#Ted Kord is my no. 1 guy

[davidmariottecomics]

Week 86 - 8/28/23 - A BLUE BEETLE MOVIE???

Hi there, 

It probably isn't news as it's a pretty popular film in theaters right now, but there's a Blue Beetle movie out! And it's a lot of fun! 

If you didn't know, Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle, is my favorite superhero. There's a pretty good joke in the new movie about the difference between Ted and Batman, and not to step on the punchline, but it boils down to Ted knows how to laugh. He's a character frequently written to have a sense of humor, to know a good joke, and to be the dramatic superheroic straightman when it counts. He is not exactly an everyman--he's a genius, he dresses up in a silly costume, and he's rich--but in a lot of ways, he's just a guy trying to do the right thing because he can. 

And he casts a long shadow over the new movie, which is about Jaime Reyes--fantastically played by the dreamy Xolo Maridueña--who I don't love quite as much as Ted, but who I think is himself a great and important character. He's a very different hero. He's got a sense of humor, he's got a good heart, but his relationship with his family, with his friends, with the scarab, and with the Blue Beetle legacy allows him to be something totally apart from Ted. The movie takes a lot of liberties--it's part Spider-Man, part Ant-Man, part Green Lantern (though... honestly probably better than the past few recent film adaptations of those characters)--but it doesn't run from the truth of who Jaime is as a character, which I think makes it all the better. The best superhero movie projects don't try to be just an adaptation, but to take what makes the hero great, understand it, and share it in a way that makes them more accessible and loom larger as a hero. 

I don't want to spoil anything, but there was one extremely stupid part that made me tear up (out of just finally getting to see a thing on-screen and knowing there's some practical version of it out there and honestly, a little bit jealousy). If you see me, or want to reach out and ask about it, I'll gladly tell you. 

But there's a Blue Beetle movie. And even though I saw it and really quite liked it... I kinda still can't believe it. 

Next week: No blog on the website/newsletter! There is a Patreon post scheduled if you need your fix, going out to all backers at $5 or more a month! But I'm outta town and will see you when I return. 

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links (Video Game), Craig of the Creek (Cartoon), Honkai Star Rail (Video game), My Adventures with Superman (Cartoon), The Broken Room by Peter Clines (Book), Dumbing of Age (Webcomic), Solve This Murder (Podcast), The Venture Bros: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart (Movie--which my pal Phil Murphy worked on!), Kaiju No. 8 (Manga), Kaguya-Sama: Love is War (Manga), Blue Beetle (Movie--duh), Oldboy (Movie), Witch Watch (Manga), Becca playing a little more Persona 5, Tangled (Movie), Jurassic Park (Movie), D.E.B.S. (Movie) 

New Releases this week (8/23/2023): Godzilla Monsters & Protectors: All Hail the King TPB (Editor--on the latter half)

Final Order Cut-Off next week (8/28/2023--last day to get your preorders in): Sonic the Hedgehog #65

New Releases next week (8/30/2023): Godzilla Rivals: Vs. SpaceGodzilla (Supervising Editor) Sonic the Hedgehog: Endless Summer (A very silly credit) Sonic the Hedgehog: Scrapnik Island TPB (Editor) 

Announcements: Becca is at Cartoon-a Palooza in Temecula on 9/15 & 9/16. It's a cool free all-ages little con, so come on out and see them!

Wanna support me? Consider joining my Patreon! I've got a bunch of cool stuff coming up and already on there. As well as some silly stuff like a tour of my desk, so you can see where the comics magic happens! I've got a bunch of stuff scheduled for September already and there'll always be more! 

I have a webstore! It does look like I'm going to get a small supplement to my Beast Wars Vol. 3 stock, which is nice, but most everything else, I am not going to have more of anytime soon! Maybe give it a look! 

I've still got a few things on my eBay, if you're looking for stuff! But obviously, anything that would get shipped out won't until I'm back!  Pic of the Week: It was National Cinema Day yesterday, which is why Becca and I went to Blue Beetle ($4 tickets to the movies!). But they had to work, so I went and saw a second film, the 20th anniversary screening of Park Chan-wook's Oldboy. And the theater that was showing Oldboy had a special Cinema Day deal on the Blue Beetle backback popcorn bucket, so I did pick it up because that with a popcorn and a drink was still significantly cheaper than the bucket usually is by itself. So here's a photo of Becca modeling it. 

#comics #sonic idw #godzilla idw #blue beetle #national cinema day #popcorn bucket #popculturepunk #Ted Kord is my no. 1 guy

[aziraphale-is-a-cat]

Planned Obsolescence

Pt 1

Danny liked to think he had made a life for himself outside of the hero gig, that he'd put down the metaphorical cape, gone to fancy engineering school, and landing himself a job at S.T.A.R. Labs.

So walking into the main lobby at 6am he was understandably a little unnerved to find a member of the Justice League there, waiting for him.

"Dr. Fenton!" His boss called him over from where she'd been chatting with the new guests. "We've been waiting for you, come with us."

Danny was suddenly extremely uncomfortable, part of the main hero force of his home dimension was suddenly staring at him intently. If they'd been tipped off about his dead-ness then he was in a whole world of trouble.

"Uh, Dr. Norris, what exactly is going on?" He asked, nervously.

"We'll discuss it in my office, follow me."

The slowly walk up to the office was a new type of torture, trying to push down his panic and watching the hero watch him from the corner of his eye.

With his supervisor and him were Nightwing and some random Dude who, while not in costume, still held himself with his shoulders squared and his stance wide in the same way.

The guy must've seen him staring and introduced himself. "I'm Ted Kord, I work as a, uh, civilian contractor with the Justice League."

Danny's eyes narrowed but he didn't voice his skepticism. "Damn, how do you even get a job like that?" Kord, that sounded familiar.

The guests all shared a look as they stepped into the office, Dr. Norris finding her seat behind her desk. "Well actually, that's what we came here for."

Danny was immediately on edge, he wasn't on good terms with the government already. He remembered in that moment where he remembered the name 'Kord' from.

"This is about my parents' work, isn't it?" He accused, continuing when he got no response. "You're from Kord Omniversal," he said to Kord, "You wouldn't go running to S.T.A.R. Labs, your competitor, unless we really had something you didn't." He let the silence stew.

Danny had put a lot of work distancing himself from the legacy of his parents, going so far as to pull most of their research from public access once he gained ownership of it after their deaths. It really bothered him to still be associated with them and their body of work now that he had a name for himself and a reputation he had built on his own.

Awkwardly, Nightwing stepped up to fill the silence, doing his best to ignore the mounting tension.

"We know you have your parents' complete research, but while we need that your expertise in building and designing," he gestured with his hands as he searched for the right word, "unique machines-"

"You want me to build you a portal." Danny interrupted shortly.

"To another dimension, yes." Nightwing responded, cringing a little.

Danny rubbed the bridge of his nose, wishing to the ancients that he could just run off and be a hermit in the mountains. Appalachia would work well, a healthy supernatural community for occasional social interactions and minimal contact with stupid fucking humans.

"What would I get out of it?"

"Money, government contract, that looks good on a resume." Kord responded.

He looked to Dr. Norris, pleading with his eyes for a reason not to take it.

"Dr. Fenton taking on a contract with the Justice League would open up some in demand employment opportunities for you here at S.T.A.R. Labs, positions with better pay and access to better materials." She pushed him a manilla folder smiling, and when he opened it Danny saw contract pre-written, addressed to him.

He snapped it shut and took a deep breath to ground himself. "Where do you wanna go?"

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Being picked up for work via Zeta Tube was a new brand of surreal, even for a Teen-Hero Turned Engineer.

The automated voice called out his designation, "G-09: Daniel Fenton", as he stepped into his new temporary laboratory. The workspace was top of the line, and lined with cameras. The constant surveillance was going to make this very hard, seeing as he's now stuck with staying humans the whole time, and is no doubt going to be bugged going home.

Something was sketchy about this whole ordeal. Danny hadn't seen hide nor hair of any of the other members of the Justice League, and even though he's handling a task drenched in the occult, he hadn't had to consult any League Affiliated occultists.

Batman was notorious for going through research and experiments with a fine tooth comb, and yet Danny hadn't been called in to explain himself nor the obvious holes in the material he submitted to them, intentionally omitting parts both to keep the more dangerous parts out of government hands and to see where he stood.

And it appears he stood at the crossroads- holding, though his unique and specialized knowledge, all the cards. Nightwing was desperate, something had at least a few of the more senior members out of contact, including whoever they had that knew anything about magic and the multiverse. And it had everything to do with what was on the other side of the portal they wanted him to build.

Any magician worth their own ass knew that mechanical portals outside their own group of dimensions, known as a format due to their similarity in inhabitants and history, never fucking work. Spell portals were the only type that ever made it out, and it took an exceptionally strong caster to open one for even a few seconds.

Any portal trying to leave would just find themselves in the hub, the space between dimensions in a format, same as any portal without a destination or goal which is why it was relatively easy for the Fentons to punch a hole into the Infinite Realms.

As it stood Nightwing really should know that what he was asking of Danny should by all means be impossible.

He purposefully set his file box down on his desk Infront of a hidden camera, it would be hard to work around later when he needed the space but it was worth it to make his point. He knew he was being watched. And he didn't like it.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Walking into the nearly empty conference room, Dick Grayson slid onto the table and laid down. Being alone with some friends in the watchtower free to sit on the fancy, expensive surfaces however he wished sounded like childhood Dick's dream, but now it was just depressing.

"You know you're taking a massive risk with this one, right?" Cyborg asked from the head of the table. "I know our options aren't too great, but this is just miserable."

"Cy, we are beyond the point of miserable."

The half machine groaned and put his head in his hands. "Constantine would shoot us for even trying this bullshit, first for mixing tech and magic, then again for hiring a Fenton!"

"Yeah well, the blonde bastard is stuck with the rest of the League on the ruins of fucking Azarath, and Dr. Fate fucked off to whatever he's deemed more important than us so there's not much by the way of options!"

Cyborg massaged his temples. "This guy's tech is off." He pulled out the papers Dr. Fenton had submitted on his research. "I know confronting him about the inconsistencies will just scare him off, but it's not just that! The tech he brought in, I tried interfacing with it and it just repelled me. There's something wrong with it."

Nightwing rolled his head over to look at him critically. "Something magic? Something interdimensional? Because if so that's what we hired him for."

Cyborg opened his mouth to respond but at that moment a bright flash of light filled the room as The Flash zipped into the room.

"Hey so I know you guys told me to check out his old home for signs of that portal, but the whole place is fucking weird."

#dp x dc #dc x dp #danny fenton #dick grayson #nightwing #dpxdc #dcxdp #cyborg #victor stone #wally west #flash #ted kord #blue beetle

[zahri-melitor]

My comments on the Extended Generational Sorting Algorithm:

Gosh there are some murky in-betweens here.

G-1 – JSA and teams like the All-Star Squadron and the Blackhawks. The WWII edition. This is occasionally merged with G0 as timelines shift, but includes Hippolyta, Ted Knight, Sandra Knight (as Phantom Lady), Alan Scott, Jay Garrick, etc. A lot of this cohort have aging issues and several have grandkids in G1 or G1.5. Zinda simultaneously belongs to this group and G1.5.

G0 – JSA, the gap between WWII and the first JLA. This is the younger JSA cohort who aren’t so tied to WWII and the gap after. Dinah Drake. Ted Grant. Johnny Quick. Giovanni Zatara. Walter Chase (the Acro-Bat). Bruce’s parents. The Kents. Jim Gordon. Etc.

G1 – JLA land! Bruce, Clark, Diana, Ollie, Barry, Hal, Arthur, etc. You know them. Your idea of a headlining JLA includes these folk.

G1.5 – Birds of Prey and JLI zone. Characters too old to be Titans cohort but younger/clearly different than the G1 headliners. Barbara Gordon and Dinah Lance are the stalwarts of this group, plus I’ll add Helena Bertinelli, Cameron Chase, Kate Spencer, Kendra, etc. I guess I’d probably put Harley Quinn, agewise, here too. Also would add Beatriz, Tora, Booster, Ted Kord, etc. Guy and Zatanna sort of bounce between here and G1 depending on storyline.

G2 – it’s the Titans! Dick, Donna, Wally, Roy, Garth, Victor, Gar, Kory, Raven etc. Their agebounds are probably Roy as the oldest and Gar as the youngest, though Gar’s given to them as a courtesy – he’s realistically a member of G2.5, he just hangs with G2. We also add Kyle and Connor and Jesse Quick etc to this cohort despite them not being core Titans given their strong connections to particularly Donna and Wally.

G2.5 – The JL Taskforce kids and Jason’s non-existent team. Ray Palmer’s Teen Titans. This is a group of individuals that has never properly coalesced. Overlaps in age with both the bottom of G2 and the top of G3 but distinctly don’t belong to either. Jason, Ray, Grant, Argent, Cynthia, Eddie, Snapper Carr, plus Danny Chase and arguably Gar all fall into this group. Rose Wilson overlaps with G3 but vibeswise probably also belongs to this group. I am tossing up whether Anissa and Jennifer Pierce belong here or in G2.

G3 – Young Justice. Tim, Kon, Cassie, Bart, Cissie, Greta, Anita. Cass Cain belongs here despite being the same age as several G2.5s. Steph, Charlie, Black Alice, Jaime, Zachary Zatara, even a handful of the newer folk like Jinny Hex slot in here. Several Supergirls including current Kara, Courtney Whitmore IS a member of this group and the three oldest Marvel kids (Billy, Mary and Freddy) are currently aged into this.

