CHARLTON PORTFOLIO - AN UNPUBLISHED BLUE BEETLE BY STEVE DITKO !!!

Here's what I'd like to call a Charlton Cancelled Comics Cavalcade expanded edition, featuring a rare, unpublished Blue Beetle comic book. How awesome!

Steve Ditko's incredible concept art for Blue Beetle's suit!

An origin for the Blue Beetle was given in Blue Beetle #2, linking Ted Kord to the previous Blue Beetle. Ted was revealed as a former student of Dan Garrett, and when they were investigating Ted's uncle, Jarvis Kord, they learned Jarvis was working to create an army of androids to take over Earth. Garrett changed into Blue Beetle, but was killed in the battle. As he died, he passed on the responsibility of being Blue Beetle to Ted, but was not able to pass on the mystical scarab, a convenient means for Ditko to explain his preference for a power-free character. 

Don (Phantom, Return of the New Gods) Newton provided the wraparound cover for the Charlton Portfolio, with Bob (Iron Man, Freemind) Layton inks. It's a great publication & highly recommended.  

Still looks awesome, even in black & white!

 

Charlton Portfolio
"B.B. Meets The Specter"
Steve Ditko cover for previously unpublished Blue Beetle #6.  
"A Specter Is Haunting Hub City"
The Blue Beetle faces the Specter, a robber in a suit that makes him almost invisible.
Plot & art by Steve (Liberty Belle) Ditko with script by Steve (Aquaman, Creepy, Eerie) Skeates (as D.C. Glanzman.)

Outstanding publication featuring Blue Beetle, Captain Atom & The Question!

 

Since then, it has been reprinted in The Action Heroes Archives Vol. 2.  
  
Sometime after this story the Blue Beetle aids the heroes of the Multiverse in their crusade against the Anti-Monitor in Crisis On Infinite Earths #1-3, 6, 7, 10-12.  This is his next official appearance after this unpublished story. 

An ad run in Judomaster #98, for the unpublished issue of Blue Beetle.

  
Live Large My Friends!

Thank You!

Ah, what might have been! But even six issues would have run short, of what we'd have wanted to see.