In a universe full of super-powered gorillas, rage-fueled cosmic cats, and a flying dog whose name most likely inspired the digital money of the “metaverse”, a mystical, ancient scarab sounds quite mundane. But, since we are talking about a comic book character, it would be remarkable if Blue Beetle did not have a complicated backstory.
In 1939, the character debuted as the featured superhero of Fox’s short-lived comic book publishing firm. Dan Garret was an ordinary officer by day and the masked, investigative vigilante known as Blue Beetle by night when he first appeared in The Mystery Men issue #1.
In other words, he was Fox’s Batman, only he was not nearly as wealthy as Batman, and his heightened strength and agility came from a secret concoction known as Vitamin 2X. The Blue Beetle became a more typical Golden Age superhero over time, and he was granted his own series.
However, Fox fell out of business soon after, and Charlton Comics, which had acquired the rights to Blue Beetle, sold its entire gallery of superheroes to DC Comics in 1983, which is how the character made his way from “Earth 4” to the main DC timeline during “Crises on Infinite Earths.”
Since then, he is grown into one of the most prominent figures in the DC universe, and he is arguably the best DC superhero outside of the Justice League. But what exactly is Blue Beetle? And how did he move from obscurity to being a source of inspiration for Alan Moore’s Watchmen? This movie, Blue Beetle’s Origins – Explored, will address all of these questions and more.
Is it sorcery? Is it cosmic? Or is it something else, entirely?
The Blue Beetle Scarab’s TRUE Origins!
Since the Blue Beetle Vol. 1 issue #1 was published in 1939, readers have had many questions about the exact nature of the hero; and how the Blue Beetle motif fit into all of it. It wasn’t until Dan Garrett’s “original history” was re-written by Charlton Comics in the first issue of Blue Beetle Vol. 3, that we’d find out the connection between Garrett and his superhero gimmick’s namesake.
Daniel Garrett used to be an archaeologist and a great one at that. He specialized in recovering “lost artifacts”; items so rare and invaluable that their very pursuit could threaten his life. And during the month of August in 1939, 2 years before the outbreak of World War 2 (and coincidentally the same year that the Blue Beetle character debuted), he received a tip that would change his entire life. You see, he’d put in a request for an excavation in Egypt that would’ve transformed history’s perception of the Pharaoh Kha-Ef-Re but was denied by its military government.
Dan was content to move on from the prospect, but he was convinced by his peer Professor Luri Hoshid, to re-think his position. Lauri informed Dan about a parallel excavation that had been commissioned to the tomb of Pharaoh Kha-Ef-Re; only this one wasn’t sponsored by any academic institute in the world. The grave-robbers were planning to make away with a fortune in precious artifacts, and so the duo decided to visit Egypt and begin their project clandestinely. When they finally make it to the Pharaoh’s tomb, they’re mesmerized by it; and not in the way you’d expect.
Apparently, Kha-Ef-Re was a giant among men; his sarcophagus was massive, so huge in fact that Dan & Luri began questioning its authenticity. And the other peculiar thing was a luminescent blue scarab beetle, placed atop the sarcophagus, undisturbed. Being an ever-curious soul Dan goes to touch the Beetle, and it changes his life forever. The seemingly inanimate object springs to life and bonds with Garrett, giving him a vision of the doom that awaited him.
And when Dan uttered the words “Khaji Da”, the scarab transformed him into the superhero we know today as The Blue Beetle. As Blue Beetle, Dan saves Luri from a cave-in and a giant mummy, smuggles the scarab out of Egypt, and lives life as a superhero in America. For decades, the origins of the mysterious scarab remained shrouded in mystery. At one point in time, it was believed that the ancient Lord of the Order known as Nabu- aka Dr. Fate- created the Blue Beetle Scarab and that its powers were a result of his mystical machinations.
It wasn’t until Blue Beetle Vol. 7 issue #12 came out that we’d get the true origins of the Blue Beetle Scarab, and it isn’t anything like you’d expect it to be. So, the Green Lantern Corps has been active for billions of years, protecting Space Sectors strewn across the Multiverse to the best of their abilities and dispensing the closest thing to “justice” that can be found in the cosmic scheme of things.
