show how serious Ted and Mel are about their relationship. As is the way she’s dressed for bed.

4. Ted’s reaction to being jumped in the dark. Because even though he has to know logically that an intruder would have set off an alarm, it’s his instincts honed on being a costumed fighter that kick in instantly and correctly, and have I mentioned yet how much I love this version of him??

   1. Tellingly, though, even then, when Ted’s reacting like he’s being attacked, he goes for a flip to land the perpetrator on his bed, presumably because he wants to cause the least amount of pain and damage possible.

      1. And he succeeds. He snatches his girl and flips her and she’s perfectly fine, not so much as a twisted wrist.

5. I adore their physical interaction and posing in the last three panels, just the sweet playfulness of it.

6. And I adore their dialogue here. Mel clearly liked getting flung around by her boyfriend — ahem! — and Ted takes the whole thing, despite being startled, with easy-going good humor. But he also asks her for fair warning next time, which I think is just a great moment of character work. And then there’s the whole, “Two falls out of three, Red?” which is clever and funny.

Anyway! Leaving aside any jokes about how Booster might react to getting flung around a bedroom by a half-naked Ted Kord—³⁴

There’s a passage in The Blue Beetle Companion where Irving postulates: “While Blue Beetle was a fun book, its main character lacked the unique identity required to separate him from countless other masked crime-fighters in the DC Universe.”

I think the above scene proves Irving wrong just by itself, never mind everything else going on. Irving’s book is a good resource for some things, but he clearly has his favorite Beetle (and gets Ted’s name wrong, which is just poor scholarship in general) and therefore states above as fact something that’s barely even informed opinion. Partly because Ted actually is very unique even in a whole field of costumed heroes: there was no other character like him being printed at the time, he was being written by a writer whose love for him brought him to life and made him shine, and he was one of the earliest legacy characters ever created.

And partly because over next door, you have another crime-fighter with an incredibly unique identity whose book didn’t survive much longer than Ted’s: Booster Gold.

If it were an argument for creativity and newness, Booster should walk away with it— but he doesn’t. Booster was DC’s first brand new hero after CoIE, after all. And he is an undeniably unique character whose very concept separates him from the crowd.

But at the end of the day, Ted got twenty-four issues, Booster got twenty-five, and both of them ended up with their heads on the chopping block.

Ted was unique. He was rich like Bruce— but he didn’t belong to the shadows. He was daylight and a quick grin and a jaunty wave just before he skedaddled on his skywire. He was a martial artist like many, but he fought competently with no more force than necessary, and often with a playful quip. Fear wasn’t one of his weapons. He had his moments of pathos, but he didn’t really stew in them. He was an engineer, a chemist, an actual genius, but Ted never came off as somehow pretentious; even at the very height of his wealth and influence, he felt like he was just another human being, and one who was very easy to love.

Most of all, through this book, he wore his compassion out on his sleeve in either persona.

As a comic book character, Ted was extraordinary for having so many extraordinary qualities and still being fundamentally ordinary in all the ways that mattered. Whatever Giffen would go on to say later (with a lot of defensiveness), Ted already was the everyman.

I’ve gone on a tangent, but hopefully one that got some gears turning for people. Back to the story, Lt. Fisher’s outside as Ted and Mel bed down for the night, reminding the reader that Ted’s troubles certainly go beyond his costumed identity. Then we cut to the next morning where—

And now you know where the subtitle came from.

—Murray Takamoto takes first place in the Most Adorable Knock-off Security Guard Ever category as he prepares to transport the promethium from STAR to KORD. The sideways reference to the Blues Brothers (a movie I love) via the Rawhide theme whilst in Chicago is entirely fitting and entirely cute and also happened to get the song stuck in my head. Which— thanks a lot, Murray. 🤣 And at the same time as Murray is getting into his western theme song karaoke, Eyebrows McGee is reminding us he still exists and is still up to whatever nefarious scheme!

Back over at KORD, Ted and Mel show up twenty minutes late to work for reasons undisclosed (🌶️) and engage in some banter with Angie, who clearly has a really good relationship with a boss who likes and respects her— and who also clearly has more going on behind the scenes that will come into play later.

Mel, you presumably woke up with that man, why did you let him out of the penthouse dressed like that? Poor Angie, though. Guilty and sharing your boss’s tragic fashion sense is a rough combination.

