. . . it's. . . it's. . . BEE-MAN!!!
(The All-Time Lousiest Super-Hero Comic Ever Made)

Don't even think about another nominee, folks; this here dog show already has a blue-ribbon champeeeeen.

Our mutt's "pedigree" (such as it is): two -- count 'em! -- two fat issues of something entitled DOUBLE-DARE ADVENTURES, with artwork therein provided by (at least, if THE OVERSTREET COMIC BOOK PRICE GUIDE is to be believed) the late, great Bob Powell, among others. The publisher of record (if we're going to eschew the perfectly acceptable "infamy," I mean) is noted super-hero purveyor Harvey Comics -- home of RICHIE RICH, HOT STUFF THE LITTLE DEVIL and WENDY, THE GOOD LITTLE WITCH -- and the year was of Our Lord, 1966 A.D. Huzzah, huzzah.

Oddly enough -- boy, color me surprised -- NONE of the wares being hawked within either issue of DOUBLE-DARE ADVENTURES are properly "credited," either for writer(s) or artist(s). Apparently, nobody drew the short straw.

Okay. okay... enough with the easy one-liners. Let's get this autopsy decently underway, shall we...?

The lead story (I'll agree to the term, if only for argument's sake) gives us the heart-stopping origin of "Bee-Man" (i.e., "Barry Eames"... get it? Huh? Get it...?).

It seems that Mr. Eames -- a lean and disgruntled scientist toiling, all but unnoticed, on behalf of the U.S. space program -- decided, at some point, that the best way to enhance that ol' weekly paycheck would be to jiggle the remote controls of an unmanned Mars probe on its way back to terra firma with a payload of dirt and rocks and whatnot, so that said mechanism would land someplace sufficiently out-of-the-way for him to get first "dibs" on whatever rare and salable goodies might be contained therein.

(Yeah, yeah... I know. Look: the guy was a rocket scientist -- not an economist. Maybe he was expecting to find the Martian equivalent of an Indian head nickel somewhere in all of that mess, or something.)

In any event: said skullduggery is successful.... up to a point. The probe's landing trajectory is sufficiently diddled with so that it lands somewhere out in the American desert, with only Our Barry being the wiser. (Apparently, the U.S. space program of the Harvey Comics universe is a bit more lackadaisical about such things than one might have initially supposed.) Motoring with all due dispatch towards the site in his trusty land rover, Barry arrives just in time to see the meteorite that is the probe's primary "payload" split itself open, from within, and...

... welllllll... maybe you'd better see this for one for yourselves.

"THE BEES... SAVE ME FROM THE GIANT BEES!"

Just don't know whether to laugh or cry, do ya...?

So: ol' Barry (now joshingly nicknamed "Lumpy," no doubt, by those irrepressible wags over at the base camp infirmary) is now be-bopping about with several distilled quarts of Big Alien Bee Venom sloshing around inside of him (and feeling none too chipper about the whole thing, I daresay).

Put yourself in this guy's place, for a moment (I'll wait right here, while you have the lobotomy). What would you do, under those circumstances...?

Cobble up one jim-dandy of an eyesore of a costume; dub yourself "the Bee-Man"; and embark on a reign of rapine and terror,the savage and unholy likes of which hasn't been seen since the last "Spice Girls" tour, you say...?

Well... shoot. You're way ahead of me, once again.

(Oh, yeah; about that "I'm ready to return to Earth" jazz, in the panel accompanying. It seems that those dastardly giant killer bees -- you all remember those fun fellahs, right? -- were, in actuality, part of this series' ongoing "sub-plot," re: a planned Giant Martian Bee Invasion of Earth. Barry is now -- O, foul infamy! -- in the "pay" of said aliens. Don't cross me, and I won't go into any more detail than that on the matter.)

Our (Anti-)Hero promptly begins to pave the way for his big, black-and-yellow bosses to Take Charge, planet-wise, by defacing public monuments and suchlike. (Thereby demonstrating -- and rather convincingly, if you were to ask moi -- that, as long-range military strategists, bees make darned good rodeo clowns.)

It isat this point in what we'll (grudgingly) refer to as "the narrative" that the fearsome Bee-Man discovers: in order to replenish and maintain his fabulous "bee strength" -- no, really; honest to God. That's what he calls it -- he must periodically slurp up several metric tons of pure honey, and so he rushes headlong towards the nearest "bee farm", y'see, and...

... oh, now... stop whimpering, for pity's sake.

