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popculturebuffet · 8 months

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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..

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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

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