In another thread, Jeff of Earth-J expressed interest in Gwandanaland's extensive collections of Golden Age Blue Beetle. Naturally, my first thought was, "is it comprehensive?" Because I am a very damaged person.
So I decided to investigate. I had done some research on Blue Beetle already, mainly tracing Joan Mason's career. (That was Blue Beetle's girlfriend, a reporter.) Here's where I found the Azure Avenger:
PHASE I: THE FOX YEARS
Mystery Men Comics #1-31: This is where the Dan Garret got his start, a policeman who wore a bullet-proof tunic and took Vitamin 2X for greater strength and speed (supplied by a neighborhood pharmacist). He later got the scarab, and super-powers.
Blue Beetle #1-60: This is the backbone of the Blue Beetle story, as you'd expect, but it's got some anomalies. For one thing, Holyoke published issues #12-30, because they thought Fox had gone out of business. But Fox returned and took back the title with issue #31, skipped #43, and then had huge gaps in frequency (but not numbering) in the late '40s. Blue Beetle made it to issue #60 in 1950.
Big 3 #1-7: This is the Comic Cavalcade of Fox. But instead of Flash, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman, they had Blue Beetle, Samson and The Flame for all of seven issues.
Weekly Comic Magazine #1-2: The GCD lists this, but has no further information. It's some kind of premium, which I suspect was probably reprints.
Real Hit Comics #1: Only one issue, in 1944. BB was there!
All Top Comics #4, 8-13: Blue Beetle had a text story in issue #4, and real stories in issues #8-13.
The Green Mask #17: A text story.
Phantom Lady #13: A text story and a real story.
Zago, Jungle Prince #1: This ran four issues, but Blue Beetle only appeared in the first.
Tegra #1: Only ran one issue, but by golly, Blue Beetle slipped in there. Can you say "inventory story," boys and girls?
PHASE II: THE CHARLTON YEARS
After 1950, the publishing end got weird again.
Charlton started publishing Blue Beetle after a five-year hiatus in 1955, although it had never formally purchased the character. It began with Blue Beetle #18-21 (picking up the number of The Thing, a victim of the Comics Code). The first two issues were all reprint, except for the covers; all four covers were by Dick Giordano, and they are tasty.
Next up was Blue Beetle #1-5 (1964-65), which is where (I think) policeman Dan Garret became Egyptologist Dan Garrett.
That was followed by Blue Beetle #50-54, which picked up the numbering of Unusual Tales. I assume Charlton did this to consolidate subscription fees to the post office, but it sure confused the heck out of the Li'l Capn. (The title continued as Ghostly Tales.)
And everybody knows what comes next: Steve Ditko. After some back-up tales in Captain Atom, Ted Kord picks up the mantle for five issues (1967-68), eventually being bought by DC Comics and ending up in the Justice League with Booster Gold.
So Charlton had three versions of the character, and four series -- none of which ran more than five issues. The Li'l Capn tried to collect these books, he really did! But when you stumble across a Blue Beetle #1 and a Blue Beetle #2 at a flea market that are clearly different series, plus #50, all published within a 7-year time frame, it's pretty confusing to a boy!
Anyway, how much does Gwandanaland reprint? A lot, really.
The first volume of Gwandanaland's Blue Beetle reprints the BB stories from Mystery Men Comics #1-31. That's all of them.
The second volume includes most of Blue Beetle's non-Blue Beetle and non-Mystery Men appearances, including All-Top Comics #8-13, Big 3 #1-7, Phantom Lady #13, Tegra #1 and Zago #1. That doesn't include, according to my list, the text stories from Green Mask #17 and All Top Comics #4, the story from Real Hit #1, probably the text story from Phantom Lady #13 and whatever's in Weekly Comics Magazine #1-2 (if they're not reprints, which they probably are).
After that, Gwandanaland reprints Blue Beetle #1-60 for the next six volumes ... sort of. They do splendidly until volume eight, which includes Blue Beetle #42-47, skipping the non-existent #43. But that turns out to be just "Volume 8, Part 1." There's a Volume 8, Part 2" that includes Blue Beetle #51-54, 56-58 and 60. The description notes that they're still looking for copies of Blue Beetle #55 and #59, which explains their absence. But no mention is made of the missing Blue Beetle #48-49. (Which is a shame, since both were drawn by Jack Kamen.)
Then they skip the first Charlton run and jump to the 1960s for Volume 9, which (I think) has all 10 issues of the two Dan Garrett runs. Then Volume 10 gathers up the Ditko stories.
THEN Gwandanaland returns to Charlton's 1950s Blue Beetle. They reprint the four eponymous issues (yes, re-reprinting the reprints) in Blue Beetle Vol. 11, along with the back-ups from Space Adventures #13-14.
I'm really tempted to jump in and buy the whole set.