However, around 40,000 years ago, they met their match in terms of pure firepower in the form of The Reach; an alien race of conquerors originating from Space Sector 2. For centuries, the Corps and the Reach fought against each other in an ultimately fruitless war that saw both sides come to a peace agreement after suffering heavy casualties; The Reach would immediately cease their expansionist activities and hold dominion over the lands they had conquered so far, leaving the rest of the Universe and the Green Lantern Corps alone for good.
And while it looked like they’d agreed to the treaty, The Reach was a people who breathed deception and their incredibly-detailed planning gave them the opportunity to continue conquering worlds without arousing suspicion. See, having been forbidden from taking overt militaristic actions, The Reach adapted themselves to their restrictions and evolved the concept of warfare itself.
They developed a new line of biological weapons; entities that would look, act & respond like an organism, except they would be programmed with high-tech weaponry, an informational database, and a mission of their own. Once these entities have reached their destination, they lay dormant until the world around them has reached a sufficient level of technological advancement. After which, it springs into action, latches onto a “suitable host”, and re-writes their consciousness to give it over to The Reach.
After becoming a thrall of this alien race, that person becomes the conduit for their conquest. And you might have already guessed which organism the biological weapon resembled in terms of appearance; that’s right, the Blue Beetle Scarab, which gave Dan Garrett his powers and his purpose, is actually a living alien device! Using this device, The Reach has conquered nearly 10,000 planets, one of which was supposed to be Earth.
In fact, Earth’s symbiotic invader landed on the planet eons before it was even found by Kha-Ef-Re, who used its powers to protect his people from evil, ostensibly becoming the actual “first” Blue Beetle. After it was sealed in the Pharaoh’s tomb, the scarab became inactive and most likely forgot its original mission because, by the time Dan Garrett found it, there was no attempt at “converting him”. Dan started off the legacy of the Blue Beetle with his heroic actions in Hub City, but he wouldn’t be the last person to don that mantle.
From Ancient Egypt to Outer Space: The Blue Beetle’s Many Lives & Adventures
Dan Garrett eventually retired from his superhero duties and became a professor of archaeology. It was in one of his classes that he would find his successor. Theodore Kord was the definition of a born genius. Legendary DC Writer Gardner Fox once claimed that Ted Kord was smarter than Bats (referring to Batman), but no one noticed. The son of a wealthy industrialist, Ted had all the tools to become a massive success in life; he was determined to a fault, had a brilliant mind, and above all, he had morals.
As a young man, Ted uncovered a plot being orchestrated by his uncle Jarvis in an attempt to take over the world, and he turned to the only person he knew who could’ve helped him; his professor Dan Garrett, aka the superhero known as Blue Beetle. They followed Jarvis to his hidden lair on Pago Island, where Blue Beetle confronted the terrorist and was able to put an end to his nefarious schemes at the cost of his own life. A dying Garrett then entrusted the scarab and his heroic mantle to Ted before passing away.
Although he couldn’t get the Beetle to work due to its inert nature at the time, Ted Kord decided to honor his mentor’s legacy by at least carrying on his work. He trained his body to peak physical conditioning and utilized his wealth to create a vast array of weapons, armor, and vehicles that would come to aid him in his life as the 2nd Blue Beetle. He became a vigilante on Earth 4 before being summoned to the main DC continuity by The Monitor during the Crises on Infinite Earths event.
The Monitor wanted to use the Blue Beetle Scarab’s power to defeat the Anti-Monitors because where nothing else was working on them, this mysterious bug was. But that plan was ditched when he realized that the entity wouldn’t work the way he wanted it to, so he abandoned it, and Ted continued to fight the Anti-Monitor’s forces without the Blue Beetle Scarab. It would resurface when that Crisis was resolved, having “resurrected” Dan Garrett’s body and turned it into something more in line with what the biological weapon’s original mission entailed.