G4 – Damian’s Teen Titans. Damian, Jon Kent (yes even still with the age up), Emiko Queen, Ace West etc. If they are still a teen right now in DC storytelling or SHOULD be a teen, they belong here (if they’re a teen and SHOULDN’T be they’re probably a G3/G5). The Gotham Academy kids. Arguably the Titan Academy kids too? Agewise the DEO Titans kids but spiritually probably not (also the chances of us ever seeing them again is…low) The younger Marvel kids (Eugene, Pedro and Darla especially) are with this group.

G5 – so this group are either alternate G3 or G3.5s. Too new and too un-networked with G3 to be absorbed. Jace Fox, Yara Flor, Jackson Hyde, Duke Thomas and the We Are Robin cohort all belong here. Kong Kenan, Avery Ho, etc also are members.

G6 – Titans Offspring Gen. Almost everyone in this group has been artificially aged, which is a thing, hey. Lian, Irey, Jai, Cerdian, Robbie. Maxine, obviously. Otho and Osul-Ra.

G7 – Help I’m From Earth-One: Power Girl and Helena Wayne.

G8 – The Lost Children – also Help I’m From Earth-One in a lot of respects but they’re in their teens, not adults. May get folded into other groups if they get more use.

[melonnabar]

//JLI COLLEGE AU PT. 1

Here goes my first ramblings about the JLI.

They are all in college btw! Well, university technically, but uni and college are the same in the United States anyway. They go to Gotham State University btw!

Starting with good ol’ BOOSTER!!

His major is gonna be in Media Communications!! Mainly because in the comics he is such a big sucker for self advertising and literally anything to do with socializing and/or public relations!

He’s also the star quarterback for the university’s football team! Booster and Guy r frat boys together,,

Apparently GSU’s football team is called the FUCKIN Gotham Knights in canon??

Booster roomies with Ted too (haha “and they were roommates”)!! I’ll talk more about these two when I get to Ted’s part.

TED KORD

I feel like Teddy would major in MET (Mechanical Engineering Technology)!! It’s not hands on as regular mech engineering as it mainly focuses on development n testing w manufacturing support and it’s kinda right up Ted’s alley because of that

Back to Booster and Ted being roommates! They are both juniors in college with Ted being older as his birthday is May 10th while Booster’s is December 29th.

Booster bitching about Ted staying up all night during midterms and having his desktop brightness maxed out while he’s trying to sleep, or ranting to Guy whenever Ted forgets to take care of himself and makes an absolute mess in their dorm n leaving Booster to clean it up for him (he complains but he actually likes taking care of Ted lmao)

Or more domestic interactions,, like Booster and Ted binge watching shitty comedies (or those REAL garbage high school musical types) and getting drunk off their ass while munching on some leftover pizza n passing out all tangled up in the living room.

My friend and I were on discord call yesterday and we were discussing the JLI BOYBAND stuff. He said that Booster would constantly have to find a sub in for drums because Ted sometimes ends up getting swamped with work from his major but would end up placing the band on hiatus because he doesn’t wanna perform without Ted.

Whenever they have their petty arguments and ignore each other I’d like to think Booster crashes over at Scott’s place until Barda kicks him out for staying too long and forces him to make up w Ted,,

Tbh I can’t wait to draw more of this AU,,

Have some pics of casual boostle also!

#dc comics #boostle #booster gold #ted kord #blue beetle

[popculturebuffet]

Beetlemania: Jaime Reyes (Blue Beetle Volume 7 #1-7 review) (Patreon Review/comissoin for Brotoman.exe)

Welcome back all you happy beetlemaniacas to beetlemania, my look at the three men to wear the mask.. and at last we've come to the breakout of the bunch, the latest and co-greatest, the one whose movie debut inspired this whole project, Mr. Jaime Reyes.

Out of the three Beetles, Jaime has gotten the most appearnces in other media. His two biggest roles were in Batman Brave and the Bold, where he was one of the most featured guest stars, eventually joining that shows version of the Justice League International, with Ted also getting some apperances. More on that next week. He was the centerpiece of Young Justice's second season, with the reach, the beings behind his armor, being the driving force of that season's plot and from what I can tell he's still been decently featured in later seasons. He's also shown up on smallville , justice league actions and in dc's direct to video teen titans movie before they killed off that universe and yes it still bothers me.

But before we can get into who Jaime is, we have to ask whatever happened to ted kord? Short answer...

But when have I EVER taken the short route when I can ramble a bit?

So around the mid point of his solo book, Ted joined the Justice League International. This is where I met my boy and where most people met ted, Ted being thrown in there, along with the later addition of Captain Atom, to show off DC's charlton cast.

JLI was a diffrent sort of justice league book. Most of the big 7 weren't avaliable, with Wonder Woman and Superman busy being rebooted, flash now being Wally West who wasn't ready for it, and Hal Jordan and Aquaman

So with just Batman and Martian Manhunter representing the old guard, writers Keith Giffen and JM Dematis decided to go in a diffrent direction; Make it funny. The comic would be both a sitcom and superhero action with real stakes and status quo changes.. but also batman punching the team's green lantern and ronald regan loving macho dumbass Guy Gardner in the face after Guy challenged the goddamn batman to a one on one fist fight, sans ring.

Have I mentioned JLI is one of my faviorite comics of all time and something i'm LONG OVEDUE covering in some form? Well I have now.

The book was a hit for most of it's run and a fan faviorite for years and had both a great legacy for ted.. and some cruddy after effects. The good was that it kept him in the public eye for some time: Ted was on the team from the beginning to the end of Giffen and Dematis run and into the 90's, including Death of Superman. He also gained his best friend and comedic other half Booster Gold out of the deal, a janitor who traveled back in time with some future tech to make himself a superhero and promote the shit out of himself and whoever paid him to promote the shit out of them. It left ted a fan faviorite for generations and guaranteed he woudln't be forgotten.

The problem was a LOT of people were idiots about the bok and assumed because it was jokey the characters within were jokes. I mean the team wasn't immune to some pretty.. bleh characterizations: Power Girl was an angry man hating sterotype of a feminist as opposed to being an actual feminist now a days, Animal Man was routinely mocked despite Grant Morrision working wonders and ole billy batson was routinely but of the joke as he was well. a 12 year old in a childs body to us but a childish man to everyone else.

As a result many didn't really think to use ted after. There was an attempt at using the charlton characters that fell flat, but otherwise Ted's only real big run I can think of post justice league was in the pages of Birds of Prey, where he showed up having retired and nursing a massive crush on barbra gordon, so do most people attracted to women , can't blame him. The two had good chemistry but ultimately with the spectre of dick "King of all tush's" grayson looming, Ted never had a shot.

So ted was left off to the side, showing up for jli reunions but otherwise unused... until Infinite Crisis. In a fit of irony that had to be intetional, while it's predecessor brought ted into this world.. the leadup to it's sequel would take him out of it.

And thus we come to countdown to infinite crisis, a one shot leading into four mini series that lead into the event comic infinite crisis. CTIC is infamous to some: it portrays ted as a joke in the superhero community and pretty gruseomly kills off an infinite character. And as someone who hates killing off a b or c list character for the shock.. I think his death absoltuely works and is one of the most tragic and well written deaths in the dc canon and lets Ted go out on a high note.

The diffrence between this and say the slaughter of the freedom fighters or the various titans c-list deaths in the book proper is simple: Weight. Ted's death is given a lot of build up, weight, tragedy and is something that is never forgotten afterwords and has a serious impact on several characters.

So ted finds a conspiracy involving Maxwell Lord, formerlly the comically money hungry benefactor behind the jli now a megalomanical supervillian bent on killing all metahumans and superheroes except himself using the OMACs, a last resort batman built after he found out the justice league mindwiped him.

The takeaway is ted found out and with booster injured, Babs busy with a lot of shit, and no one taking him seriously, Ted was left to his own.. and sadly as seen above Max beat the shit out of him, tried to flip him and then shot him in the head. But again part of what makes it work.. is that Ted goes out on his own terms. He could've just given up, he knew going in he had no real chance of winning , no idea what he was facing when he did, and no one to back him up.. but he didn't. He didn't give up because that's not who he is. that's not the man who put on this mask. That's not the man dan asked to put on the mask. He began his career trying to stop a threat only one othe rperson knew about.. and ended it the same way. And it was THANKS to his tragic death everyone else was able to unravel things in time. As a result wonder Woman was able to snap the bastards neck before he killed superman, see above gif, and Lord was stopped.

Problem was Brother Eye, the AI Batman built to create and control the omacs was still mostly loose and the omacs copoted by the big bad of infinite crisis, Alexander Luthor, relelated to exactly who you think's.. alternate good counterpart from a mirror universe. Thankfully Ted's devistating loss inspired Booster to do something, so he went back to the future, grabbed as much info as he could, declared "never again" and found the scarab, which had ended up in el paso on the back of one Jaime Reyes and recutied him since he was invisible to brother eye. With a team of other heroes they saved the world from batman's greatest blunder.

The questions remained though. Who WAS this kid wearing the armor? What happened to him after? And how did he feel about the weight now on his shoulders? All important questions abou tot be answered as we dig into the first arc of Jaime's Solo, Shellshocked.

This comic comes from us from Writers John Rogers and Jm. Demattis. JMD of course co wrote jli, while Rogers is a screenwriter whose written a few comics and later would take sole writing credit here for this run and is part of the reason it slaps so much.

We begin with our hero landing in the desert, having no idea what's going on as he's attacked by captain punched in the face himself Guy Gardner, whose response to Jaime putting up a shield to defend himself after Guy shouts at him "WHAT ARE YOU" is

So an average first meeting with Guy all things considered. We flash back to Jaime's life before he got super armor and had a guy trying to kill him while he looks like he just.. badly wants to go home. The art here by Cully Hamner is fucking awesome and hamner also designed jaime's now iconic outfit, complete with having his mask look similar to a luchadors. It's gorgeous stuff and while Ted had the cool bug eyed goggles and giant ship, Jaime really looks insectoid. while still giving his mask enoough expression.

So in the flashback we meet one of the best parts of the book, Jaime's best friends Paco and Brenda. Paco is a boisterious loudmouth with a heart of gold while Brenda is a type a trying to encourage the other two to study more. Paco has shown up in the brave and the bold but the two don't get adapted much.. including, disapoitningly , for the film , with other characters seeming to take up their rolls instead, paticually Jaime's sister taking paco's roll as she was aged up for the film. I don't hold it against the film makers hard: as much as I miss them I get them trying to both do their own thing and not having room for them, focusing more on his family. Their might be room in sequels, one can hope.

For the comics though I like the two a lot and through every attempted revivival creators have been smart to keep them in it. They both provide a nice shoulder for jamie, Paco being his more fun and games type buddy, while Brenda keeps him grounded. While this type of trio, moderate voice of reason who has to pay referree to a smarty pants and a loudmouth isn't new in fiction, Paco and Brenda feel like real people. Their conversation feels like two real friends arguging with Jamie understandably tired of being their refree.

Things take a turn when Paco is judo throwingly dickish, sniping at Brenda she "thinks she can become a lawyer".. and rightly gets tossed on his ass for it. Brenda also takes akkido.. though the why is heartbreaking as she let's it slip her dad hits her. I also like the diffrence in where the two want to go" Paco dosen't care about school becaues he knows he can't afford college and has to make his own way, while Brenda desperatley hopes to because she has no other option to escape her abuser.. or so she thinks but we'll table that for now. For now Jamie finds the scarab. If your curious HOW Dan's scarab got here, he had it for a while, it seemingly blew up when it reinamainted dan from the dead to fight Ted , and then it somehow ended up on the rock of eternity. Then gods vengance got horny and then got angry and blew it up, and here we are.

We cut back to guy breifly and .. it's more of Jamie getting beaten up as his armor reacts on it's own to pull out canon to defend itself. Then we cut back.. but before we do.. I have to comment on how jarring this is. The scenes themselves aren't bad: the past stuff provides valuable info on who jamie is , his family, his friends, lots of ogod setup and the fight with guy IS necessary: not only is his over the top reaction to the scarab foreshadowing, but it leads to one of the best scenes in the entire series later on when he comes back about a year later.

It just feels a bit jarring here: even having read infinite crisis it feels incredibly abrubt and entirely unfriendly to anyone who didn't.. and trust me as someone back then who , while not reading this series monthly (that came years later when I finally got the chance via comixology unlimited) was picking up books week to week as a high school dork, not everyone could afford the big event series. I'm not doubting most comic book fans had read this.. but to someone just picking up the trade without knowing what an infinite crisis is, it's a bit of a head flip. They DO explain jamie's time in infinite crisis and fill us in on that stuff, it's just a lot to take in getting into the book wether you know the event or not.

Jamie banters with his kid sister milagro, in the comics as I hinted at earlier only about 4 or 5 versus slightly younger than jamie in the movie. The two banter, his mom tells them not to fight (And she knows because it's tuesday), and he goes to help his dad. It's a nice little scene that helps establish the dynamics: he and his sister fight but in a very natural sibling way (Jamie was annoyed she asked him to help with the remote for the 80th time) and his mom is.. well see above: she's tough but entirely fair.

He then goes to see his dad, and we see a scene tha'ts new to us but feels like ti's happened a thousand times: Jamie's dad's car shop isn't doing well but he refuses to let his son eithe rdrop out to work shifts or even do more with school, just wanting him to be a kid longer. I'ts.. heartbreaking and well done.

