So in light of the recent Blue Beetle movie - yes, readers in the future, you're remembering correctly. Hollywood did in fact finance and release a big-budget major studio motion picture starring perennial also-ran superperson The Blue Beetle. And in commemoration of this event, we thought it would be fun to take a look back at one of this venerable character's 1940s adventures.


Many clues will point the discerning reader towards this comic's 1940s origins. There's the ten-cent price; the stiff, simplistic illustrations, and of course, that pasttime of many a costumed forties hero, the Hitler-punching.


Sure, everybody spent the summer talking about "Barbieheimer." But right here, where the Blue Beetle is protecting America's deadly new secret weapon that was no doubt designed by chainsmoking, nattily-dressed neurotic scientists working in remote, classified locations, well this here is "Beetleheimer", is what this is. Gentlemen, start your memes.


In service of this secret weapon, America has employed all its armed might, intellectual prowess, financial strength - everything, in fact, with the exception of the fundamentals of perspective drawing.


Little did these top security agents know that a gang of snappily-dressed Nazi tunnel-diggers would, very quietly, dig a surprisingly rectangular tunnel right into their secret weapon laboratory!


You know you're in the Golden Age of Comics when somebody gets drilled right through the skull! Pleasant dreams, 40s kids.


Mike breaks the fourth wall, perhaps a first for comics? Look out for those jagged panel borders, Mike! Getting snagged on those things would be an emergency indeed.


The entire security apparatus of a nation throws up its hands in defeat and puts The Blue Beetle in charge... of finding more football illustrations for the artist to swipe figures from.


Just want to take a minute to really appreciate these insane panel borders. They don't help the narrative, they don't spell out identifiable shapes or anything, they're just there to confuse and harass, maybe send secret messages to Nazi spies? Who knows.


The Sign Of The Blue Beetle is something like Spider-Man's Spider Signal, except that the Sign Of The Blue Beetle compels villains to just go ahead and commit suicide. I will say it makes the super hero job a lot easier!


They say New Yorkers are blasé. And they're right!


The Nazi spy flees the Blue Beetle into what apparently is a part of the city where neither the zoning laws nor the laws of perspective apply. Seems there's a lot of this going around!


Tense spy drama? Hilarious mistaken-identity romantic comedy of errors? You decide!


And with a brief pause for a little casual racism, our thrilling chase continues!


It used to be a lot easier to cross into Canada, all you needed was a secret weapon. And any sort of photo ID. Of course, once across the border and into the land of perpetual snow and ice, you'd need to rent a dogsled.


Sometimes the script says "Blue Beetle pushes the spy out of the way of the avalanche" but you simply don't have any "push" references, and all the swipes you have are of a guy pulling somebody else. This is when the real comic book professional rolls up his sleeves and really earns that four dollars per page.


You catch one Nazi? Two more take his place!


You know you're in the Golden Age of Comics when a hapless thug is accidentaly carved into a bloody mess by an airplane propeller!


Looks like the Blue Beetle made such a tremendous leap that it displaced his spine and most of his upper body musculature. Tough luck, BB!


So what if you missed your flight? Just swim to Europe. It's easy when you have the mighty and not-very-well-defined powers of Blue Beetle!


I think Hitler is hoping if they put both secret weapons together, the secret weapons will fall in love and bear many secret weapon children.


The Sign Of The Blue Beetle! Which means "quick, find a train to jump in front of" if you're a spy, or "call the exterminator" if you have a garden.


And there we have it, the famous Hitler Punch, this comic promised us a Hitler Punch and by golly it delivered. I guess World War Two is over now. Pack it up, boys, you're going home.


And with the the leaders of Germany's government nursing their punched faces, the Blue Beetle returns to his daily life as Dan Garret, secure in the knowledge that his unimpressive yet inexplicably persistent character will outlast several publishing companies and a few different Blue Beetle incarnations to become the greatest super hero people kind of think they might have heard of sometime, they guess.

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