The Blue Beetle was created by Charles Nicholas. The character made his first appearance in August of 1939 in the comic book Mystery Men #1, published by Fox Features Syndicate. He has the distinction of being one of the few golden age characters to survive into to present, but the character has been through many changes and revisions, and the original character is quite different from the one that comic book readers know today. This web page contains information about an original character that has been largely neglected by the current copyright holder.

The Blue Beetle was Fox Features Syndicate's comic book superstar, appearing in a newspaper strip and a radio show in edition to his own comic book in edition to Mystery Men, Fox's flagship title.

The original comic presented a simple character with a simple story; a young police officer who donned a strange costume to fight crime without the constraints placed on police officers. Later revisions were made to the story, and you can read all about the character's story on the "Origins and Legend" page.

Adventures of the original Blue Beetle character have been published by three publishers between 1939 and 1955, and appeared in hundreds of newspapers in the 1940's. A new story was published by a fourth publisher, Americomics, in 1982. In this Americomics story, the original Blue Beetle would meet his current successor. In1992, he was featured on a "Cosmic Card" trading card from Impel Marketing, Inc. under license from DC Comics

For examples of artwork from all era's of this character's history, take a look at the Blue Beetle Gallery.

The Blue Beetle radio serial aired from 05-15-40 to 09-13-40. A full list of known episodes can be found on the "Blue Beetle Radio" page.

"On the tongues of 130 million Americans" claimed a house ad from Blue Beetle issue #13. Based on population estimates available in 1940, this would have been 100% of the U.S. population.
Though Blue Beetle was probably never the universal household name that Fox Features claimed, the name recognition factor did help him to survive into the modern age as his copyright was transferred from publisher to publisher, finally settling at DC Comics. During this time the character has been reborn twice, each time with new origins and powers, and he has been the inspiration for at least two other characters published by current trademark holder DC. Read about Blue Beetle's legacy on "The 60 Year Legacy of the Blue Beetle" page.

Check out the Blue Beetle Links page to find other Blue Beetle related information on the web.

The Blue Beetle and all associated names and characters are copyright DC Comics

If you have any comments or corrections, please contact Robert J. Bowman at bob@wonderworldcomics.com.