This villainous “Blue Beetle” confronted Ted and told him that it had chosen him to become its new host. Ted rejected the offer and reached out to Dan’s humanity, which seemingly worked because Garrett broke the scarab’s influence over himself and was able to die peacefully, for the second time. The scarab itself disintegrated and wouldn’t be seen again until years later when Hawkman recovers it from Egypt yet again and presents it to Kord once again just the way he’d found it the first time; inert, and powerless.
During that time, Kord became a member of the Justice League International, becoming fast friends with fellow Leaguer Booster Gold and forming a duo that was used mostly as comedic relief for most of their run together. The beetle was also the League’s chief tech guy and go-to mission pilot. He would go on to become an Amanda Waller-type figure, financing the Birds of Prey team after selling Kord Omniversal to Wayne Enterprises as a subsidiary.
His entire life would change when he went looking for a missing Kryptonite shipment from his warehouses and stumbled across Lex Luthor’s Infinite Crisis conspiracy. Ted’s investigations led him to the Rock of Eternity, where he would lose the Blue Beetle Scarab to the wizard Shazam after being shown a terrifying vision of “the truth”. Kord returns to Earth and confronts the Black King of the Checkmate Organization; Maxwell Lord, the man who was once Ted’s friend.
Blue Beetle uncovers Lord’s grand scheme of using Brother Eye and the OMACs to turn Earth into a brutal police state by eliminating superheroes, and decides to die standing on his own two feet. When Max asks his old friend to join him in his crusade, all Ted Kord can say to him is “Rot in Hell, Max.” He gets a bullet in the head for that. Maxwell Lord’s plans were lining up pretty neatly with Lex Luthor’s; while Brother Eye and The OMACs eliminated the technological threat to his supremacy, Eclipso was taking care of its supernatural aspect.
The former incarnation of God’s Wrath had managed to enslave the Spectre and lose it upon the world of the occult. The Spirit of Vengeance cut a bloody path through the Multiverse’s strongest magicians before arriving at the Rock of Eternity and killing Shazam during the events of Day of Vengeance. This act caused the Rock to split asunder and go hurtling throughout the Multiverse; and one particularly scarab-y piece of debris landed in El Paso, Texas, where it was found by a Mexican-American youth whose name was Jamie Reyes.
Reyes found the Blue Beetle Scarab and didn’t think much of it as it was inert when he encountered it. But when he went to bed that night, the scarab came alive and grafted itself onto Jamie’s back, turning him into the third incarnation of the Blue Beetle. Booster Gold appeared in front of the boy and guided him on his first mission as a superhero; bringing Brother Eye out of its pocket dimension so that Batman and the League could destroy it. And wouldn’t you know it, Jamie only passes with flying colors.
Except there’s one little problem; Brother Eye’s dimension stabilizer started going haywire once he was put out of commission and it took an entire year out of Jamie’s life. He returned to El Paso practically a stranger and had to spend a lot of time trying to reconnect with his family. At the same time, he was invested in taking down La Dama, a criminal who was trying to make all of El Paso’s metahumans work for her. Blue Beetle works out her identity and negotiates a treaty with her; they will both maintain a ceasefire and if either one of them breaks it, the other can leak their identity to the world.
In the meantime, Peacemaker, who was one of Dan Garrett’s closest allies during his time as a superhero, reveals the Scarab’s true nature to Jamie; who in turn uncovers a massive Reach Empire plot to take over the Earth. By this point, Jamie’s humanity has caused the Scarab to develop an independent identity. Taking on the name Khaji Da, after his incantation and his Reach source code, the Scarab decides it wants to help preserve humanity, not enslave it.
Blue Beetle goes on to uncover the Reach conspiracy to the citizens of Earth and becomes a bonafide hero. He also joined the Teen Titans during this conflict and helps them fend off evil futuristic versions of themselves called the Titans of Tomorrow. Jamie has to contend with his predecessor during the Blackest Night event, where Ted Kord’s body is resurrected with a Black Lantern Ring.
