The time to strike is
now!!
Usually my quest in
Golden Age Idol--to find a
public domain Golden Age hero to revive today to huge acclaim (and huge
profits, of course) is nothing but a sad little pipe dream.
But now, because of
Marvel's foolishness, the iron is
hot. Because
Henry Pym has abandoned his old costumed identity to become "
The Wasp," there currently is no hero blocking us with
silly trademark issues!!
I'm talking, of course, about
Yellowjacket:
In typical Golden Age fashion, Yellowjacket's origin can be summed up in a few brief sentences:
Actually, it's
slightly more complicated.
Vince Harley was a mystery author (who was
also a bee-keeper!) who liked his stories to be as realistic as possible. So he liked to poke his nose into some dangerous places. Unfortunately, some underworld types objected, and decided to kill him (and I'm not making this up)
by pouring a box of yellowjackets on him.
[Let's clear this up right now. Obviously, Golden Age stories were not too good on science, or even actual
facts. Throughout the series, "
bee" and "
yellowjacket" are used interchangeably, even though yellowjackets are actually wasps, not bees. Deal with it.]
Well,
presto, as a result of this trauma, Harley somehow end up with the ability to telepathically command his bees, and alleged super strength (although you
rarely saw him do anything particularly superhuman...)
Yellowjacket was definitely an
odd superhero. He got perhaps a little
too personal with his bees, and most of the time he fought crime
not out of some sense of justice, but as a way to
research new mystery stories to sell!
In fact, most of his stories ended with his out-clevering
Clark Kent and
Peter Parker. Those guys earned jobs by giving news coverage to their alter egos. Harley, though, wrote up
fictionalized accounts of his adventures and sold them to mystery publishers!! No pesky journalist ethics or commitment to truth needed here!
What
else is cool about Yellowjacket? He had a
lame battle cry:
He has opportunities galore for
terrible bee puns:
He
never missed an opportunity to torture someone with his bees:
He carried his bees around in
a waterproof box!! Take that,
Aquaman!!:
He's a gentleman, but his bees
aren't!!
His costume doesn't seem that tough to draw, but it varied
considerably from issue to issue:
Sadly, Yellowjacket's powers do face one
serious form of
Kryptonite:
After a 10 issue run from 1944-46 (plus a couple of guest appearances in other
Charlton mags), Yellowjacket vanished, never to be seen again, leaving him in the public domain.
But of course, who would want to revive him and make him a star, since Marvel had come up with their
own Yellowjacket? But now, there's
no Yellowjacket!! The field is free!!!
[OK, OK, Marvel's Yellowjacket has not laid fallow nearly long enough for them to lose the trademark.
So what?!?! That's what lawyers or for!]
I'm so enthusiastic to revive Yellowjacket, and I know that
Paula is, too!!
Paula?
Uh, Paula...?
Oh, dear, I really
do have to pay more attention to the non-comic world...
Panels taken from Yellowjacket Comics #3-10 (1944-1946).
