TEX'S BACK-ISSUE QUEST EPISODE #44 Blue Demon

It's been a long time....

     I shouldn't have left you...

     Without some dope comics to look through!!

     

 Hello, my brothers and sisters! It's T to the E to the X, back again with the grooves that make you MOVE and the books that make you LOOK! I apologize for the delays since the Holidays, but TEX has been swamped with real-life things that needed tending to.

 We only have fun when the work is done. You savvy?

  Today, I unleash a real, once-living-legend upon my fellow Questers! Feast your eyes on the one, the only....

BLUE DEMON!!!!!!

It's my copy of "El Increíble Blue Demon / The Incredible Blue Demon" #1! As far as my research has shown, this comic features the first appearance of the legendary luchador, Blue Demon, in comics!! This was EXTREMELY hard to come by - it took me YEARS to find one. It is more than likely SUPER SCARCE. A collector once offered me $800 for this comic - I said no, obviously. Luckily, I was able to get my hands on a few more early issues:

"El Increíble Blue Demon" #3!

"El Increíble Blue Demon" #6!!

"El Increíble Blue Demon" #8!!

"El Increíble Blue Demon" #13!! These are cool fotonovelas - this means the story is told in real pictures (with some art mixed in at times) with added word bubbles that tell the story!

     So, who is Blue Demon? You've might have seen him on late night TV from time to time, fighting bad guys and just looking really cool, but if you aren't a fan of lucha libre (Mexican pro-wrestling), or a fan of Mexican superheroes, you may not know who this blue masked dynamo is. Well, I reckon I'll just have to fix that.

    Blue Demon, or El Demonio Azul (lovingly called "Blue" by his fans), was born Alejandro Muñoz Moreno in Rinconada, Nueva León, Mexico in 1922. The son of a farmer, he left home at a young age in the mid 1930s to move to Monterrey, Nueva León to work on the National Railroad. It was there that his co-workers took note of the freakish size of his hands, and his immense physical strength and they gave him the nickname, "Manotas" - "Big Hands." In the early 1930's a new sport called lucha libre had begun taking Mexico by storm. It was professional wrestling, a sport brought from the United States to Mexico by a Mexican businessman named Salvador Lutteroth.  A lucky encounter with a famous luchador, Rolando Vera, in the mid 1940s put Alejandro on the path to stardom. Vera trained Alejandro, and soon Alejandro made his debut in March of 1948 wrestling in Laredo, Texas. However, the legend had not yet emerged.

   In September of 1948, Alejandro donned the famous mask for the very first time, and became The Blue Demon - El Demonio Azul! First wrestling as a "rudo" (called a "heel" in American pro-wrestling), Blue Demon's charisma and amazing ability in the wrestling ring quickly earned him a huge fan base. Blue soon formed a team with another famous masked luchador, Black Shadow, becoming Los Hermanos Shadow (The Shadow Brothers). However, everything would change when Black Shadow ran afoul of the most legendary, beloved and admired luchador of all time, El Santo, El Enmascarado de Plata / The Saint, The Man In The Silver Mask, who was then wrestling as a rudo. El Santo defeated Black Shadow - Black Shadow lost both the match, and his mask, and was forced to reveal his secret identity to the entire world. This precipitated Blue Demon's turn from rudo to técnico (called a "face" in American Pro-wrestling) and began a years-long feud between Blue Demon and Santo that made wrestling matches that were the stuff of dreams.

   Like Santo's, Blue Demon's rise was meteoric, leading to similar opportunities to those that Santo had been afforded in film and comic books. In 1961, Blue Demon got small roles in a couple of luchador films, but in 1964 he got the first of his several starring roles in "Blue Demon: El Demonio Azul" :

   Blue Demon would go on to star in more than twenty films and have his own successful comic published beginning in 1968. Like Santo's films and comics, Blue Demon's films and comics chronicled Blue Demon's adventures as he took on everything from crooks, to spies, to aliens to supernatural monsters. Blue Demon is an icon in Mexico, and both Central and South America. He died in 2000, suffering a heart attack at the age of 78, but Blue Demon's legacy lives on. Blue Demon's adopted son, Blue Demon, Jr., has had a long and prestigious career as a luchador culminating in amazing matches with El Hijo de Santo / The Son of Santo. Although Blue Demon, Jr.s' film career has never quite taken off well, he has, like his father before him, been the protagonist of a few comic book series:

It's my copy of "Blue Demon, Jr.: El Legado" / "Blue Demon, Jr.: The Legacy" #1!!

And issue #2 as well!! These comics were published back in 2005. Notice that Blue Demon's normal superhero attire has been replaced with cool, hip street clothes...kinda like what happened with Superman in early issues of the New 52. Coincidence? You decide.

More recently, Blue Demon, Jr. graced Robert Rodriguez's "Lucha Underground" on El Rey Network with his presence:

If you are a pro-wrestling fan, and you're not watching "Lucha Underground," you are REALLY missing out.

On UniMás, a new series is currently airing chronicling Blue Demon's life...And it is AWESOME! It is set for 65 episodes. I love it:

I love Santo, Blue Demon and lucha libre because it is fun, and exciting, - it's like watching a comic book come to life. I don't know if I would have learned Spanish as quickly if I hadn't fallen in love with lucha libre and it's two most legendary luchdores. I encourage you to check out some old lucha films and enjoy the cool, cheesy awesomeness, as well as checking out some great lucha libre from CMLL, AAA, or "Lucha Underground."

¡VIVA EL BLUE DEMON!

¡VIVA LA LUCHA LIBRE!


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