Siiiiiiighhhh. Look... why don't we simply move on to one of the "back-up" features in DOUBLE-DARE ADVENTURES #1, and give you all the opportunity to try and erect the mental blocks necessary to forget you ever saw any of the preceding, all right? Big crybabies.

It seems inconceivable, in retrospect, that the editors over atHarvey Comics could actually have thought a character as charismatic and engaging as Bee-Man might actually need the added insurance, sales-wise, of a second feature... but: there you have it.

"It," in this particular instance, being a little something entitled "The Glowing Gladiator."

(... and just check out the arsenal on Our Boy, here, whydon'tcha? "Leather socks, for speed." Somebody got paid a damned fine dollar to write that. "Leather socks, for speed." And people have the unmitigated gall to refer to schlubs like Melville and Dostoevsky as "geniuses.")

The Glowing Gladiator -- in actuality, "Harry Barker -- president and chief trouble-shooter of Adventure Unlimited"; sort of an "Indiana Jones-for-hire" kinda guy -- stumbles across "the amulet of Hannibal" whilst rooting around in some ancient Tunisian ruins. Said amulet links his consciousness (poor, rudimentary thing though it is) to the unquiet spirit of its previous owner and namesake, who -- taking something of an undead "shine" to Harry -- also hands him "the Sword of Achilles": a mystical blade which (as Hannibal obligingly informs us) "by mere mental command [...] has the power to change into any form of armament."

Apparently, dead people were at anything but a premium, in the Harvey Comics universe (which helps to explain "Casper" and "the Ghostly Trio," I suppose), since the GG's first adventure brought him into putatively "savage combat" with the likes of John Dillinger; the James Gang; Rasputin; and -- as seen in the accompanying panels -- Atilla the Hun, his own bad self. I'd make an honest attempt to explicate the Whys and Wherefores of all this in greater detail, were it not for the seizures.

The bronze medal in this merry little bobsled race down into the depths of literary Hell goes to the third and final continuing feature: the premiere installment of "MagicMaster." Be brave, littlesoldiers; we've made it this far, together, you and I.

As you've doubtless intuited from the accompanying panel sequence, "The Coming of... MAGICMASTER!" opens to the funeral tolling of the tragedy bell, as Little Jimmy is informed that Beloved Daddy's car has -- sadly -- failed the all-important "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang" test at a crucial moment. Foul Play -- in the guise of one "Prince Infernus"; a stage magician rival to Jimmy's dad, himself a prestidigitator of some renown -- is hinted at, ominously, in the form of a tell-tale turban found at the scene of said (*kaff*kaff*) "accident."

Disconsolate with grief, Little Jimmy wanders into his departed dad's library/study/rumpus room, which -- as the omniscient narrator obligingly informs us -- "holds the world's greatest collection of magic paraphernalia and books on the occult arts." Apparently, the leather-bound, gilt-edged collection of LETTERS TO THE PENTHOUSE FORUM holds some peculiarly kabbalistic significance the likes of which I had been, hitherto, all but unawares.

In any event -- I don't know about you lot, but I'm certainly not getting any younger, here -- Little Jimmy accidentally mouths a spell of some sort while leafing his way through one yellowed, crumbling tome, in particular, annnnnnnnnnd -- hey, presto! One gigantic, blue-skinned djinn... coming right up! (It's true what they say, then: "Reading Really IS F-U-Ndamental.")

Jimmy and the djinn -- alternately referred to, throughout the text, as "Shamarah," "The Mighty Sorcerer," and "MagicMaster," for no readily apparent or compelling reason -- instantly "bond," and set out in heated pursuit of the aforementioned Prince Infernus. And, oh, the hijinks which ensue.

The most gratingly annoying thing about this final DOUBLE-DARE offering -- which is neither as hideously drawn as "The Glowing Gladiator," nor as incoherently conceived and scripted as "Bee-Man" -- is the singularly boneheaded and unwarranted device of bringing the storytelling "action" to a grinding halt, every few pages, so that Little Jimmy might amaze the readers with the "how-to's" of various dopey schoolyard sleight-of-hand "magic tricks."

To duplicate the effect of this for yourselves, in the privacy of your own homes: the next time you're reading a comic book... smash the business end of an ordinary, household hammer directly against your frontal lobes, every other page or so.

Either you'll find your concentration on the super-hero antics before you rudely shattered... or else you'll end up the next Rob Liefeld.

The Marvel Comics HALL OF SHAME

PAGE ONE (The World's Lamest Super-Villains)

PAGE TWO (Hopelessly Lame Super-Hero Battles)