Acquired Taste Book Club Week 7!
2019-12-14T20:00:00Z → 2019-12-20T19:59:00Z
Welcome to the Acquired Taste Book Club! And if you look closely behind Blue Beetle and the Bug in that image, you’ll see that we’re still under the…
Red Skies! And we’re finishing off our participation in Crisis on Infinite Clubs by returning to Charlton Comics.
First up, we’re proceeding with the next four issues of The Question. Our fearless, faceless, fightin’, uh, fhero is back. And fear not, Captain Atom will return next time we look at Charlton.
But in the meantime, we’re digging into the third Post-Crisis Charlton series: Blue Beetle! In this case, we’re looking at Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle, created by Steve Ditko (who also created The Question, The Creeper, and Hawk and Dove, along with co-creating a few obscure Marvel characters, like Arachnid-Boy or whatever his name is). This is, interestingly, a case of double-acquired tast-
Wait.
Hang on.
Let me look this up.
This is, interestingly, a case of quadruple-acquired taste. See, the original Blue Beetle, Dan Garret (later renamed to Dan Garrett), was created by Will Eisner and Charles Nicholas for Fox Features Syndicate (no relation to 20th Century Fox) all the way back in Mystery Men Comics #1 from 1939. Only then, Fox Features Syndicate hit some financial rough waters in the early ‘40s and gave the character to Holyoke Publishing, a company they owed money to. But the later, Holyoke actually gave it back to Fox Features Syndicate, only for it to then get bought up by Charlton. And then Charlton had like twenty different volumes of Blue Beetle series. Eventually, Steve Ditko created Ted Kord (who was sort of like Batman’s non-powered-rich-guy-with-gadgets concept applied to a character with Captain Webface or whoever’s attitude and fighting style) as a successor to Dan Garrett. And he’s the one who ultimately showed up in Crisis on Infinite Earths and, thereafter, wound up here.
Reading Assignment: The Question (1986-) #5-8 and Blue Beetle (1986-) #1-4
The Question:
The Question (1986-) #5
The Question (1986-) #6
The Question (1986-) #7
The Question (1986-) #8
Blue Beetle:
Blue Beetle (1986-) #1
Blue Beetle (1986-) #2
Blue Beetle (1986-) #3
Blue Beetle (1986-) #4
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
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These issues are presented more as a sequence of one-shots than the longer story the first four presented. Which format do you prefer, if either?
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Which issue is your favorite?
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What’s your impression of the world of Hub City so far?
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What’s the best one-liner about the Question’s face?
DISCUSSION BLUE BEETLES:
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Have you read any Ted Kord stories before? If not, what do you think of him? If so, how does this compare with his later portrayals?
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Which of the three ex-Charlton series do you like best so far?
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Are you interested in seeing more of any of the villains?
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Which of the Madmen is the most stylish?
For questions or concerns, contact me @BatJamags.
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Next week: Bring up the weather channel, Watch the Sky, and listen closely to the Weatherman, because we’re going back on StormWatch!