Replies
Very interesting. I did a similar analysis and came to much the same conclusions. (I haven't ordered any "Blue Beetle" yet because last week was an expensive week for me, and I was waiting to see what this week looks like before pulling the trigger.) Judging by the respective page counts, I have concluded that Gwandanaland's v1 include the entire content of Mysterymen #1-31, whereas Golden Age Giant comprises just the Blue Beetle stories from MM #1-31, the other miscellaneous stuff you listed above, and Blue Beetle #1-7.
I think I already pointed out in that other discussion that v9 = Charlton's Egyptologist Dan Garrett, v10 = Ditko, and v11 = the '50s run. I have decided to buy the following...
Golden Age Giant: This includes the BB stories from v1-3 plus part of 4. That's enough GA BB for me without the filler.
Volume 9: That's the revamped Charlton Dan Garrett. (If I didn't already own the Ditko material, I would have ordered the Charlton Giant, which combines v9-10.)
Volume 11: Then I might buy the '50s stuff, just so I have a random sampling of the three decades.
When I do order, I'll do so directly through the site this time and save 20%, but it will take longer.
I've read a ton of Blue Beetle stories (again, researching Joan Mason), and you're probably wise to find a tolerable amount to get a feel for them without needing to read every single story. A lot of them are pretty by-the-numbers and/or repetitive.
For my part, I'll probably go whole hog so as to not miss, for example, Joan Mason's many standalone stories. I don't expect that's important to too many other people.
Also, I kinda want to get a feel for the superheroizing of Dan Garret. Jumping around from one Joan story to another, I'm unclear if he gradually gained super-powers that were later explained away by the scarab, or if the scarab was introduced on purpose, or if it just happened one issue with no explanation, or what.
Those are the kinds of things I'm interested in seeing for myself as well.
The one-man band that runs Gwandanaland, Lance Jones, wrote a thanks when I ordered this afternoon (which is pretty cool) and I asked him some of the above questions. He said that Blue Beetle #48-49 were in fact included in the latest Blue Beetle Vol. 8 Part 1, but the description hadn't yet been updated.
"(I haven't ordered any "Blue Beetle" yet because last week was an expensive week for me, and I was waiting to see what this week looks like before pulling the trigger.)"
I am unable to make it to my LCS today (at least not yet) because the road conditions in the DFW metroplex are pretty bad. Nevertheless, I am about this close to pulling that trigger anyway.
The "Golden Age of Comics" is so called, not because comic books were so good, but because they were so plentiful and so popular. The more GA comics one reads, the more one comes to realize that Sturgeon's Law definitely applies. To illustrate my point, let us examine the Silver Age series "The War That Time Forgot" from Star Spangled War Stories. Kids love WWII and kids love dinosaurs so mashing the two together would seem to be a sure-fire formula for success. Chances are, if you are reading this post on this site, you've read one or more of these stories yourself.
About 15 years ago, DC Comics released a "Showcase" edition of this series-within-a-series and, as a completist, I had to have it. Most people would read one or two of these stories and leave it at that. That's probably the way to go. Because, read in quick succession, these stories become mind-numbingly repetitive and, ultimately, boring. Reading one or two or a few is probably the way to go. But, in order to experience the full effect of series such as this, one must read them all, until one's mind is actually numbed.
That's what I expect from the GA/SA Blue Beetle.
I pulled the trigger on Blue Beetle yesterday because I was stuck at home with a PC and a PayPal account. (Also I called my LCS and confirmed that this is a light week for me.) Mr. Jones also responded to me personally and he sent PDFs of the the current catalogue as well as the Guides/Samplers, each of which (there are three of them) is pretty amazing. They are exactly what the sound like: lists of his wares profusely supplemented with samples of the comics themselves. (The samplers are also available for purchase.) I have been buying PSArtbooks for years now, but they are mainly horror with some science fiction. Gwandanaland has tons of superheroes, most of which I have never even heard of (except, perhaps, in Craig Yoe's Super-Weird Heroes or Super-Patriotic Heroes or such like.
"But, in order to experience the full effect of series such as this, one must read them all, until one's mind is actually numbed."
There is another option as well: sooner or later, I think I'm going to be buying all those samplers.
Let us know where on the mind-numbing scale Blue Beetle falls, Jeff!
Your description of the Showcase Land that Time Forgot mirrored my experience as well. Come to think of it, that description covers the Showcase Sea Devils and Suicide Squad as well. Heck, I had to read the Golden Age Green Arrow omnibus in small chunks, or my brain really would have melted.
"Let us know where on the mind-numbing scale Blue Beetle falls, Jeff!"
Me? What about you? You placed an order back on February 22. I mean, I will post something about the early Blue Beetles, but I ordered the Golden Age Blue Beetle Giant back on February 23 and just received it today, seven weeks to the day later. To be fair, I think there were some production delays with this particular volume, but did you receive yours? I do plan to place future orders, but going forward I plan to use Amazon (2 days) vs. ordering direct (7 weeks) and forego the discount.
For those of you who might be interested, I'd watched a very thorough retrospective of all three Blue Beetles:
https://youtu.be/nMu6bgLu8Ts
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