We then cut back to the fight. Guy is winning.. but breaks the face of jamie's armor so he sees it's just a kid and REFUSES to keep fighting despite his ring's recommendation. This is a REALLY awesome character moment that shows the duo really get guy. Not a suprise form Dematis obviously, but it still shows h'es not the same asshole he used to be. He's still.. well guy, seen here leaving earth for a tour of duty on oa with his usual grace and dignity

That comment tells me Batman''s seen that ass before Batman knows an ass that needs a shaving for he is the night.

Guy explains why he went nuts.. for once with an actual reason: the ring went fucking crazy, and wanted to kill the shit out of Jamie, but Guy isn't a killer.. which is a bold faced lie but hey you try telling a kid. Guy says he'll be back.. and isn't seen for a year in publishing time and months in story. Look he has a lot of people to moon and not a lot of time before he was due back on oa, cut him some slack. The one important bombshell though is contrary to previous lore up to this point, the Scarab.. isn't magic. Which isn't a shock to anyone whose seen jamie in anything else, but is still a nice way to drop that bit of retcon. And I do like it: it dosen't horribly contridcit previous stories and if anything Lewis Lovhag made a VERY good case in his blue beetle retrospective for how it all ties together.

So the scarab retracts, Jamie is left naked and in pain and we cut back to the past. The scarab bonds with him and he speaks it's language breifly.

Jamie then walks with Paco and brenda and runs into a strange girl.. a strange girl who turns out to hav eno eyes. While his friends pass it off as jamie starring at .. something else, it's clear he saw something. It's part of the scarabs power set naturally.

So we end the issue with Jamie naked and having no idea what to do next. We pick up exactly from there next issue: jamie is naked and wondering through the desert wondering how the hell he'll explain this to his parents, when we flash back to the past again. Their at school and Jamie once again sees thigns that arne't there. We find out why as it turns out Probe, the girl from earlier's friend has a power that allows him to make people undedticable. Curious about his own powers they want to invite him to join.. but the scarab attacks probe some how and, not knowing it wasn't Jamie's idea, her friend vows revenge. Back in the present, we get a neat scene as Jamie , with no other options rifles through a guys trunk only for a guy to point a rifle at him. The guy in question being white and having a sweet trucker hat, you'd assume he's going to be a dick.. but in a nice subversion and an even nicer random act of kindness.. the guy simply gives Jamie some clothes, offers to call his folks and is just in general a sweetheart. Given the series takes place in texas, el paso to be specific it's just a nice show that not all people are ignorant monsters. Some people will just.. help someone because it's the right thing as they should.

We get one last flashback, as Jamie gets targeted by Probe's friends we get another breif superhero fight with the scarab activating on it's own. Gain it's a bit.. chatoic, but on second read.. it feels a lot more deliberate than it did. The fight not only shows just how dangerous this thing is when left to it's own devices, but even the posse's leader is starting to tell that whatever Jamie is he isn't a baseline metahuman.

Back in the present day, the friendly trucker man who I genuinely wish we see again some day, such a peach talks to Jamie and tries to convince him his parents will be fine. Jamie insists on sneaking in.. and finds a freaked out Milagro in his bed... and sadly for our boy and his poor family.. that isn't the ONLY suprise awaiting our hero.

It's a hell of a reveal and one that's entirely well done and set up.

To properly explain it I have to get into DC's linewide status quo at the time. Blue Beetle came out in the aftermath of the big event I mentioned, infinite crisis. Heroes lived, a LOT of heroes died, and in the aftermath Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman all stepped away for a bit: Superman was depowered in the final fight of the series, Wonder Woman wanted to reconnect with humanity despite being perfectly connected under any writer who wasn't Geoff Johns, and Batman, after all his paranoid antics leading up to it, decided to take a year off with his adopted sons Dick and Tim. Damien didn't exist yet if you were curious. And so every dc book jumped ahead

Complete with this nifty Sticker. Every book shifted it's status quo with a year having passed and like any good time skip left questions as to WHY things changed while we weren't looking. One Year Later was my first time skip and to this day is one of the best i've seen in comics. At the time I was reading Teen Titans, which shifted to a whole new roster in the wake of superboys death and a lot of turnover off screen, adding in two of my faviorite titans Ravenger and my boy eddie aka Kid Devil, who I'm bound to cover one of these days. It was really good stuff. Other books had roster changes, massive status quo shifts and all sorts of good stuff and most used it beautifully. It's what gave me a love of time skips and what you can do with that.

Given Jamie didn't come in till Infinite Crisis he wasn't obligated to use the gimmick and looking at his first two issues, they cleverly DIDN'T plaster the sticker on there, as to not give away the twist. There was no way a reader would know this had a one way time jump going in and no way a modern reader will know reading the trade. It also means they didn't HAVE to use it.. but i'm glad they did: Jamie being gone and his family and friends dealing without him leaves a massive gap and seeing how it was before allows us to discover how it is now alongside our boy. Some truly magificent storytelling.

We open issue 3 with..

I'm not kidding... we open with Peacemaker, complete with tatoo's. .talks about dreaming 'Blue dreams".. while casually beating up some guys holding up a convience store. He has a friend in the area he just dosen't know it.. god help him.

Back with Jamie, his mom.. dosen't belivie a word and neither does his dad, thinking it was drugs or something. His mom even calls it "this fairy tale". Now in MOST stories i'd get it: it's a LOT to take in and a lot to believe.

The problem is in the details: when Jamie disappeared.. the world was in danger: robots were swarming the sky, an army of supervillians escaped. There was mass destruction all over the world and an army of superheroes engaged in a massive battle for the fate of it. All of this happening around the EXACT same time Jamie disappears in a world where superheroes are entirely common and have been a fact of life since world war II. It dosen't wreck the story for me, Jamie's mom is fairly practical she probably didn't want to kid herself, I get her not thinking that till now.. but it's still VERY weird that none of them think MAYBE this is true.

So with really no other choice.. Jamie armors up. Which solves the "she thinks you were on drugs problem: but the result.. is one of the most heartbreaking scenes in comics and the one thing I was least looking forward to re-reading this story, a scene that's gotten me EVERY time.

It hurt to even put that on there. And in a lesser book Bianca's thought wouldn't have any nuance... but as Alberto explains and somehow makes this hurt even MORE

It's a beautifully heartbreaking segment and part of what makes this time jump work so well: Jamie's disappearnce had a tangible, painful effect. It's an exploration of what just taking ONE person out of the world for that long would do. I also love the end of what I showed you. Alberto explains to his son why Bianca's doing this.. but assures him he's still his boy and this will pass. I also like that they don't just have bianca be evil .. it's simply the SHOCK of all this getting to her, of having to come to the grips with the fact that Jamie is a person.

So he has Jamie go out for a bit, let his mom work through stuff.. though he pointedly dodges Jamie's question about him now walking with a cane. For now Jamie still hasn't gotten a grip on what the suit can do, and tests it, using arm blades and the canon from earlier before popping back naked again. Thankfully this time the Scarab shows it can make him some clothes.

So Jamie goes looking for his friends.. but both places he tries sputter out: Brenda's moved during the year and Paco isn't at school. Turns out though the Scarab can track anyone Jamie's met, and he acknowledges how creepy that is before heading for the border.

So turns out Paco is WORKING with Damper of the posse, the guy who makes the invisible stuff happen.. but just as their on the bridge here come the men in black, and the MIBS are working for someone named la dama and have cable sized laser rifles. Thankfully before they can blow a hole in paco and damper, Jamie swoops in just in time and blocks it. The MIBs decide "Fuck it this guy wants it big willie style" and attack jamie who struggles to get the scarab NOT to murder them, but manages to take them out then swoops off with Hector since homeland security are you know.. homeland security.

Jamie explains things to hector before stopping on a roof with him.

It's a touching and MUCH needed bit of cahtarsis. After going through a LOT of shit in the past three issues.. Jamie's finally given a proper welcome home.

Paco also helps with Brenda... turns out things got even WORSE with her dad and the bastard put her in the ICU. As paco brilliantly put it, there apparently really IS a god as a week later he died, and Brenda's beloved great aunt took her in. Paco's still visiting but hasn't told her about the posse. Jamie's reunion with brenda is just as sweet if a bit .. less huggy.

Yup.

So we open issue 2 and Jamie is doing his homework. He finds ted doing this without powers cool.. until he gets to the bullet in the brain part. Clearly a bit unnerved he moves on to dan, who at least gives him a clue, the scarab gave dan powers.. but he wonders why it skipped over ted. That's when he gets a visitor on the web: Oracle.

For those who haven't seen this version of her, Oracle is barbra gordon. During the killing joke the joker , wanting to drive Comissioner Gordon to madness, shot barbara. That wouldve been the end in many cases but not liking this one bit, writer John Ostrander turned her into oracle, who works as most superheroes go to help line, paticuarlly the bat family and her own operatives the birds of prey. She TRIES to recruit Jamie: Ted was her friend and this makes it her buisness... but instead of opening with "Ted Kord was my friend I just want to help" or something like that which might not have worked but at least would've softballed you know, hyjacking his monitor, Jamie instead blows up at her, mad the other heroes didn't find him (In her defense they had no way of knowing he was missing as Booster never told them and isn't around due to his fate, revealed in the series covering the missing year 52, not being known at the time this comic was published),. Jamie blasts the screen and tells her to go to hell while Black Canary, who is both barbra's best friend na dmain field operative needles her a bit. She likes Jamie though and it's clear she gets it: to Jamie the superhero community abandoned him, and heroes don't do that, and he simply needs time to process the fact their humans and they fuck up.. and that guy DOSEN'T represent them. Though Babs didn't HELP with that one by saying "if he wanted you dead you'd be dead" which is factually true but dosen't exactly calm down the scared teenager babs.

Anyways Jamie's mom takes him to the doctor where they find nothing. Jamie points out that's a good thing: if he HAD found the scarab, which can retreat into Jamie, there would've been a LOT of questions and possibly the government on their asses. We do see Bianca's come around a bit: after jamie apologizes Bianca tells him he has no need to: it's not her fault and she has to stop thinking that.

We cut to La Dama's place. While Brenda leaves for school, La Dama talks with her minon Diviner... and given he oggles brenda a bit before La Dama just bluntly tells him if he does it again he dies, no metaphors either she just straight up says she'll have him killed. Direct. I like that. But Diviner is an ass, but he's a useful ass so La Dama wants him to test the new beetle, try and break him. See if he's of any use since as far as she knows, the Scarab is still magic.

And reinforcing my point from earlier, Jamie getting back into school.. was incredibly easy. A lot of weird shit happened around the crisis so he just had to fill out a form. It's a great gag and makes perfect since. All Bianca had to do was say he disappeared in a beam of light. Brenda shows up , getting out a half our earlier as naturally having a rich aunt means she can get a nicer school and the three riff like nothing happened. Diviner finds Jamie easily.. but realizes Brenda being there complicates things, so he decides to stage a false flag attack: test jamie with a monster and save her to score points with his boss at the same time.

They go to their old hangout spot we haven't seen before but fair enough, we just met these guys. Jamie asks them point blank: what happened to his dad. Both are shocked no one told him and while Jamie got the cliff notes version, he got hurt at the garage, he knows their not telling him the whole truth.

And shockity shock, they weren't. His dad got shot. Turns out the unreliable guy Jamie was trying to fill in for... was in with drugs and Alberto got shot. Jamie.. blames himself. He was going to get to work summer hours. Thankfully Brenda says fuck that noise..well more don't blame yourself, this isn't a mature readers book.. and in a nice moment Paco.. agrees for once.

It's not hard to see why Jamie's connecting those dots as he lays them out: he disappeared, the cops questioned paco and brenda, her dad nearly beat her to death as a result, Paco joined the posse... but Paco makes it VERY clear it's not his fault.

It's a brilliant moment that shows for all his bravado.. paco is very EMOTIONALLY intelligent.

Then some groots attack. Well ents but they look grooty enough. Jamie tries to fight them but the scarab won't damage nature. Foreshadowing for later. For now Jamie takes command and points out when it complains there are plenty of trees, tracking where the magic is coming from.

Jamie is able to stop it and it foils Diviner's attempt to seem like a hero.. that and Brenda KNOWING him, knowing he always hits on her aunt, and not trusting him whatsoever. The fact he uses the word "ruffians" to describe jamie and paco dosen't help.

And with this Jamie's full circle knows. It was one of the big word of mouth things I heard in wizard magazine and other places back in the day... and rightfully so. While most teen super hero works have the hero hide it, especially during the 2000's cartoon teen superhero boom that was going on at the time, Blue Beetle.. has everyone find out within issues 3 and 4. Jamie HAS to reveal it to his parents as a result of his missing year and Paco and Brenda learn organically as he has to save both of them in ways that don't feel contrived: Paco was already working with some metahumans and the attack on him introduces la dama.. and makes it a big reveal that this crime boss is Brenda's aunt and guardian, while Diviner was attacking Jamie anyway. It allows jamie's FAMILY to deal with this situation with him instead of him having to hide it and the books better for it.

Am I saying EVERY hero needs to tell their loved ones? no, if you have a godo reason for them to hide it in your story your good. But if there isn't they should know. It's why most 2000's superhero animated shows, while not telling the parents in most, had the friends know at a minimum. It's more intresting to explore how this effects those around them rather than just having them have to hide it.

So the issue ends with Jamie having Paco call on the posse for a meeting.

Issue 5 begins with Jamie waiting for the posse. He ends up instead meeting the Phantom Stranger. For those curious the Phantom Stranger is.. the phantom stranger is...