After this, we head to the lab where Mel’s computer query has produced some results that narrow down what Ted’s looking for in his hunt for Firefist. That leads to this little exchange, which in retrospect is honestly kind of bittersweet:

Ted: Give me an address to go with it and I may marry you, Ms. Case.
Melody: Watch it, Wiseguy, I’m free next Tuesday!
Ted: Great! If I’m not there, start without me!

They have such a charming relationship here in the early book that it actually kind of hurts when it all starts cracking apart later on. Anyway, though, Ted heads immediately for the Bug while, out on the freeway, Murray’s still singing the theme to Rawhide, at least until such time as they end up with four flat tires. Boggling at that, they pull the armored car over only to find all the tires perfectly fine, unaware that someone with an apparent sock for a hat seems to have hexed them?

Really?? There's a spell for everything, isn’t there?

In the next scene, Ted’s found the apartment of Lyle Byrnes, but no Lyle himself; he notes that Firefist torched the front page of the Sun-Times, though, and immediately calls Mel to have her read it to him.

Another panel I love for the clever composition.

Finally there, Ted’s realization takes us into the climactic scene of this issue: Beetle v. Firefist at the brand new Chicago Museum of Firefighting!

Because Firefist does not do anything like subtlety, he attacks right during the ribbon-cutting, making sure all and sundry know all about his grievances. He doesn’t get terribly far, though, before our boy in blue comes swinging in feet first to disrupt the attempted arson.

Firefist makes sure he puts the pedal to the metal on the melodrama and tries to bolt to continue his museum torching, because again, who needs subtlety? But Ted’s frankly ready for that and not only gives chase, but does it with a cheery, self-confident reminder of who precisely he is (the good guy), but also a punchy — in more ways than one! — display of both his badassery and decency:

Tough love at the end of the blue glove!

Unfortunately for Ted, neither badassery nor decency is enough to stop Lyle from trying to kill him or burn the museum to the ground. Given the nature of the fire and the nearly unlimited fuel, both of those are a real risk, even if we readers know that Ted’s gonna come out of it alive.

In case we might forget just how graceful and quick and dynamic Ted is in battle, you have this page-wide panel to remind us—

—which I love specifically for how much motion there really is there. Of course, it doesn’t save Ted from getting a little bashed up — a slightly strained arm — but he still uses some melted roofing tar to blind Firefist and give himself an advantage and a chance to get Lyle’s helmet off of him. Lyle takes that with predictable displeasure and lands a mouth-bloodying crack across Ted’s jaw, giving himself enough room to escape, but unfortunately, it looks to be the entirely permanent kind, the type of escape you don’t come back from.

I mean, you’re not wrong about Ted being all those things, but yeowch. >.< Ted’s little voice-breaking in that last panel gets me in the heart.

And that’s pretty much the end for this issue. The denouement is just a short little bit with Ted talking to the Fire Chief after the fire itself has burned out, a little exchange where Ted laments Lyle’s death and the Chief expresses a kind of sorrow that the firefighters lost so incredibly much of their heritage, which culminates in this entirely classy moment below.

Classy, Ted. 🥰🥰🥰

And so ends the second issue of Blue Beetle (1986); after the first one introduced us to everyone, this one was, if you ask me, honestly excellent from the beginning to the ending. The plot went quick, but not so breakneck we missed the opportunity for moments to breathe and moments of humanity and humor. Firefist’s plot was wrapped, but there are plenty of others in motion to keep the book moving along. We got great character beats — Mel and Jeremiah, Mel and Ted, Murray’s singing, the firefighters — and then the story wraps on a kind note that once again really displays what sort of man Ted is at this point in his life.

Needless to say, I’ll be here in a week with Booster’s second issue, and in about two weeks with the next Ted’s third issue — the Madmen!! — but until then, how about you tell me what to work on next by voting on it below?

The Poll

1. White Anglo-Saxon Protestant

2. I have a lot of opinions on Guy and almost all of them can be summed up by, “He deserves/deserved better.”

Live Booster Gold Reaction

3.

4. Seriously, though, I am both queer and ship those two like the USPS, so while that’s not the purpose of my book reviews, it’s still probably gonna get mentioned occasionally. If that’s a problem— tough. It’s 2025, get over it.