Jaime Reyes is getting an HBO Max movie. The announcement was made at DC FanDome last weekend.

Who is the Blue Beetle?

Short Answer: Daniel Garret, the original Blue Beetle is a legacy character from the dawn of four color heroes, sharing the same era as the Man of Steel in 1939, a creation of Fox Features Syndicate. Later, recreated by Charlton Comics, he would get a brief resurgence before dying valiantly in a cave in.

Refreshed in the DC Universe by Ted Kord, their heroic legacies would be merged and would be finally expressed in the Modern Universe by Jaime Reyes as the third hero to wear the name of Blue Beetle.

If your need to know intensified:

While the modern version the Blue Beetle has been around since 1964, this is one of those rare legacy characters which doesn’t look anything like the original.

Since the first Blue Beetle, Daniel “Dan” Garret (yes, one “t”) got his powers from a magical artifact, and the second Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, didn’t have any powers at all; he was merely inspired by the legend of the first Blue Beetle even though he couldn’t activate the object which had given the first his powers.

But it was the third person involved in the legacy, Jaime Reyes who managed to unleash the true nature of the strange blue scarab which formerly had magical powers. It is revealed to be an alien artifact which bonds itself to Jaime Reyes nervous system, irrevocably.

A highly complex weapon system with its own internal intelligence, the scarab surrounds Jaime with a suit of armor with vast defensive and offensive capabilities. The suit is also part of an alien infiltration of Earth.

Jaime Reyes was a relatively normal high school student from El Paso, Texas. His father ran a garage, his mother was a paramedic, and his little sister was a brat. Jaime hung out with his two best friends Brenda and Paco, the mediator between the hard-working Brenda and the laid-back Paco. By both Brenda and Paco’s accounts, he was a good friend, the kind of person who could let them be themselves, and who could always make things better.

Everything fell apart with the onset of the Infinite Crisis. Technologist and crime-fighter, Ted Kord was killed and the alien scarab lost at the Rock of Eternity. This is the hasty retconning of the DC Universe to tie these legacies together. First some magic, then some science and then a space odyssey.

When said Rock was later destroyed, the scarab crash landed in El Paso, New Mexico. After binding itself to Jaime, he would discover the Scarab was part of an alien invasion force called the Reach, a powerful cabal of species who collect and dominate planets into subordinate state through trickery and barring the pretense of being traders, brute force using an army of scarab warriors.

Of all the legacy heroes of the DC Universe, which is in and of itself a problem, because comic companies seem to find it difficult to get creators to make new characters, Jaime’s origin story and subsequent development has been one of the better ones, with a solid back story and connect to the original creation.

If the beast that was DC was willing to share the profits of their creations, how many more great legacies might be created. Oh well, for the new gods to rise, some Titans must fall. While they fall, I am going to enjoy watching my favorite heroes brought to the big screen. Maybe they will get it right this time.

GOLDEN AGE BLUE BEETLE

  • Daniel “Dan” Garret
  • Created by Will Eisner & Charles Nicholas (Fox Features Syndicate)
  • His first appearance was Mystery Men Comics (August, 1939). His last appearance was Nature Boy (March, 1956)

SILVER AGE BLUE BEETLE

  • Dan Garrett:
  • Reimagined by: Joe Gill · Bill Fraccio for DC Comics
  • First Appearance: Secret Origins Vol 2 (May, 1986)
  • Appearance of Death: Blue Beetle Vol 6 (November, 1987)
  • The scarab was lost with Dan Garrett. However, a DC retcon allowed the transfer of the scarab WITHOUT its powers, connection both characters indirectly. This was resolved in Infinite Crisis and in Week #52 of the series 52. (2007)
blue beetle 1

POST-CRISIS BLUE BEETLE

Ted Kord

  • Created by Steve Ditko · Gary Friedrich for DC Comics.
  • First Appearance: Secret Origins Vol 2 (May, 1986)
  • Appearance of Death: Countdown to Infinite Crisis (May, 2005)

MODERN ERA BLUE BEETLE

Jaime Reyes

  • Created by Keith Giffen · John Rogers · Cully Hamner for DC Comics.
  • First Appearance: Infinite Crisis (February, 2006)
  • Last Appearance: Teen Titans Vol 3 #100 (October, 2011)

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Answer Man Thaddeus Howze
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Thaddeus Howze
Thaddeus Howze

Thaddeus Howze is an award-winning writer, editor, podcaster and activist creating speculative fiction, scientific, political and cultural commentary from his office in Hayward, California.
Thaddeus’ speculative fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary journals. He has published two books, ‘Hayward’s Reach’ (2011), a collection of short stories and ‘Broken Glass’ (2013) an urban fantasy novella starring his favorite paranormal investigator, Clifford Engram.