Charlton Comic's Blue Beetle #4Charlton Comic's Blue Beetle #4
Review by comics obscurist Mikel Midnight, reprinted with permission.
"The Men of the Mask"
Ted Kord, determined to confront Dan Garret, pursues him to the site of an expedition he had been planning prior to the event at Pago Island: to make a study of an ancient cult, the Men of the Masks. At the same time, in a small Asian sea coast contry, the deadly masked inhabitents of the Mountain of Mider perpare for Garret's arrival, certain he is in search of the Lost Treasure of Mider. Kord explores the Mountain as the Blue Beetle, and is captured. Hearing that Garret has found the Treasure, Kord escapes the Mideran death trap and sets off in search of his old friend. He discovers Garret and the members of the exhibition exchaning gunfire with the cultists, and leaps into battle to rescue them, concluding that Garret has lost his powers. The expedition members escape with the Treasure, setting off an explosion to conceal their getaway, while Kord distracts the cultists. As the chamber crumbles about them (the explosion has ignited pockets of natural gas underneath the mountainous caverns), Kord finally confronts Garret, and judges from his behavior that he is suffering from a mental block, rejecting everything that took place on Pago Island and even about himself and the Blue Beetle. Garret attacks him, and as the two struggle, Kord finds that his opponent is wearing a mask! The imposter reveals that his name is Dan Greer, and that he had been on another expedition with Garret but never received his due of fame or treasure; he was in charge of organising the Mider expedition when Garret disappeared, so he got the idea of impersonating him to make use of resources only Garret had access to. Greer is killed in a gas explosion and the Blue Beetle barely escapes the complete destruction of the Mountain. Some time later, in Hub City, Kord learns from Lt. Fisher that Dan Garret was reported to have died in the explosion, so officially the case is closed and Kord's name is cleared.
"Kill Vic Sage!"
The story opens in the West River section of Crown City [so far as I know, this is the only time the locale of the Question stories is mentioned], as a shadowy figure prowls the docks. He is attacked and felled by a pair of thugs, thinking he is Vic Sage following up on a phony "hot tip" which they'd phoned in; they find instead they have captured a masked man, whom their boss identifies as the Question. The boss order the Question disposed of; he manages to survive, having learned that the threat against Vic Sage is a real one but having failed to discover the boss's identity. The next day at the offices of World Wide Broadcasting the threat is made tangible as following his television news broadcast a bomb is delivered to Sage at the station (which he catches and throws out the skyscraper window where it explodes harmlessly). Sage sends his loyal and hardworking news staff home early, while he continues searching through his files of enemies back home. He receives a phone call, from the voice he recognises as that of the hired killer, and learns they have kidnapped his secretary Nora Lace. As Sage makes his way to the rendesvous point, Nora prompts the man behind the plot to reveal the source of his grudge: "My name is Nat Kat! Years ago, I worked in the city's purchasing office. Sage was only a newspaper reporter back then. He caught me juggling purchasing orders and taking kickbacks! He exposed me, and I was sent to prison. But I swore that someday I'd get even!" Sage arrives and confronts the villains, but their focus on him is broken when Nora lashes out from the chair where she is bound, kicking at one of the gunmen. Sage throws a smoke bomb to add to the distraction while he struggles to free Nora Lace, but the villains disperse when the police arrive. A short time later, Sage realises that the two villains who escaped probably did so through the sewer; he transforms into the Question and pursues them, deducing that they would have to show up where the tunnels converge before dumping into the river. Kat and the hired killer, Arbo, surprise the Question and he is forced to upend them into the rushing water. As they struggle against the current, crying for his help, he tells them, "You're both crazy if you think I'd risk my neck to save the likes of you! As far as I'm concerned, you're just so much sewage. And you deserve to be right where you are!" As the pair are swept away, the Question decides to call Police Captain Lash so he can pick them up, as "they just might survive their trip to the river."