I TRIED looking it up but he has no concrete origin. He's a mysteroius man in a trenchcoat and fedora who appears related to magic stuff or to help someone with a critical turning point. For instance brave and the bold had he and the spectre, the horny ghost of god's vengance, wager over wether batman would kill Joe Chill or not. Golly this review is giving me a LOT of ideas for OTHER reviews.

At any rate he says Jamie's not what he thought he was, and then bounces. The posse's rep, Damper the invisible guy from the flashback with probe is ycordial: as long as Jamie dosen't try anything their cool. Turns out Paco is actually really close to him: As he revealed to jamie earlier they aren't into drugs or anything, and as it turns out blocker dude was so upset because one of the other posse members he hurt was his girlfriend who since then has had a baby . And since Paco explained it wasn't a concious decision on Jamie's part, there square for now. He also finds out the stranger was invisible to everyone else and asks the scarab to tell him next time.. and finds out they can't hear the scarab either. Though i'm sure the voices thing went down better as Jamie HAS explained at this point the thing has a mind of it's own. It turns out though a guy working for Diviner is following them.

While that's going on Brenda has lunch with her aunt, who asks her about the boys. She also knows about the Posse though Brenda vouches for Paco, telling them he just hangs out with them. La Dama also wrongly assumes Brenda has a crush on jamie and I like changing this dynamic up: normally in this sort of trio the main character and the girl of the group have the unreseloved romantic tension. Here.. well..

I love the art here too. It communciates very well that no , Brenda's not denying she has feelings.. she's just utterly mortified anyone remotely thinks she has feelings that aren't there.

So while the Posse gives jamie ten minutes to talk, Divinier begins his plan, summoning a religious hunchback to do his bidding

Said hunchback uses harlot a lot and is easily tricked into stealing Damper (Shield guy) and Bonita's baby... and i'm suddenly wishing firefist would come back stupid outfit and all.

It turns out Probe is missing and we find out why while also finding out more about La Damia and the Posse: La Damia was originally just a coyote, someone who helps people from the border in exchange for cash or drug trafficing. Some are more benevloent than others, and ran a whole orginzation of them but has gone up in the world over the time skip.

She's also decided after the crisis she has to step it up hence gathering magical artifacts and metas, collecting them for her own team. And it also turns out Paco was ENTIRELY correct about the posse being good guys and harmless: they run stuff like bingo, smuggling and getting people across the border, but as Paco vouched no drugs or anything serious. They do crime.. but it's only because with no real superhero presence down El Paso way, no one on either side of the border is looking out for the little guy. Paco is one of their non meta guys, used for the more day to day stuff. They also figure Beetle's already being "tested".. before bonita rushes in talking about the hunchback taking her baby and accusing Jamie

We cut back to lunch: La Dama continues to grill Brenda, but Brenda both admits everyone likes jamie and gives the beam of light story: while La Dama dosen't buy it Brenda gives good reason for her loyalty: jamie was there for her when she showed up brused at school from her dad, took her lying about it in stride and simply offered genuine support... and with that La Dama clearly realizes she has an issue as she's targeting her adopted daughter's best friend.

Everyone else gets her calmed down.. and Jamie offers to get her back. It's a nice chekovs gun: since he met them earlier, that means he can track the baby using their combined dna. While one of the posse questions if Jamie's a superhero now Jamie dosen't know about that but says "It's a baby, I can't let anyone hurt a baby". While jamie may not WANT to be a hero and given all the shit it's brought down on his life, no one can possibly blame him... it's moments like this and the stuff mentoind by brenda that show WHY he's a hero. Without a moments hestiation he helps two people using something he really dosen't like simply because a child is in danger and he's the best bug for the job. It's jamie's core feature: his heart> he's just a good kid who loves his family ,friends and tries to do the right thing. That's it. It's why his friends and family are so key to his character: they show off he's human, he jokes, he fights with his sister, he's a normal teen.. but also show he's an honest good kid who does wheaver he can to help them, letting Brenda have an escape from her abusive home, helping his parents however he can, just being there. Jamie Reyes is one of the purest, most lovable heroes in the dc universe and this one moment encpasulates.. all of that.

Jamie fights the hunchback of notre slut shaming but has a problem since you know, he has to also rescue the baby then hold it. He traps the guy under a truck but it barely slows him down. thankfully help arrives: Peacemaker shows up on motorcycle and grabs the baby. Which is badass. but he calls jamie the blue monster.

Jamie is able to easily beat quasimodick though ,as the guy WANTS to die and the scarab drains it clean, despite jamie's wishes.. and as it turns out the news was watching. The whole world now knows there's a new blue beetle.. for better or worse. Something I want to note before we wrap up the arc proper next issue: ther'es a runner that while jamie has great power.. he has NO idea to fight. And I like that. He gets by with his gadgets and such but it creates a nice contrast between the previous two beetles: As we've seen while Dan Garret had powers, he was a brawler, while Ted was an acrobat and used movement as his primary weapon. It creates a nice contrast that jamie really only has his brain, much like ted, and brute force at first: no finnese simply because he hasn't had TIME to learn it yet.

So we come to the finale of our introductory arc, and yes ther'es still another issue to cover after, i'll explain when we get there.

We cut to some time after last issue with Jamie having found La Dama's compound. Turns out he didn't know he could do the tracker thing himself, it's why he had to ask the posse about probe int he first place but now he can it was easy enough. He has Paco stay behind though.. not out of malice or anything but as Jamie rightly points out he's can fly ONE person out if things get dicey. They need an exit stratgey. And when paco worries if Jamie's just trying to protect him..

Our heroes sneak in.. but turns out La Dama naturally ha senors and their soon spotted. The place itself is.. paradise. A really nice garden, plenty of testing. It's clear while La Dama has been taking kids in.. she isn't stupid enough. I mean she still has grunka lunka dunkity darmed guards, but when the guy in charge talks to them he not only tells them they could've got vistors passes. A fight quickly breaks out as our heroes naturally don't assume the best of these guys and one of them spinner, who can swap powers being a dick to the posse dosen't help. A full fight breaks out whlie outside Paco is chasaed. We cut to La Dama who.. handles things well, simply wanting it calmed down and notably giving Spinner an infraction... more on her later as we cut to her other problem, said car chase as Paco tries not to die, while Jamie takes the head guy out of the dome.. and thus the Phantom Stranger finds what he was looking for. it's a lot at once. All good stuff though.

La Dama arrives and ends this nonsese. She also brings out Probe, who turns out is staying of her own free will. As Stranger, whose now visable to all puts it , it's the finest prison.. one of their own will. He's also here BECAUSE La Dama's been hiding magic people, but she counters it dosen't break rules as she's doing it to keep them safe. Which given every the majority of supervillians are still unionized under the society at this point and the goverment's track records includes "send a guy who was used for experiments because he had a rape and murder charge to deal with the new green lantern and hope he dosen't do somethign serial killery to her girlfriend and oh look what's in kyle rayner's fridge".

So Damper makes an offer; since la dama offers saftey, he promises they'll be safe now El Paso has it's own here: Jamie. and Since jamie has no intent to go anywhere and is a good kid he agrees despite just being volunteered for this. La Dama also agrees: they can come and go as they please

As you can probably guess, La Dama isn't pleased and has a one on one with Jamie, who recognized her as Brenda's aunt. She knows who he is as like Ted jamie isn't the best at keeping secrets.. in this case the fact the Blue Beetle showed up right after jamie disappeared with a very flimsy explination.. it's too obvious and it's clear earlier she was just trying to get Brenda to tell her. As for why she put in the effort he's a threat.. and she's not wrong: he upended a massive operation of hers simply by doing the right thing and so far dosen't have any idea what the hell he's doing.

But as you can tell by this point La Dama's smart and it's part of why I love this character so much: she's a crime boss and she's defintely doing some shady shit.. but she's not a horrible person. She genuinely cares from brenda and sh'es far from stupid when doing her dealings. She was kind to the various metas instead of imprsoning them and when faced with a superhero.. she simply makes an offer. And not "you need to work for me or else" like say the kingpin would a simple one: keep doing what your doing but don't fuck with my operations in a major way, which also neatly dosen't stop jamie from say stopping a dealer or a robbery or something if it's on her dime and he didn't know it, just stops him from dismantling them, which with his powers he likely could. She's still antagonistic, offering to paint him as a villian in the media if he does.. but Jamie shows he's not afraid: she does this, he'll tell brenda. He's clearly bluffing, La Dama can see it.. but the risk is too great not to agree. Also in case you were wondering if things were a bhit TOO concidental with Brenda's new happy life.. Jamie had the same thought...

Honestly I like that the crime boss in Jamie's life ISN'T some big kingpin style villian. And I love me some kingpin and his dc equivlent blockbuster. No question. But I like that La Dama.. isn't evil. Ruthless, a criminal and someone more than willing to kill yes, but she's complex: she loves her niece, and while she did kill her dad and it's mildly fucked up she did so given the son of bitch hit her regularly then beat her so bad she had to be hospitlized, I have absolutely no sympathy for him. She did what she had to and the complexites of that including what Brenda will think once she finds out, all nicely add some Drama. La Dama says Jamie won't be able to figure out the scarab without her resouces.. when Peacemaker enters and drops the bombshell.

And this is PART of why I wanted to cover issue 7: it ends on less of a cliffhanger. That and it ties up some necessary EMOTIONAL loose ends too.

So we open our last issue. Jamie recaps his landing to earth and has taken the Reyes Family, Paco and Brenda to the crater it left, with Alberto having them gather some soil samples his cousin can look at. I .. genuinely dont' think this comes up again.

MIlagro suggests retracing his steps.. but still recoils when her brother tries to touch her. It's painful to see. Peacemaker joins the group and understandably Alberto wonders what the strange man wants with his son. Turns out he got the scarabs database, i.e. the instruction manual and more, beamed into his head on a tour of duty. We get our first flashback to inifnite crisis. We also get a few nice bits: Jamie wonders what monster built brother eye with Bruce deflecting it onto Green Arrow. He also later tells them to say they met superman, it'll go down better.. and when we cut back he has. Well most of them take it okay

Speaking of Peacemaker , Alberto dosen't trust the strange tatooted man and isn't comforted by Peacemaker casually talking about working off the books during the dominon and qurac wars, both wars Alberto served in. It's both some nice character to find out alberto served, and something that leads to one of the series best moments later, and both of Alberto's tours are some nice dc continuity nods: The Dominon War was the DC crossover event Invasion! , where the earth was invaded by the dominators. It didn't have a ton of impact and I mostly know it for two reasons: there were tie ins at the time in most books , in paticular Wonder Woman, JLI, and Suicide Squad for me personally, and Doom Patrol's next relaunch came out of the event and it'd later be the origin story for Crazy Jane. god I also have to do some doom patrol content at some point. Not enough hours in the day I swear.

We also get Paco and Jamie's thoughts on the la dama thing: While Paco is worried she's Jamie's "nemesis" jamie.. is fine upholding the truce. La Dama has stopped the worst of her actions, could easily have him ground into paste if she wanted as she likely knows someone as powerful at him but with more experince, and is being good to brenda. There's no REASON to shake that hornet's nest for now.

We get the rest of what happened on Brother Eye: Dinah suggests blowing up the bitch, I forgot she'd already met Jamie at this point, and they blow it up.. and as we see it REALLY was accidental: the scarab cloaked itself upon seeing Jon Stewart and then Hal Jordan.. and thus our hearts get broken one last time ... this arc.

It's one of the best scenes in the whole run and one of the most powerful.. and as I hinted at the main reason WHY I wanted to do this issue. At last, Jamie fully has his family back with him.

As for why he went forward in time it's simple: Brother Eye was already out of synch with time, its's how the scarab could track him since it used similar technology as it's creators, but with Brother Eye busy exploding and everything chaotic Jamie got shifted out of time and phase and thus wound up a year later.

So everything's good right.. except.. peacemaker raises a VERY valuable point as we end on a cliffhanger I CAN live with.

And we'll get to that some other day as I intend to cover the rest of this series sometime on my own time.

For now though when I finally got to read this run last year.. Blue Beetle became one of my faviorite comics of all time. It was probably easy to tell given i heaped almost nothing but praise on it. It has SOME small growing pains but once we're firmly in the present and everything set the book just keeps going and tells a magnifcent coming of age story. It's not hard to see why DC keeps going back to Jamie or why they thought he could anchor his own movie: He's a wonderful, loveable character with a rich and fleshed out supporting cast. While Ted's death was tragic it paved the way for a book about family, legacy, duty and being who you are versus who people expect you to be. Blue Beetle is a masterpiece and there are trades collecting both halves of John Rogers run out now thanks to the film. Snap them up. This is good stuff and it only gets better. For now though that concludes the main portion of beetlemania, but tune in next week for more beetle as we focus on both boys as they get brave and the bold and we wrap up this retrospective. Thanks for reading.

#jaime reyes #blue beetle #ted kord #peacemaker #barbra gordon #guy gardner #batman #milagro reyes #alberto reyes #bianca reyes #paco #brenda del vecchio #the posse #la dama

[8crimson]

My Superhero team #2

The Tick- probably nuts, no less of a hero, Destiny's aparent go to guy.

Powers: nigh-invulnerability, super strength, agility, and "drama power".

first appearance: The Tick #1

Arthur- Arthur Everest, sidekick, goes into action despite his fear, Tick's straight man.

Powers and tools: a decent knowlegde of various topics and subjects, flight skills. Uses a wing suit.

first appearace: The Tick #4

Blue Beetle- Ted Kord, genius, inventor, and funny guy.

