Mystery Men Comics #1

History

Fox Feature Syndicate was launched by entrepreneur Victor Fox and associate Bob Farrell at 480 Lexington Avenue in New York City; for content, Fox contracted the comics-packaging shop Eisner & Iger, one of the few studios supplying complete stories on demand to fledgling publishers. Mystery Men Comics was Fox's second anthology title, following Wonderworld Comics, and its material was almost certainly in production just as Judge Learned Hand handed down the April 2, 1939 ruling in DC v. Bruns — which found Fox's earlier Wonder Man character to infringe on Superman — yet Fox pressed ahead with a new slate of original heroes. The Blue Beetle story was drawn by Charles Nicholas Wojtkoski under the house pseudonym 'Charles Nicholas,' a shared byline that the Eisner & Iger shop used to anonymize collaborative work; the Grand Comics Database tentatively credits Will Eisner as the scripter, though this remains unconfirmed. The indicia of the issue lists the publisher as Bruns Publications, Inc., with Victor S. Fox as president, and the book was formally copyrighted under that corporate name.

Trivia · 10 facts

• First appearance of Dan Garret (Blue Beetle) — drawn by Charles Nicholas Wojtkoski under the house name 'Charles Nicholas,' with Will Eisner tentatively credited as scripter by the Grand Comics Database.
• In his debut story, Blue Beetle wears a business suit, mask, and hat with no apparent superpowers — the recognizable blue costume did not appear until Mystery Men Comics #2.
• The issue also contains the first appearances of the Green Mask (Michael Shelby), Rex Dexter of Mars (art by Dick Briefer), Wing Turner, Zanzibar the Magician, and several other features — making it one of the most character-debut-dense first issues of the Golden Age.
• Cover art is by Lou Fine, and depicts the Green Mask, not Blue Beetle; Blue Beetle would not receive his first cover appearance on the series until Mystery Men Comics #7.
• The issue was formally published by Bruns Publications, Inc. (Fox's corporate entity) and according to Library of Congress copyright records hit newsstands around June 15, 1939, the same month as Adventure Comics #40 and Detective Comics #29.
• Blue Beetle went on to become only the second superhero — after Superman — to headline his own solo ongoing series, launching his own book by late 1939.
• Jack Kirby later wrote and drew the syndicated Blue Beetle newspaper strip beginning January 1940, working under the same 'Charles Nicholas' house pseudonym, extending the character's reach beyond comics.
• Fox Feature Syndicate sponsored a 'Blue Beetle Day' at the 1939 New York World's Fair on August 7, 1940, broadcast over radio station WMCA, reflecting the character's remarkable early cultural footprint.
• The Blue Beetle character eventually passed to Charlton Comics (which revamped Dan Garrett for the Silver Age in 1964 and introduced Ted Kord in 1966) and then to DC Comics when DC acquired the Charlton characters in 1983; the third Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes, debuted in 2006's Infinite Crisis and starred in a 2023 live-action film.
• The series ran for 31 issues total, from August 1939 to February 1942, and because Fox's copyrights lapsed, most of its non-Blue-Beetle features are now in the public domain and have been reprinted in facsimile editions by independent publishers.

Full credits

Key issues in Mystery Men Comics

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#2 1st appearance — Zeus