When I write these up, I prefer to use the superhero/villain alias in the title of the article, but this week’s entry presented a certain problem: which name do I use?
I decided on his real name. I’ll explain the problem below, but here’s Songbird’s on-again, off-again love interest Abe Jenkins.
Abe Jenkins first appeared in the pages of Strange Tales #123 in August of 1964. In a story written by Stan Lee and drawn by Carl Burgos, Abe was a master mechanic for an aircraft company in Baltimore who decided to use his knowledge and whatever parts he could find lying around to build himself an armored suit and become a costumed criminal. As the Beetle, he had some flying power-armor that granted the sort of standard abilities that power-armor often gives.
And yes, while the Beetle is best-known as a Spider-Man foe, he originally took on the Human Torch. Don’t ask me how he held onto anything with those bonkers fingers.
Anyway, he became a Spider-Man foe, joining up with the Sinister Syndicate, and being the sort of jerk who would join the Masters of Evil. I mean, who joins a group with a name like that unless you’re somehow being ironic? Really, the Beetle is a C- or B-list Spider-Man foe who isn’t nearly as interesting as any goblin or mad scientist with a bad haircut and too many arms. He’ be utterly forgettable where it not for his next move.
See, Baron Zemo decided, during a period when the Avengers and Fantastic Four were missing to set up a fake superhero team with members of the Masters of Evil posing as heroes under new aliases. Beetle became MACH-1, and this is where the confusion on his superhero name starts because, unlike Iron Man, every time he gets a new version of his armor, he changes his name. MACH-1, MACH-2, MACH-3, and so forth. He’s up to MACH-X these days because he switched to Roman numerals after MACH-3. But that’s neither here nor there.
The thing is, posing as heroes was something that a guy like Abe never considered, and like his new girlfriend Songbird, he came to actually like being one of the good guys. Different Thunderbolts would take to being a hero by different levels, with someone like Moonstone doing it out of something more akin to scientific curiosity and barely reforming while others like Songbird went legitimately straight. Abe, no matter what his armor’s current number, and even counting that weird time when he had a black man’s face, became a law-abiding citizen, even going back to jail when he violated the terms of a pardon by suiting up again.
If anything, Abe’s reform was good enough to play it up for laughs a bit with the fun Superior Foes of Spider-Man where Abe popped up as Boomerang’s parole officer, and he came across as earnestly dorky in a manner that fit entirely within the tone of the series.
Abe appeared to have been killed during the Secret Empire mini-series, but he’s apparently coming back as a cyborg in this year’s One World Under Doom. He may be a wee bit less reformed if that is the case, but hey, he’s been one of the better Thunderbolts for a while now, and at least now, he has some practical gloves.
More Stories
Paradise “Jane”
Tales From The Crypt “Spoiled”
Curb Your Enthusiasm “Never Wait For Seconds!”