Powers and tools: Intellect, agility, and unarmed combat. Wears a teched up metal mesh fabric suit, uses a less-than-lethal air and flash gun, with other gadgets in his hi-tech aircraft "The Bug".

first appearance: Captain Atom #83

Halo- Sydney Scoville Jr., big time geek, ADHD, and spicy food comsumer.

Powers and tools: inhuman capsaicin tolerance, genere savyness, and out-of-the-box thinking. Is bound to seven orbs each with it's own set of abilities; only one is unknown.

first appearance: Grrl Power #3

Static- Virgil Hawkins, smart, versatile, and bit of a geek.

Powers and tools: Intellect, tactics, electromagnetism, and Electrokinesis. Flys with his static saucer.

first appearence: Static #1

Morph- Kevin Sidney, actor, X-man, funny-man.

Powers: Unhindered shape shifting via unstable molecule physiology.

first appearance: X-Men: Alpha #1

Daredevil- Matt Murdock, boxer's kid, devout catholic, and lawyer.

Powers and tools: hyper-enhanced senses, radar senses, martial arts, intellect, acrobatics, and agility. Uses a pair of trick billy clubs.

first appearance: Daredevil #1

#the tick #grrl power #static shock #blue beetle #ted kord #morph #daredevil #marvel #dc #milestone comics

[vermillioncrown]

JLI sans B to the best of my knowledge: Martian Manhunter p much the DCAU version but with a Crippling Oreo addiction, Fire: ??? Lesbian Brazilian ??? Ice: Died once dated Guy ??? Scott Free: Master Escape Artist Malewife, Big Barda: Ngozi is doing a comic on her Stoic Warrio badass from a Divine Dystopia, Guy Gardner: Considered the Asshole GL had brain damage that affected his personality Batman knocked him out with 1 punch (pt1)

JLI knowledge (pt2): Booster Gold: had a good JLU episode, Jock to Janitor pipeline, stole stuff out of fancy future museum to be a superhero for the $$ fame, had to keep up the act as a gloryhound does barely anything to keep from getting Terminated ⏰, time management, shipped with Blue Beetle II, Blue Beetle II: Ted Kord dated Barbra Gordon once, had a heart attack that kept him off the playing field the BB movie called him "Batman with ADHD", has asshole uncle, studied under BB I.

(mashed your asks together, anon)

(re: post about the blowjob brothers)

=

my idea of the justice league is from the animated series + peripheral new earth/modern stuff, so ofc i know there are discrepancies between media + from general hubbub most comic knowers aren't too keen on animated series only ppl so 🤷‍♂️

^but hot fucking damn why do any of these people talk to each other, this is like "you're all stuck together bc no one wants to deal with you, now go eat each other's faces off"

(i'm both curious and not really bc there is a lot of source media and i'm only one person...i also love seeing a writer's mental convolutions to connect pieces up to a point, and that point is very arbitrary and mutable)

one of the ppl i follow has subjected me to... "boostle" yes? i know of it. booster gold without his boyfriend looks like someone i want to smother w a pillow, i think what you've said of his arc is interesting but again. i need to fight the smother response

batman w adhd poor dude. sorry for his affliction, bat brain sucks.

(no lol i've read some summaries of ted kord and again. my ???? w a lot of big comic stuff is "everyone is the most special pretty princess, we can't all be the most specialist prettiest princesses)

=

(no my biggest fucking beef is so many of them are self-taught genii that is perfect at all physical skills and expert whatevers just go. flip into the sun. it bores me. very 'grown dudes never outgrowing playing pretend in preschool' type of writing)

=

i'll leave a link to this post and think this covers the vibe of how i want to play it lmao

#inquiry #Anonymous #dc shitposting #on tpac #i understand approximate knowledge of canon is a huge turn off for loads of ppl #but i'm being honest and neutral about the state of affairs #hmm as a meta it's pretty interesting that comics and superheroes don't land that well w me and it might be a cultural thing? #as in i was pretty isolated from American Culture™ growing up despite being born here and comic heroes are very American #storytelling style/characterization/general premise slides off my brain #some bits can get me to latch on (i.e. the fucked up interpersonal bat relations) (making fun of batman's gadgets) #it's just rough. once i have more free time i'm hoping to find a couple of... hm #they are called ''runs''? find a couple that catch my eye and read. see the hype #and fond memories of the cartoons bc there's a good balance of the mythologizing vs logical fallout of heroing

[finitevoid]

Finally able to organize my thoughts on the blue beetle movie. so here they are:

-I think the concept of a destined chosen hero is antithetical to jaime reyes as a character. khaji da is not some heavensent agent of destiny, they’re a weapon of mass destruction developed by a colonial empire and sent to mass enslave other planets. The reason jaime is blue beetle as opposed to anyone else is mostly chance, and the fact that jaime happened to be the first person khaji da came into contact with that they didn’t find repulsive, hence them “choosing” him

-I like that they live on el paso street, that was cute

-I like that they made jaime’s little sister a cynical pessimist to counteract jaime’s glittering optimism. Also she’s goth a+

-the fact that jaime attended gotham university not only sent me into hysterics but is continuing to haunt me. Jaime reyes gotham u pre law graduate. Whew

-I was really surprised when they announced this movie because Whatever section of the dc company is in charge of greenlighting these movies seem rather attached to gen 1, year 1 origin stories. we’ve had Two (2) movies about year 1 batman in the past decade, not to mention man of steel and the wonder woman movie taking place during ww1 etc. they’re not even touching the gen 2 sidekicks let ALONE gen 3, so when I saw the blue beetle movie was about jaime and not ted kord I was pogging. However, adapting a Generation Three hero’s origin story into a self-contained story that Actively shies away from the context of the wider dcu seems to be an exercise in futility, because when my father and I watched it he came out so confused as to what had happened in that movie that I spent 30 minutes explaining infinite crisis to him in an attempt to make sense of the movie’s allergy to exposition. while I’m not expecting an adaptation of jaime to, like, completely adapt the utter insanity that is infinite crisis, I do think that the way they went about it ultimately harmed the film more than anything else. while a bit more boring, I think yjtv did a better job by just having khaji da break tf out of their cage and latch onto jaime as a means of escape. It makes more sense than couching the whole movie in a really weirdly unsubtle jesus metaphor

-when George lopez said “batman’s a fascist!” I scream laughed

-I liked that jaime spent the whole time haggardly being like NO MURDER while his entire family was so Utterly down for murder. Truly that is the vibe of the reyes family

-anyway the movie did tackle things that comics, I think, would never be able to. discussions of class and race that blunt would get shut down in (modern) comics, so I enjoyed them taking this opportunity to go there. I liked how believably the reyes family acts like a family, from how they smoothly interact with one another, reference things together, reference past events and even have, you know, thoughts and feelings about their place in their family. jaime’s always been an outlier in comics for having a family that isn’t dead, but I think comics will always struggle to portray a family that Feels like a family (because the writers will always be bogged down by portraying people other than the heroes are surface level cardboard cutouts) so having actual actors take that out of their hands was cool

-“it’s like batman’s stuff but shittier” is the greatest thing jaime’s ever almost said

-I didn’t like the romance subplot

-How did they manage to make one of the most batshit, buckwild and whacky origin stories and make it into a cookie-cutter superhero movie with a bland social justice flavoring. Jaime spends half his comic fighting with an alien parasite on his back, getting mindcontrolled by said alien parasite, fighting robots and Going Into Space To Topple An Alien Colonial Empire and this movie was just so. Predictable. yeah ok he’s the chosen one who’s hunted for his chosen status dead dad become one with your destiny beat the bad guy who isn’t bad so he can beat the bad guy who is. Yeah. Ok man

#he didn’t even get mind controlled into being a weapon of mass destruction :(

[transguygardner]

I posted 2,260 times in 2022

467 posts created (21%)

1,793 posts reblogged (79%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@transguygardner

@queenretcon

@starringbeetle

@shadethechangingman

@joleneghoul

I tagged 1,206 of my posts in 2022

Only 47% of my posts had no tags

#guy gardner - 276 posts

#ted kord - 123 posts

#booster gold - 106 posts

#beatriz da costa - 103 posts

#tora olafsdotter - 102 posts

#lobo - 84 posts

#my art - 69 posts

#guylobo - 59 posts

#asks - 49 posts

#beatora - 35 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#shut up guy got killed by one of five people who consistently gave a shit about him and then she had sex with the authors self insert while

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

gay men learning how to tie ties from lesbians

nature is healing

119 notes - Posted May 21, 2022

#4

i think this is guy’s funniest superfam interaction

picking kon by the scruff of his neck and throwing him out

171 notes - Posted March 25, 2022

#3

reminder that people were going "hey that's kinda ableist" re: how other heroes interact with guy as early as 1992

from the letters column in guy gardner #2 cover date nov 1992

212 notes - Posted October 12, 2022

#2

cissie’s guy gardner plushie vs cassie’s superman plushie

238 notes - Posted June 14, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

i wish people would read that whole alan moore article before going “uh weird take for a comic book writer 🤨” when like uh yeah there is a facism problem in comics right now and there aren’t enough people writing stuff that pushes back against it or speaking out against their fellow creatives works. like did we all forget that marvel tried to partner with lockheed martin a few years back. or that cops fucking love putting blue lives matter flags on punisher logos to the point where gerry conway made a statement about how pissed he was about it. or that most if not all recent marvel and dc movies have military or cia backing. or that hal and the green lantern corps is one of the most blatant copaganda green lantern volumes and it was written during/in response to the massive protests against police brutality. or the whole comicsgate shit. or the whole mess surrounding ethan van sciver. or i dunno the fact that one of dc’s most popular writers right now is tom king mr EX CIA and one of the properties they let him handle was jack kirby’s mister miracle???

and thats just scraping the surface… like…

3,110 notes - Posted October 13, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #long post

[queenretcon]

I posted 2,280 times in 2022

258 posts created (11%)

2,022 posts reblogged (89%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@milfpoisonivys

@joleneghoul

@transguygardner

@s1eveharrington

@queenretcon

I tagged 2,274 of my posts in 2022

#q - 1,177 posts

#art - 222 posts

#booster gold - 189 posts

#talk tag - 182 posts

#text - 162 posts

#ted kord - 126 posts

#self reblog - 108 posts

#guy gardner - 104 posts

#beatriz da costa - 104 posts

#tora olafsdotter - 82 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#really recommend these itchio charity bundles! don’t have this one yet but will be getting it and really enjoyed the ones they’ve done prior

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

photos taken moments before bea and guy got into a shouting match in front of the regions bank prize wheel

323 notes - Posted June 1, 2022

#4

this is @joleneghoul’s fault again

he mentioned booster & post-retirement ted having Morgan & Garcia from Criminal Minds vibes and thus

342 notes - Posted September 9, 2022

#3

Could you draw Bart Allen in A5? I think you've never drawn him before

his hairs fun

395 notes - Posted November 13, 2022

#2

Like and subscribe if you want to see us rate all of our own costumes! (Spoiler: mine are all 5 stars, Fire’s just jealous.)

I’ve been sick so all I’ve done this week is lay around and draw this

528 notes - Posted January 4, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

beauty brains & brawn

529 notes - Posted July 18, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#save #booster being the only one to make it as high as my general tags I use on like every post is so funny

[starringbeetle]

I posted 270 times in 2022

160 posts created (59%)

110 posts reblogged (41%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@starringbeetle

@transguygardner

@twinestars

@joleneghoul

@navtastic

I tagged 256 of my posts in 2022

Only 5% of my posts had no tags

#guy gardner - 117 posts

#ted kord - 68 posts

#tora olafsdotter - 47 posts

#booster gold - 41 posts

#self reblog - 35 posts

#beatriz da costa - 31 posts

#doodles - 29 posts

#reblogged art - 29 posts

#and guy gardner - 26 posts

#guylobo - 20 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#i'm catching up to older runs and i know i'm going to enjoy warriors for the characterization and then i'm going to be madder than ever at

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

posting this at 6am, perfect time

111 notes - Posted September 6, 2022

#4

a Guy drawing as thanks to @taylorthegiant for all the donations he's given me the last few months!!

140 notes - Posted June 21, 2022

#3

149 notes - Posted October 26, 2022

#2

316 notes - Posted September 18, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Warmup tonight: Superman and all our home

714 notes - Posted June 23, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

people love it when I draw Superman, don’t you

#I went bananas ass bonkers on Guy this year good fuck #Long post #Me using tumblr mostly to talk at Jo or Taylor all year omg

[androxys]

I am typing and deleting and screenshotting texts about Sasha Bordeaux nonstop because she is one of my most characters and I’ve developed MAJOR brain worms

Bruce Wayne’s bodyguard that he didn’t want. Found out that he was Batman. Became a vigilante with him. Fell in love with him. Went to jail to serve for the murder that Bruce Wayne didn’t commit. Was so dedicated to the mission. Refused Bruce’s help to get out of jail. Murdered in jail. Saved and recruited by Checkmate. Was so dedicated to the mission. Learned that Bruce manipulated her into learning his secret so he could control her. Became Black King’s Knight. Cleaned up Ted Kord’s body after Max Lord killed him. Watched Jessica Midnight, the woman who recruited her into Checkmate, be forced into committing a coup that placed Lord as the single power in Checkmate. Sent Ted’s goggles to Bruce at risk to herself--despite her anger towards him for manipulating her, for controlling her, for throwing her away--and falling back into him when they finally met again after their last meeting because the heart never forgets but also she never wanted him to look for her because she was so hurt and because the heart never forgets. And they don’t get a reconciliation beyond the kiss because they’re working (and there’s always the mission and she is so dedicated to the mission) and then she’s imprisoned and tortured and only gets out because Lord dies and Checkmate is being purged by OMACS and she learns that she too has been compromised by Lord’s fanaticism and as she’s stabbed and bleeding out her last thoughts are wondering if Batman also feels the painful chill of all the people he’s failed, and then she lives as BLACKKNIGHT I and has so little time to mourn and reflect on this change and her fears because there is the mission (and she is so dedicated to the mission) and her first call is to Bruce because of course it’s to Bruce and they can only talk in horrified asides about how Bruce’s fears and need to control and manipulate lead to the creation of Brother MK-1, because he doesn’t know how to let go (and he never let Sasha go) and they work on their own roles against the OMACS and once they win they have another moment where they come so close to actually talking (“I know about guilt, Sasha”) and she’s so scared of being a machine, cold and unfeeling and calculating and manipulative like Brother Eye and then she goes into space to slay the dragon and feels like she’s so out of place and even once she gets back she’s immediately given another mission because he knows she’ll do it, even if he tells her that she was his only choice (not his first) because he understands that she’s dedicated to the mission and just

I was in love with him, once. And once, maybe, he was in love with me. But I’m more machine than woman now. And I’m no hero.

