From the Bromance Department:

The Red Bee is finally back in action, tights and all! (Through I think his distinctive new long gray beard might be making the domino mask a little redundant.)

Professional douchebag Peacemaker takes shots at the the Red Bee's blousy sleeves, striped pants, colorful name, and, obviously, his "powers." To his enduring credit, the Red Bee has a great response for all of it!

Peacemaker Tries Hard #3, September 2023

The question isn't whether this is the best Red Bee comic of all time; The question is whether this is the best single comic of all time!

It just might be.

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From the Sweetest of Hobbies Department:

Peacemaker Tries Hard #2, August 2023

For the second time in two issues, readers of the James Gunn-influenced Peacemaker Tries Hard comic book are treated to a brief vignette featuring Peacemaker's parole agent, some beekeeper named *checks notes* Richard Raleigh.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time the Red Bee has ever actually been shown in an apiary, which is kind of weird when you think about it. I mean, how often have we seen Batman in a cave full of bats or Wonder Woman on an island of women? Better late than never, I guess.

He's still not in costume, so there are no doubt plenty of readers wondering what this old man is doing in a Peacemaker comic. All I can say is that they are in for a treat in the next issue.

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From the Wacky Neighbor Department:

Peacemaker Tries Hard #1, July 2023

James Gunn's Peacemaker show on HBO was a big hit, so of course its star eventually found his way into his own comic book, bringing the continuity of his DCEU — that's "DC Extended Universe," by which we mean the setting and characters of the Warner Bros movies featuring DC Comics intellectual property — with him.

In this particular case, that's a good thing, because it lets us spend time with characters who, in the comic book DC Universe — the "DCU," 'natch — remain dead.

Characters like the Red Bee.

That's him there, in his civilian identity. Back in the day, Rick Raleigh was an assistant district attorney. But that's not so far removed from being a parole office for super criminals.

It would seem that an old man with a beard like that would be retired from super-heroics, and there's no explicit reference to the "Red Bee" nom de guerre in this particular issue. But keep your eyes out, kids, because something* tells me we'll be seeing more of the Red Bee in issues to come.

* That "something" is the retailer solicitation for advanced issues.

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From the Child Welfare Department:

Eighty-two years after his first appearance, the Red Bee is finally getting his own sidekick! (Michael the Trained Bee doesn't count because he's actually the Red Bee's super power.)

Technically, Ladybug hasn't actually appeared in a comic yet (other than this bio from the backmatter of The New Golden Age #1, 2022), but it's implied we will be meeting her in soon-to-come issues of the appropriately-named Stargirl: The Lost Children.

I feel like they are making this comic specifically for me.

Take all my money, DC!

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From the Family Business Department:

This is not a Red Bee appearance. It is a Red Bee reference.

Inferior 5 #5, March 2019

And it's a weird reference in a weird comic book. Let me explain.

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Inferior 5 was a 12-issue monthly comic book mini-series that began publishing in September 2019. It was intended to continue the story of Invasion!, a mini-series published in 1989 by the writer of that series. But Inferior 5 didn't find much of an audience for a 30-year old story that hadn't been particularly popular the first time around, so it was reduced to a 6-issue series mid-stream. Then The Pandemic came. Comic publishing was put on a hiatus, and Inferior 5 #5 and #6 were simply abandoned.... until they were released online in March 2021.

Now, as to Red Bee's involvement: Red Bee was *dead* by the time of Invasion!. He'd died fighting Nazis on February 23, 1942 as revealed in 1982, remember? Which means the Red Bee captured by the aliens in 2019's 1989 story couldn't be the same Red Bee.

Whew. Even summing up took a while, huh?

I'm speculating here, but a little known fact is that Rick "Red Bee" Raleigh had a grand niece who would take up the family business in 2007 (with robotic bees, which are so much easier to train). Maybe the alien invaders in 1987 knew something that we didn't. Maybe young grandniece Jenna was the Red Bee in custody. Children and legacies *are* prominent themes of Inferior 5, at least insofar as I can make out from the messy pile of leftover panels presented in issues 5 and 6.

Stranger things have happened. We are talking about a series of heroes who fight crime with bees, after all.

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From the A Day at the Bee-ch Department:

To round out its page count, the Stargirl Spring Break Special (in stores now!) contains several pin-up pages featuring the Justice Society of America, the Seven Soldiers of Victory, and the All-Star Squadron.

Red Bee might not have been an All-Star for very long, but answering roll-call even once was enough to earn inclusion in this fun page drawn by the inimitable Fred Hembeck.

As a public service, I have highlighted the Red Bee who gallantly stays out of the water to play life guard. Even heroes need heroes sometimes.

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From the God Is Dead Department:

You may recall that when the cosmos needed him, Red Bee was resurrected from the grave to join the heroes in the fight against the evil gods manipulating all of time and space.

The heroes won that fight ('natch), and the universe was reset into its previous state, which in comic books really means multiple universes. In the aftermath of the fight, we got a peek at several of those alternate realities, including one that looked reasonably familiar to fans of super heroes active during World War II.

Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Crisis on Infinite Earths #1, 2021

That's a lot of heroes! If you squint, you may be able to make out one fellow in particular wearing a red top with pink blousy sleeves. Here, I'll zoom in for you.

In this reality, the Earth is threatened by Surtur, a Norse demigod destined to set the world on fire. That would be bad, so once again, the Red Bee flies into action against the sort of menace that would be a difficult slog for a whole team of gods, much less a part-time lawyer with a trained bee.

It goes about as well as you might expect.

His not to reason why, his but to do and die.

Poor Bee. No respect in any universe.

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From the Mark Twain's Obituary Department:

When last we saw our hero, the Red Bee, he was dead. Very dead. Killed by Nazis in World War II dead. Having dinner with ghosts dead.

Well, guess what: He got better!

Dark Nights: Death Metal #5, November 2020

As happens in the funny books, competing gods have altered reality, changing heroes into villains and vice versa. Through a quirk of fate, in this altered reality Batman has been given the power to raise the dead to help him fight those gods, and Red Bee was among the lucky multitude of heroes he brought back from the beyond.

I don't know how a guy who dresses in a translucent blouse and whose super power consists entirely of training bees to sting on command will be of any help defeating gods... but I'm also not Batman. I'm sure he knows what he's doing.

Dark Nights: Death Metal #6, December 2020

In hindsight, Batman probably should have reanimated Michael, the Red Bee's trained bee. Michael was the one with the real powers, after all. All Red Bee really ever does is make his opponents uncomfortable with his sartorial choices. That's probably not going to be too useful against shadow demons who don't even wear pants.

Dark Nights: Death Metal #7, January 2021

Yeah, that went about as well as one might expect. Stay down, Bee!

The good news is that at the end of the fight, all of reality was reset once again. Assuming comic books survive the collapse of America, I'd say we've not seen the last of the Red Bee (or his gauzy sleeves).

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From the Dearly Departed Department:

I bet you'd thought I'd forgotten about the Red Bee, hadn't you? That happens with dead people. Life goes on without them.

Sometimes, that really bugs them.

Thirteen years after the story of his death was finally told, Richard "The Red Bee" Raleigh had dinner with Starman and several other long deceased heroes in the great superhero home in the sky.

Starman #37, December 1997

In the afterlife, where time has no meaning, you don't get closure.

It is worth noting that we don't ever see the Red Bee's bee, Michael. I assume he lived a long, happy life, died well adjusted, and went to bee heaven.

Fortunately, this wasn't the last we'd see of the the Red Bee. I'll be back with that story soon.

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You know you've made it when you've got your own trading card.

Way to go, Red Bee! (And thank you, Kickstarter.)

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