Who Is Blue Beetle? Comics Explained

Dear Marvelous Movies,

I saw a trailer for a new DC movie called Blue Beetle. The movie looks cool, but I’m not very familiar with this character from the comics. Can you tell me who he is and why he’s important?

From,
Ted Garrett of Johnstown, PA

MM: Thanks for asking, Ted! Honestly, From Me To You, comics and pop culture are a complicated world, but We Can Work It Out if you stick with us!

The Blue Beetle is Jaime Reyes, a young man who bonds with the Scarab, an ancient alien entity from Across the Universe. The Scarab acts as a sentient suit of techno-armor for Jaime and gives him all kinds of Help!

As we all know, DC has an excellent track record with color-named superheroes who use magical alien tech. So it seems like they’re just trying to Get Back to their previous glory days here!

But, as we all also know, all of DC’s halfway decent ideas are just B-list rip-offs of Marvel’s good ones. While all of Marvel’s ideas just Come Together naturally, DC can’t seem to Let It Be. And Blue Beetle is no exception! So, who exactly is he ripping off?

Well, just consider how many blue aliens are out there in the movies already. We’ve got Nebula in Marvel and Thrawn in Star Wars (which falls under Disney’s umbrella too). And Avatar, the highest-grossing movie of all time, is about what? You guessed it–blue aliens! It seems like DC just wants to copy Every Little Thing they see in more successful movies.

Let’s also not forget Big Bad Beetleborgs, a hit show among the fans of Yesterday. It featured a team led by an armored blue beetle! And since this show aired on Fox Kids and Disney owns Fox now, it basically falls under the Disney umbrella too, right?

Quick research will show that Nebula first appeared in 1985 (created for Marvel comics), and Thrawn in 1991 (created for novels by a Paperback Writer). However, Jaime Reyes as Blue Beetle didn’t debut until 2006. So it couldn’t be clearer that DC and Warner Bros. were just ripping off all the Disney greats that came before! They pretty much just copy other people’s ideas Eight Days A Week.

TG: Wait, but the guy at my local comic shop said that Jaime is the third iteration of Blue Beetle in the comics. And the first one dates all the way back to the Golden Age! So maybe DC is just doing their own thing and not actually trying to copy anyone else?

MM: Uh, no more questions–looks like we’re out of time for today! It Won’t Be Long before Blue Beetle hits theaters, so go check it out!