There is this rippling sense of guilt, thinking about how she confronted Jessica Midnight and thought of herself

I’m a bad guy. So I act the part. I’m getting good at it.

And she does his dirty work for him! And her last thoughts as she blows herself (because that’s what the mission--and maybe her guilt--demands) up to take out Bruce’s creation, his folly, her Brother, is to wish Bruce goodbye too, because he was the fulcrum at which point her life fell apart.

And then they save the world(s) and Sasha rebuilds her life (again) by funneling herself (and her guilt) into a new Checkmate (because she is always so dedicated to the mission) and she ends up with the exact reality that she was warned against when she first met Jessica Midnight, before she was ever even recruited into Checkmate. And she’s the Black Queen and she runs ops and she makes the tough calls and people get hurt and she manipulates and controls and it’s for the greater good... right?

#dc comics #sasha bordeaux #chit chat #i'm going absolutely crazy over this one #sasha my beloved #i am rotating her in my mind like a marshmallow that has been set on fire

[blue-lantern]

1, 11, 15, and 16! :D

!!! I'm just seeing this now, guessing this is for the 20 questions to hate ask game. Glad that you've been un-shadowbanned!

1. You have to make one Robin (Dick, Jason, Tim, Stephanie, Damian) not exist permanently and never have existed. Choose which. Probably Tim, honestly. This would be an easier question to answer if I had stronger feelings on the Robins but I've suddenly come to realize that I don't. Tim is the one that I've read the least of, and the one I think about the absolute least in terms of analysis so it's gonna have to be him. 11. Kill one person permanently. (not the joker) It's gotta Hal Jordan for me. I just feel like there were richer stories going on when he was gone. Hal's villain arc and subsequent death both set the stage for Kyle, and afforded him a huge amount of depth in his feelings about Hal's ability for redemption, and not to mention Hal's becoming The Spectre, which is one of my favorite runs that expanded Hal's characterization and his inner life I miss it so bad. Second runner up is Ted Kord, Jaime was in a better position when he had to come to terms with being in the shadow of his deceased predecessor, Booster Gold had a lot of interesting character development in his grief, and Ted hasn't even really been given the proper respect since his revival so what was the point.

15. Favorite jason todd version. Under the Red Hood Jason. He's not super fleshed out since we only had the characterization for about three minutes but, I love tragic villains, I love both his genuine grievances with how Batman opposes crimes and immoralities in how he himself does it, I love that there's still genuine love between father and son that can never be rekindled because the pain runs too deep and the difference in morality is too great. Everything after that is just kind of meh, Morrison writes Jason as the most generic crazy evil bad guy possible, and the post-52 anti-hero Jason never appealed to me, especially since it feels like editorial wants to have their cake and eat it too with Jason being the brooding black sheep, but also being deeply involved with the batfam. Doesn't work for me.

16. Which character do you think is better in the new 52 than outside the new 52. Okay I have a confession to make, I am not qualified enough to answer this. I've read so few New 52 comics I can't make a judgement call. I mostly read comics that were released in the last ~3 years, or comics from the 80s-00s, I missed N52 completely. I had a couple examples that I thought maybe fit the bill and then I realized they were from Rebirth era, not N52, so I guess none.

#asks #thanks for asking ^~^ #blog: tatsujeff

[ofmorninglory]

day one of bluepulse week is basically my excuse to a) write cocky bart, b) write nerdy jaime reyes (and i will die on this hill, okay?? he’s smart af) and c) write more angst 

#;about the author #jaime being a nerd is my favorite thing #after i read blue beetle 2006 #i was validated about him being the nerdiest most tryhard student #guy gardner gives him ONE (1) book that belonged to Ted Kord #and next thing you know jaime has a CORKBOARD with all of Ted's teachings called: #''what would ted kord do?'' #and he learns about him and how he worked so he can feel more confident #so yeah i made him a nerd!!!!! #because that's jaime reyes!!!!

[gentlemanmcbitch]

Literally Everybody At the Dark Crisis Memorial: A Comprehensive List

Alrighty no preamble everyone's saying "where's x person" "where's y person" "is this person there" in the dark crisis preview so because I'm bored I'm gonna go through and point out every single costumed fucker of note in that image let's GO

That said my knowledge only goes so far so I'm gonna put down some unknowns (by number) and would love the help to identify them, as well as anybody who I miss completely!

Okay starting over here we've got:

-Nightwing (Dick Grayson) leading the service up front -Barda and Miracle (Scott Free) -Flash (probably Wally West) -Hawk (Hank Hall) and Dove (Dawn Granger) -I'm guessing the purple hood in the foreground is Spoiler (Stephanie Brown) -I'm also gonna guess the redhead (the one in full view, not in the foreground) is Barbara Gordon -Unknown #1: not sure who that tiny fella with the mohawk is, my guess is someone from the Lobo fam but idk if any of them have a mohawk? Also why so short -Unknown #2: I'm gonna randomly guess the hooded person in the front is Raven, but honestly could be anybody -Unknown #3: Who's that metal guy next to maybe Raven? I honestly have nothing on this -I also see a silhouetted horned guy wayyy in the front (look above bardas left horn thing) who I think may be Blue Devil

More under the cut!

Moving on, we've got:

-Robin (Tim Drake) -Aqualad/man (Jackson Hyde) -Supergirl (Kara Zor-El) and probably Lois Lane -Batwoman (Kate Kane) (the redhead right in the foreground) -Red tornado -A bat person next to red tornado who is probably Cassandra Cain -Above Kara's head way in the background is Katana, you can tell from the square shoulder plate -Unknown #4: weirdly prominent random guy with a backpack? Maybe I'm reading into this too much -Unknown #5: whoever's between Cass and Tornado -Unknown #6-7: I think those two hugging people in the background are the Wonder Twins but they could be anybody -Unknown #8: another shortie, this time to the left of Barbara (far right of the picture) in green. Costume alone makes me think Enchantress but there's no reason she'd be that small -Unknown #9: the white and gold guy way in the background on the far left looks like godspeed but I thought he was dead? Idk -Unknown #10: left of #9, partially cut off in this screenshot, is a suited man facing away from the viewer. He's so prominently drawn that I thought he was The Question, but I think Renee Montoya currently holds that title so I may be wrong on that

alrighty, over here we got:

-Superboy (Conner Kent) -Robin (Damian Wayne) -Booster Gold -Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) -Black Lightning -The Lobo fam girl from the Rebirth Teen Titans comic whose name I cannot remember (Crush? Carnage?) up in the foreground -Also from the Rebirth TT comic but whose name I remember, Roundhouse! He's in the background above Beetle's head -Doctor Light (the non-evil one whose real name escapes me) -Naomi McDuffie -I think the man in the foreground is Beast Boy (Garfield Logan) but the tank top is a weird costume choice for him -Unknown #11: There's a...gorilla?? to the left of Doctor Light and I have NO idea who they are but they're so distinctly shaped that they've got to be somebody. -Unknown #12: There's another hooded figure slightly to the left of Black Lightning's head. The shape of the hood makes me think Red Hood (Jason Todd) in his Rebirth/Infinite Frontier costume, but the sloped shoulders make me think it's someone less buff. Maybe an arrowfam person since we haven't seen any of them, but your guess is as good as mine! -Unknown #13: to the right of Roundhouse (from our perspective) is a figure I don't recognize. He could be one of the metal men (who are also here, I'll get to them soon) but he's a bit separated from them so maybe not.

And finishing out the folks on the ground, we can see:

-Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) -Cyborg (Vic Stone) -The Signal (Duke Thomas) -The Metal Men (see I told you I'd get to them) -Metamorpho -Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes) -Bunker (Miguel Barragan) -The redhead standing to the left of Cyborg, who due to the lack of mask + cloak + standing among multiple Titans members I'd guess is Omen (Lilith Clay) -Unknown #14: I have no idea who this woman in the immediate foreground is. Like, not a single clue. Please help.

Up, up in the sky, we've got:

-Plastic man sticking his lil head above the crowd -Superman (Jon Kent) -Green Lantern(s) (Jessica Cruz and Jo Mullein) -Starfire (Koriand'r) -Unknown #15: Incredibly nondescript dude in a black cape. My first guess was Osiris if Black Adam died with the league, but I think that's wrong since he hasn't really been mentioned in comics in a LONG time. if he wasn't so white-looking I'd say Icon.

Lastly, watching mysteriously from the rooftops, we have:

-Deathstroke (Slade Wilson) -Unknowns #16-20: these are distinctive silhouettes, but every villain I think of who would match them definitely wouldn't be the type to pay respects, and every non-villain I think of wouldn't be lurking up here in the first place. Maybe far right is the Trickster from the Flash Rogues? Would appreciate some more guesses!

The people with Deathstroke could also be the other villains on the cover art for Dark Crisis, which would make far right Nekron, second from the right Doomsday, second from the left Ares(?), and idk about the other two, but it'd be kind of wild if all the major villains of this event were just like. Hanging out at the memorial service.

This post is long enough so if anyone points out one of the unknowns, I'll just edit the post instead of adding it in a reblog. I will, of course, give credit to whoever finds out. I really just did this to avoid doing my work for class tomorrow, but it was fun. Thanks for reading and consider this my application to DC tumblr <3

#dc comics #dark crisis #dc #please god let this do well I spent so long on it #nightwing #dick grayson #hawk and dove #hank hall #dawn granger #the flash #wally west #big barda #mister miracle #scott free #spoiler #stephanie brown #batgirl #raven dc #the raven cycle #raven roth #robin #red robin #tim drake #aqualad #jackson hyde #aquaman #supergirl #kara zor el #kara danvers #lois lane

[popculturebuffet]

Beetlemania: Ted Kord (A review of Blue Beetle V5 #1 and 2 and Blue Beetle V6 # 1 and 2) (Patreon Review and Comissioned by Brotoman.Exe and WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy beetlemaniacs, and welcome back to beetlemania, my look at those proud boys in blue just in time for the film.. well the day after it came out because my schedule has been in freefall.

Today we look at the man, the myth, and the guy who built his own giant dope as hell bug ship, Ted Kord, the second blue beetle.

To get to the blue part of the blue and the gold though, we have to talk about what happened to Dan. While fox published Blue Beetle into the 50's, dan fell victim to what most heroes a the time did: The Superhero Bust. Post WWII until the mid 50's, kids just werne't checking out superhero comics, preferring western and romance comics. As a result most superheros vanished and only super popular ones like Batman and Superman carried on and even the world's finest were hitting a wall. As a result Fox Comics went out of buisness and sold it's stock to Charlton comics Charlton DID try to make a go of things with dan, twice. First they reprinted golden age stories as a backup before giving him his own title in the mid 50's, ironically a likely result of superhero comics becoming hot again thanks to Dan's future owners DC Comics, before being taken over by Mr. Muscles. Now already just with THAT TITLE alone, I was curious.. but then I looked into it on wikipedia and who boy. Okay first off he was created by Superman Co-Creator Jerry Siegel.

Okay so brace yourselves for this breif detour: So Mr. Muscles is a former wrestler, who still wears a neat belt, has a kid sidekick and female version and fights with the power of being in peak physical condition, much like captain american if he could choke slam you. I also like the angle to him that he promotes physical improvment to the point that a guy who tries to KILL HIM WITH TIGERS, is instead given a chance ot better himself. Those parts.. all honestly work and i'm shocked this character has never been revamped especially since he REALLY would've fit well with the wrestling boom of the mid-late 80s around the same time the charlton cast got added to the dc universe.

But the most bonkers part is his origin....

Yes folks, Mr Muscles beat Polio, a disease that cut countless people down before Jonas Salk's polio vacine started to help just three years before this comic THROUGH SHEER FORCE OF WILL. Take that science! Again he'd probably need his origin touched up as "I didn't need a vacine I just beat this disease through will" isn't the uplifting message it was in 1955. Sadly the world just wasn't ready for him, and both Mr. Muscles and Dan Garret sat on the shelf.

So we enter the mid-60s. After dc plateaued with it's stories, Marvel breaks in with stories that treat it's characters like real people. Sometimes their real people who will fake being their own hepcat twin brother to fool their friends because they can't just tell them who they are because shut up, sometimes they'l lfight communists every week and sometimes they'll have their college roomate wind up as a dictator with his own country, but still people who have mostly realistic emotions and what not. So sensing another chance to cash in Charlton tried one more time to bring back Dan. The stories seem good, with Dan getting a new love intrest Cheri, an egyptian archelogy professor and a new job as an archelogist, an origin I honestly feel works better given the scarab and was carried over. The series breathed new life into the character.. but not new sales and once again the beetle was gone. However with a new boom going on they decided rather than let the beetle gather dust again to try a new approach: They combined the approaches of both companies: they'd give someone new the blue beetle identity.. and have one of marvel's top guys give him that sense of realisim.

Enter Steve Ditko, soon to be objectivst, loveable curmudgeon and co-creator of spider-man. Understandably angry Stan kept taking all the credit for the wall crawler and less understandably angry lee was a liberal, Ditko walked out of marvel and Charlton snapped him up and put him to work on a similar but still distinct new version of the blue beetle. They started with backups, just to be safe, before giving Ted his own title that... somehow only lasted 5 issues. Still it's a bafflingly un-republished classic that introduced one of the greatest superheroes of all so let's give it a look under the cut, along with what dc did with a similar premise

Blue Beetle Bugs the Squids: While another writer is credited.. it was simply a front: Ditko actually wrote and scripted the stories here, he simply didn't want a writing credit for some reason.

So we open with a high class party. The spread is bland, sauerkraut and boiled goose. There's no way these people will ever cut loose.. but more importanlty there's some man in squid suits with suction cups climbing the building.. suction cups on their ARMS.

The suits do look neat, not as squidy as i'd hope, I love me a good squid. Their beady eyes, their cupped mouths the fact they can murder you. Good boys. But their still a nice design.

They crash the party to rob it, but before the mystery men can burst in to stop this a diffrent costumed hero crashes the party

Ted's quip game is STRONG here, I can't show you them all, image limits, but Ditko's comedy and action writing is up to bat as ted acrobatically handles the much larger group. IT's very spidey-esque, without feeling EXACTLY like peter: Ted has no powers and thus his movements are more human level acrobatic, using a lot of throws and a lot of hand stands. It's a great level of art.

The Squids try to bug out with beetle following in the bug, his flying machine and something so iconic the blue beetle film makes sure to use it even with ted not physically present. But before we can get to that say.. do you have problems being short? Well charlton comics ad pages have a solution for you.

I can now see how randy newman thought short people got no reason to live, he was brainwashed by the liftee corportation! Someone deprogram randy newman!

we also get this ad for the charlton action heroes. We get a white guy doing judo, captain atom in his best red, blue , dark blue and silver armed ensemble, peacemaker: he'll eat every dick on the beach clean for liberty and of course the classic character Peter Cannon Thunderbolt. I have no idea who this guy is and don't care to. Why he's here and not Mr. Muscles, only god and charlton editorial knows.

Annnd looking it up he's bascially got the same gimick of human perfection with some added "White guy learning asian wisdoM' uncomfort. : Also I just noticed he's basically wearing socks.

Anyways beetle chases after teh squids in the bug which here looks more like a cricket than an actual beetle, something later designs would iron out.

We then see Ted Kord's personal life. It's largely what it'd be for most of his career: working as a researcher at a lab at his father's company, sometimes Ted's own company, though things.. aren't happy. Lt. Max Fisher is trying to figure out what happened to Dan Garret on Pago Island, and Ted can't tell him for reasons we'll get into next issue.. reasons he refuses to tell his girlfriend and fellow lab tech tracey.

He has reasons for keeping Max from knowing though: there's a secret there that could threaten the world, again more for the next issue. For now he's going to enjoy being blue beetle for as long as he can. I get the sense the detective subplot was added to throw in some drama to Ted's life, spider-man style. There' some elments of peter here: the dictomy of brooding civlian, carefree hero, the science background, the quips, the secret id driving a wedge between him and his loved ones.. but what I like is Ditko takes steps to make sure ted is his own man: he dosen't have powers, relying on techno wizardy, acrobatics and his own brain, has a steady love intrest from the word go and as we'll see next issue DOSEN'T keep his id a secret from those he loves for long if it'll keep hurting them. It's clear from the next issue Ditko either realized going the broody rout woudln't work forever or he was simply swerving his audeince expecing "Spider-man but blue and without powers". Either way it's nicely done.

So we cut to Todd Van III, a socilate suggesting a yacht party to raise money for .. something. Naturally given this guy we've never heard of has a lot of focus, he's the big bad behind the squids, having spent his inhereitance to show he can make his own money to his dead dad. That'll show his ghost! He also plans to make himself out to be a hero: since th eparty's a masquerade he swaps places with a minon so said minion will play him and stand up to the squids, who then slink away to the lower decks with the money.

This ends up backfiring as Ted was montoring the scene the whole time. It's nicely set up too: this time he's ready since the yacht party is too big a target for the squids to pass up.. and thus he notices how weird it is the squids AREN'T on his radar.

So we get a really fun action scene as the yacht, c leared of guests but not of squids, gets sieged by ted, who uses the bug in some really fun ways, including giving them a second to sweat it out before pouncing. It's cool stuff. Todd has decided to blow this pop stand... literally. He plans to blow up the yacht and everyone involved to get away. Unfortuantely for him the squids find out and escape while Ted is able to chase todd, and get the very moist back of money back. We get a REALLY fun fight scene as Ted keeps quipping about how todd REALLY wants to go to prison.

IT's a really great bit and really sells who ted is. In the end Beetle wins, the squids go to jail and he wonders what's next. Before that though I have to say..t his is a REALLY fun story. The dialouge is hilarious, the mystery for next issue is very well set up, and the squids are fun badies. Their not exactly a threat, but their not really here for that: there here more to give ted someone to show off against. To show what the beetle can do and to show he dosen't have any powers like dan. For a first issue it's a lot of fun

This issue also introduces the Question. The question is vic sage, a tv reporter by day who fearlessly speaks against corruption despite a good chunk of the board at his station wanting him gone. You can see a LITTLE of ditko's budding objectivism peak in, him blaming people with gambling problems for enabling mobsters, but otherwise it's also a great story. It's a really solid first issue and given it introduces such important characters i'm baffled dc hasn't reprinted these since the 2000's. It's great stuff. And there's more of it coming up next

The End is A Beginning By this point steve apparently got less shy about taking the writing credit as this one credits him rightfully as writer and artist.

Ted's stressed as Lt. Fisher keeps pressing him and Tracey hasn't showed up for work. So after Fisher leaves he decides to do some blue beetling to clear his head.

He flies over Pago Island, remphasising for new readers it has some terrible secret.. but it also has a guest. Ted's worried so he checks in.. and finds Tracey. Turns out she was here all day searching..

I... fucking love this scene. Ted sees his loved one is hurting.. and decides to come clean, despite the risk. Because it's the right thing to do. It's something I REALLY wish more superhero works did after this. Nowadays this sort of thing is way more common and deconstruing the secret keeping way more often, but it still took it's sweet time and even then we have things like miraculous ladybug where they just.. outright keep the ids secret because shut up. Here ted sees his girlfriend in distress and simply agrees to tell her.

So we cut back a few months: Ted was working with his Uncle Jarvis, with Tracey running his lab while he did as Jarvis preferred ted work only at his lab. Ted was curious, only getting in pieces, and while he was innocent enough to not ask big questions he still wanted to know what was going on. Jarvis agreed to tell him.. but then exploded.. literally. The lab explodes, Jarvis is apparently dead as he's the only one there.

Naturally though it's not that simple as Ted finds a box not destroyed in the fire.. and to his horror finds out the experiment was actually to create some cool looking artifical super solders. Before now their weakness was being slow.. but Ted accidently solved that. So he goes to Dan. In this continuity their old college buddies, and he figures Dan can find it with his archelogy. Dan tries to go alone so he can beetle it up if needed but Ted insists on going with because.. of course he does. He gave his uncle the keys. As for the whole being dead thing Ted rightly dosen't buy it and has to be sure. What I also love is that Ditko makes sure we get Tracey's perspective: she thought Ted was distraught because his uncle died, and she was supscious he was lying about being alone on pago island because she KNEW he left his house with someone else.

Naturally Jarvis not only has his atomic men capture them but gets monologuging. This case I get though: he has NO idea ther'es a superhero among the two guys he just captured, thus he has no reason to fear them.

dan naturally goes into action, secret identity be dammned and we get one hell of a fight. It alsos hows Dan's own fighting style: throws and more up close brawling once again to Ted's later acrobatics. Sadly... given ther'es only ONE blue beetle in present day.. you can probably guess how this ends.. in tears.. and expoding robot men

dan's body was soon lost for an explosion and while Ted managed to make it out, the police were left supscious.. but now he's given good reason. While Ted COULD at least reveal the pago island stuff without outing himself or dan as the blue beetle, though the latter might be necessary, he can't trust that anyone find the robots now jarvis is dead (his control center also conveintly overloaded), as no one man can be responsible for that kind of power.

So after some soul searching Dan used some of his dad's old experiments, his dad having left indefintely on his own vauge quest, and thus.. a legend was born

Turns out though the Androids themselves aren't gone and we get a breif but awesome fight. This is the real test: Ted is out powered, out gunned and barely survives.. but he manages to outwit them, dumping the two that emerged into a crevice.. but barely. It really cements who ted is: he's not a brawler, he can't use brute force: all he has is gadgets (something emphasized more in the dc version) and his greatest weapon: his brain. Like spider-man he has to think his way out over stronge foes but unlike spidey his brain is all he has.. and he uses it well. he then has the bug cover the crevices to be sure. Tracey vows to help him no matter what and the two embrace.. as under the island more robots are made... and the future is uncertain.

This issue is even better, giving ted a really fantastic origin story one that's been kept in most versions of him since, it's that good. DC would use it, brave and the bold would base an episode around it, and even the movie is using pieces of it, simply turning Jarvis into his sister rather than his uncle and , like brave and the bold, having the scarab be the basis. The art is fantastic, the fights as usual are great, and the stuff with Tracey is top notch character work, making her feel more like a person and less like an object.

Out From the Ashes!

So after only a few issues the blue beetle folded. Again. He'd appear breifly in AMERICOMICS. Because Merica, which finds a nice way to reconcile his golden age adventures with his silver age ones: reincarnation. It makes sense given both the egyptian themes present in the second run and the scarab itself not being defined as an alien just yet. Also as one last note the term Kahji Dah pops up here. Remember it, it'll be important later.

Anyways with that the beetle set on the sidelines again till the mid 80s. In 1983 DC Bought Charlton Comics, and it's characters, seeing the potetial Charlton had squandered just letting Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby creations sit on a shelf somewhere. At the same time Marv Wolfman, editor at dc and writer of the new teen titans (I covered his run with george perez in full last year and STILL feeling winded from it), had pitched a crossover: history of the dc universe!... which was set to completely reshape said history for a new generation, with Wolfman feeling the various parallel earths of dc had gotten a bit much, and with DC lagging behind marvel they felt a refresh was needed. They changed the name to...

Something I intend to cover eventually. When i'm not sure (I'd be happy to do it on comissoin). For those not familiar with it, Crisis was a massive 12 issue crossover, and while marvel beat them to the punch with secret wars as the first crossover, crisis was still the first proper linewide crossover: every book was effected in some way, and many would never be the same for better or worse. The book brought in EVERY altenate earth dc had, had most die horribly, and merged the remainder.

It was in these pages our boy Ted made his dc debut, and once the dust was settled he and the other charlton characters were put front and center in the new universe and most given another shot at a title or mini series with Captain Atom and Blue Beetle being the first to get ongoings, likely since Steve Ditko had worked on both, with the Question, after a guest stint in Beetle's own book, getting one and peacemaker getting a mini series and a key role in checkmate.. the latter of which I only know because he showed up for an overly long crossover between Checkmate and Suicide Squad, before largely disappearing until...

Giving him a starring role in the suicide squad book thanks to his movie apperance and his own mini series recently.

The four along would also be adapted into the Watchmen, another book i've covered, as DC wanted to reuse the chalton characters after and watchmen was a bit too.. permeant.

And so in 1986 ted bravely and boldly enterted the dc universe proper with Blue Beetle #1.

Writing the book was Lein Wein, comics legend responsible for co-creating Wolverine, Colossus, Storm, and Nightcrawler, and of course KRAKOA THE ISLAND THAT WALKS LIKE A MAN AND WAS A MUTANT NATION TILL RECENTLY. IT'S COMPLICATED. Lesser known though was his run on Spider-Man. What i've read of it is pretty dang good, and it's clear even after a healthy run with the wallcrawler Lein still wasn't quite done doing this type of story and jumped aboard when DC asked him.

So once again we have a spidey alum bringing a wallcrawling energy to Ted, let's see how it bears out.

We open with some brave chicago firefighters tryign to put out a penthouse blaze... and failing. Goly firehouse 51 was a lot less competent before Chief Boden ran it huh.

Anyways Chief Red Haired Guy is dismayed to see a familiar face, The Blue Beetle, who he thought retired. Apparently Ted took some time off between picking up the mask and now, a nice way to explain why he hadn't been in any recent dc history prior to the crisis in-universe. What they never explain is WHY Chief Carrot Top hates Ted. No really this guy is j jonah jameson levels of dismayed ted is back, gets weirdly mad at him later, they never tell us WHY this guy hates ted. Maybe it's in an issue past where i've read in this book, I don't know, but it is hilarious, you have to give it that.

At any rate ted swings in on a line he has that comes out of the bug and he can call for help. It showed up in the previous adventures. Ted then tries to help someone in the fire.. only to get a cup of punch to the face instead. Turns out this is our villian..

Yeah the idea of firefist is a good one, and we'll get to why he keeps starting fires besides it being his desire later as well as why it burns so hot. But that outfit.. where do I even begin. the armor parts MOSTLY look neat, my only complaint being that his eyes shoudln't be visable, especially since he has a whole thing about wanting no one to see his face, trying to barbeque ted over it. The idea of an armored man with undousable fire who is determined to murder all firefighters is brilliant. The problem is the rest of the outfit. The pure white underpinning, the inexplicable utility belt no doubt caring firefist shark repeleant, the GIANT bulge

And the fucking logo. He looks like a dollar store shredder knockoff. I like paris cullen's cartoony art on this book, it fits well and he makes ted look great but I have NO IDEA what he was thinking on this costume.

It's honestly what i've realized on a second read took me out of the book the first time I tried reading it. Since dc had all the issues and no intention of reprinting the series (and as of this writing despite the movie STILL hasn't, though they have reprinted Jamie's series after too damn long which is nice), I bought the first two.. and wasn't really impressed. It felt like it was trying way too hard to be spider-man. I see now it's not really that bad, it has some good stuff i'll get to, I just let the problems stack up because one of the first things I saw was this guy. And on second read like I said he's not a terrible villian he just has a bad costume. And he's far from the first supervillian to start out with a bad costume before getting an upgrade later. I'd honestly love to see him fight Jamie if he hasn't already: just upgrade the flames to make hima threat to the scarab and your good.

At any rate firefist gets away though Ted escapes via the zip line thing I mentioned the sky wire, and uses it to save the last firefighter left in the building. The sequence is tense cool and really shows what ted can do. Granted I woudln't of also opened with him getting punched in the face but I do get it: they didn't HAVE to talk ted up since he had a prominent-ish role in crisis on infinite earths.. but for people just turning into bb it's a weird choice.

The Fire Comissiner wants answers and wants Beetle to come int o the fire house.. what. Ted does tell him about firefist but skedadles as fire chief grumpus vows revenge.. well he dosen't but wouldn't i tbe neat if he did.

Ted is a LITTLE bummed that was a bumpy return.. but what I like is he dosen't stay glum for long. He instead comforts himself with the fact that he at least prevented some damage. We then get a rundown of things as he pilots the bug underwater and into his secret lair. We also find out something I think is neat as Ted unmasks: the beetle mask has a lock on it that he can undo with his glove. It's clever, giving good reason why someone can't just yank the top off and find out who the blue beetle is and fits who ted is. Wein is the one who really codified that ted is a man of gadgets: while Ditko's Ted used more acrobatics, this is a ted who uses sceince and skills and it's something that would stick from here on out. And I .. really like it. It's a way to set him apart from both spider-man and batman, his most obvious comparisions being both a bug based hero with a load of quips having a load of fun doing this and a gadget based viglante. Peter is smart and WILL use his science knowhow and strategic genius to down foes, it's part of his charm, but dosen't really pack a ton of gadgets in most runs, only doing so when he has enough backing to afford gadgets or in the Insomniac universe, while

It's more criminology: most of his gadgets are based around crime solving and are down to earth. He CAN have something custom whipped up if the need arises, but prefers more practical solutions. It's seen in their modes of transportation: batman has a car, a boat and a plane, all speclaized just in case he needs one, and while all conspicious all black, fast and able to get in and out quick. Ted by contrast has the bug which while not exactly slow, is flashier, multipurpose (both plane and sub) and designed to more make an impact and look real cool. It's in how they treat the job: To ted this is something that needs doing and honors a friend, but something he also has FUN doing most of the time or can snark at to cope when he really REALLY isn't. For batman it's a sacred mission that has to be handled with the utmost seriousness while he wears a bat costume.

We get a recap of ted's origin, which is mostly untouched. The only diffrences are a change in design for the robots, Dan is switched from a college friend to Ted's old teacher and the fact this time out ted got to control the narrative, so while Lt. Fisher is still suspcious, we'll get to that, Dan is thought to have died mysteriously.. and in a nice touch the beetle cave has a memorial set up for him, the newspaper reporting his death with two candles next to it and Ted hoping to do him proud. It's a great way to speed through the origin without trivalizing what it means or what ted's lost.

Ted rides an elevator up to the proper levels of Kord Omniversal, his company which he runs as CEO. This is it's research part. He meets with his secretary, Angela, who has really neat looking big pink glasses and is nice.. but is hiding something. To get this out of the way now she's subtly stealing tech from the company for her uncle whose forcing her to. It's a subplot that dosen't get paid of here so i'm mostly glossing over it, but I apprciate these first two issues setting up later ones already. I also love this bit of ted going through the stack of messages she has for him.

It suits him so well. I also like his hat. I want that hat. Mail me that hat.

Ted heads to the lab where we meet Melody and Jermiah. Melody is ted's love intrest.. and a fairly eh one. Sh'es mostly just "Perky' and "Into ted" in the issues i've read. There really isn't a lot to her. With Tracey it was fine because A) it was two issues and b) It was 1965, love intrests rarely got fleshed out and her feeling as fleshed out as she did for the time was nice. It dosen't really help that ted later has chemistry with both Barbra Gordon (though sadly it never went anywhere), Power Girl and Booster Gold. I personally like Karen, but i'm not against tedbabs or the blue and the gold. What i'm saying is ted is just so likeable and charming that like Spider-Man he is shippable as fuck and Melody just dosen't do enough to stand out against what came after. Update: As I was writing this review I looked ahead at future issues via the dc database (their wiki).. and found out there IS an intresting subplot where Melody is mad Ted keeps vanishing.. that being said it's still frustrating as Ted has no real reason not ot tell her WHY he's vanishing and still dosen't quite fix the character. It IS neat though.

As for Jerry he's an old friend of Ted's dad's and a wacky guy, doing get rich quick schemes reguarly and having been fired from STAR Labs for it. For those not familiar with it, STAR is dc's go to super science outfit, with branches all over the country, and has heavily shown up in Superman the Animated Series and was home base for Team Flash in the CW Flash.

Ted then has the team analyzie the wreckage to figure out what Firefist is using without saying that. I do like that Ted uses his resources cleverly and being boss, and on good terms with both Melody and Jerimiah, they don't question it. That said.. I would've preferred it if the two just.. knew who he was. There's no real reason to hide it at this point and they don't give us a good one: Melody and Ted are doing super well and Jermiah is an old friend of Ted's dad and clearly likes the kid. Jerry MAYBE could tell kord sr, but there's no reason given Ted's dad can't know either. It'd be more fun for him to not have to hide it and see how they grapple with this as well as how they help Ted hide he's the beetle from the rest of the world. Loop his secretary in too. It isn't helped by hindsight: as noted above the flash show demonstrated how cool it is for a hero to have his own support staff, while as we'll see with Jamie while he still has a secret identity, his family and two best friends learn VERY early on and his book is better for it, something the movie seems to stick to judging from the trailers.

We cut to Pago Island where we meet Conrad Caprapax, aka one of the movie's villians.. and our second subplot that dosen't payoff here. In this case it's understandable. To get it out of the way this issue ALSO sets up Lt. Max Fisher looking into Pago Island, recyling that plot from volume 5. I figured the two plots would eventually dovetail, and since i had only read the first ten issues my first time trying this book, I looked it up and confrimed: the two plots do indeed payoff eventually in issue 14 and at the same time.

We then get to setup for future issues #4, or three chronologically, as Ted helps his good friend Murray Takamoto over at star. It's a neat setup too: Murray's an old college buddy and Ted often does consulting work for him. It's a nice way to setup plots. In this case a red headed stranger wants to steal some promethum star labs plans to transport to kord omniversal. The guy turns out to be Dr. Alchemy, longtime dc villian and honestly a fun choice to go up against the more traditionally scientific ted. I love this setup. He later tries to flatten the tires on the delivery but we find out his magic is shorting out, hence the promethium need. Oh well possible stories for another day.

With our various b-plots mostly out of the way we can focus on the main story again. Ted's chilling with Murray and chatting over coffe whcih his a bit fun if also a LITTLE bit stitled, but I get comics back then weren't the most natural and prefered over the tom, 80's sitcom style talking between characters, and it still feels natural enough.

Ted heads off when he gets a ding on his watch, as he was montoring for fires.. and Firefist has stepped up his game this time SETTING A FIREHOUSE ON FIRE. Ted is prepared though using fire foam on him from the bug before fighting the guy and actually has the upper hand this time. It shows off ted's smarts with this time his acrobatics. The roof caves in.. but we get an absoltuely DOPE shot of ted sliding down the fire pole.

Sadly this dosen't last and we end with Ted pinned under flaming wreckage while firefist gloats.

This City is Not For Burning

Man Len REALLY loved his melodramatic titles.

Anyways Blue Beetle is trapped in a burning building and we get a moment that's a clear homage to a spidey classic: This be my destiny aka that image of spidey under a ton of rubble he barley escapes from through willpower alone. Here it's diffrent ENOUGH for me to consider Len.. isn't just ripping it off: Ted has no power, the heat is a diffrent kind of complication and he has to use what he has on hand, a pipe and whatever else to escape. It's a well done scene all thigns considered and ted BARELY escapes. Fire Cheif Petty Grudge decides to call it even if Beetle can stop this guy. He's still mad Ted won't fill out his forms.. which is fair.

We then get firefists origin.. and I meant what I said earlier. While his costume is messy... his origin is both great and genuinely heartwrenching.

My guess is they assumed he was dead.. but I still can't blame him for being mad they abandoned him. Granted it still dosen't justify putting on a costume for revenge but frankly if no one did that superhero comics would be kinda boring wouldn't they. I also like the ambiguity: we geninely DON'T know if that firefighter didn't care to save the victim his friend went in for.... or simply missed the guy and assumed he was dead. It's a true tragedy and i'ts clear the ptsd and circumstance warped this poor guy into the arsonist we see now.

So with that Melody and Jerry find out the substance is apparently greek fire, a substance used to burn ships and find all the places the ingredignts could've come from before clocking out. ONce ted gets back and notices via the computer that everyone's gone he heads home for a shower and folks... and he's not alone.

I.. am endlessly baffled and amused by this whole thing. Does ted like being choked and Melody just simply didn't think to ask consent because it was the 1980s, or did Melody REALLY just think "Tee-Hee you know what would really be fun, suprising my boyfriend in his dark apartment alone when he's the head of a major company and thus a target for robbers or kidnappers. The fact that as the lights go back out Lt. Fisher is watching the apartment just proves my point. He already has a stalker, he dosen't need it simulated.. unless that's what he's into and again you gotta set that stuff up first.

A few subplots later ted gets the info and goes out after firefist but while he finds the stuff to make it, the guy's already gone. He did burn his newspaper in a rage thoug hso ted has meldoy read it to him.

This.. really hurts my brain. Ted is careless as hell with his identity here. Which again would be fine if the people he was careless to found out.. but instead we get a subplot of melody being mad he disappears.. and it somehow gets worse as she not only emotoinally cheats on him but CALLS IN HIS DAD TO DEAL WITH HIS ABSENCES WITHOUT TALKING TO HIM ABOUT IT. When as far as I could tellt he company.. was fine. Ted was just missing meetings but he still did all his work on time. Girl chicago , as far as I can tell has the ONE superhero. Company 51 is still under old managment, we're not there yet.

Anyways Firefist publicly targets a firefighting museum with ted giving chase as we get an add for the dc roleplaying game from back then.. and now I want to play that. if you knwo where the docs are online or have a copy let me know.

Anyways Beetle fights him and it's a decent enough fight.. with ted trying water for some reason even though greek fire is famous for being waterproof

Ted eventually wins by tarring up the mask and then takes off the mask... with firefist seemingly comitting suicide over his burns. A tragic end. Blue BEetle plugs firefigghting and the issue ends.

This two parter.. is a decent intro to ted. It shows off his skills, what his wealth can do, and firefist, while looking like bargin basement moltar, is a good first opponent: powerful enough to give Ted a workout, but nothing to major off the bat and with a tragic ending.

The books flaws are more character wise: Ted's well done, as his his secretary, but everyone else feels kinda.. eh. Len wanted the vibe of spider-man and the repor but forgot the audience needs to feel it too. I also could've done with using more tactics with ted: while him bounding around was nice as always, part of what made the ditko one so loveable was Ted was SMART: he could outhink his foes not just out manuver them. We see bits and pieces but with ted having a full secret lab and a fortune this time we really don't see him use it. The final fight is decent.. but he dosen't say try to figure out how to counteract greek fire or at least use some gadgets.

It was fine in the ditko era he didn't whip up specific gadgets because the situations didn't call for them; The squids were tricky but he had the means to deal with them. They were just guys in suits at the end of the day, same as him, but without the skill and the bug did the rest of the lifting and while he COUDL'VE for the androids with time, he simply didn't. Here he's dealing with firefist for two days, gets full analysis of what he can do.. and does NOTHING with the info but track the guy. Say what you wil about ted curbing from spidey.. but this bit, the thinking after getting his face caved in and being ready next time, is the one bit that was crucial and that ditko rightly carried over. As it stands this is just okay and i'ts a shame this is, as of this writing one of the ONLY two solos ted's had. It's not horrible and might even get better with time, i'll certainly look into it but the more I wrote about it the more it became clear why I just.. never really took to this run: it's good god ideas.. but just does not a whole lot intresting wtih them.

Fortunately Ted would get another big break midway into his series.

But more on that next time as we find out whatever happened to ted kord.. and see the rise of a new boy in blue. Thanks for reading.

#blue beetle #ted kord #dc comics #dan garrett #jarvis kord #firefist #star labs #dr alchemy