Reyes does cross paths with Kord again, but this time as part of DC Rebirth, where Kord has been re-imagined as Jamie’s reluctant mentor/elder brother-type figure. Ted’s experience keeps the young Jamie on the path of caution & righteousness, but make no mistake; the 3rd Blue Beetle is far superior to his predecessors in terms of power scaling alone.
What Blue Beetle’s Unique Power That Makes Him So Dangerous?
The thing that makes Blue Beetle so unique wasn’t even introduced until his most-recent incarnation! When Dan Garrett was Blue Beetle, the scarab provided him with enough abilities to distinguish him as someone “special”. Dan would call upon the Beetle and it would endow him with his costume, the power of flight, energy projection, as well as enhanced strength & durability.
While all these abilities made him very capable of handling common criminals, and a few superpowered ones as well, they couldn’t save him from a cave-in, which is how he eventually died. Ted Kord’s Blue Beetle was different in that Ted never even used the scarab! Using his wealth and his ingenuity, Blue Beetle 2 became a master inventor and martial artist; some would say on par with Batman. At the age of 13, Kord hacked into the US Defense Servers. And as an adult, he created an 80% solar-powered, multi-purpose aerial assault vehicle called “The Bug”, which also served as his go-to mode of transportation.
Ted Kord’s Blue Beetle was more cerebral, relying on technology and knowledge to get his way, as he couldn’t access the Blue Beetle Scarab at all. Jamie Reyes’ Blue Beetle takes all the things that made his predecessors memorable, puts them together, and then dials everything up to 20. Reyes’ suit is an armored exoskeleton, essentially, allowing him to adapt to his environment in an instant.
He also has access to some of the most advanced technology seen on planet Earth, thanks to the Reach Empire’s scientists. His suit can take whatever shape is best-suited to deal with a situation, and conjured wings whenever he Jamie needs to fly. It also grants him complete control over sound, energy, and fire, allowing him to manipulate those forces however he deems fit.
Blue Beetle 3 can also seemingly detect entities hidden in other dimensions, as evidenced by his discovery of Brother Eye’s location. Jamie has to constantly vie for control of his consciousness with the Khaji Da, but after becoming friends with him, it hasn’t been that big of an issue. In fact, Khaji Da has saved Jamie on a couple of occasions! It is not an exaggeration when we say that outside of Cyborg, Blue Beetle is the strongest tech-based superhero in DC history. Don’t believe us? Just ask Batman.
DC’s Upcoming Blue Beetle Movie
The Blue Beetle character has had a relevancy-renaissance ever since the scarab bonded with Jamie Reyes. Blue Beetle has been a highlight of DC’s Animated Series Batman: The Brave and the Bold, where he appears as a wise-cracking teenager who’s a part of the Caped Crusader’s investigative adventures. The bumbling, smarmy Reyes is immediately endearing and has helped the World’s Greatest Detective solve cases that even he was struggling with at the time. Oh, and that one episode where he becomes the “king” of some alien bugs was friggin’ hilarious.
Reyes was also a featured player in Young Justice, where his opposition to the scarab’s bloodthirsty suggestions often left his teammates dumbfounded, and him looking like a right loon. Though over time, the two are able to come to a mutual understanding when the scarab decides that cooperating with Jamie is better than being a slave of The Reach. And while Blue Beetle has been very popular as a member of the Teen Titans, he’s about to make history as the first live-action Hispanic superhero of all time; and yes, we checked our facts on this one.
A Blue Beetle series was in development for HBO Max until last year, when it was decided that the project would be given a theatrical release instead. Slated to come out in 2023, the Blue Beetle movie has signed on Cobra Kai superstar Xolo Maridueña in the titular role of Jamie Reyes, while legendary comedian George Lopez is set to play Reyes’ uncle. Sharon Stone has signed on to the project as well, being cast in the role of Victoria Kord; a relative of the 2nd Blue Beetle and a possible antagonist to Jamie.
Raoul Max Trujillo has been cast as Blue Beetle’s most-recognizable nemesis, Carapax the Indestructible Man, which gives us a loose idea of what the movie will be all about. It looks like Blue Beetle’s theatrical outing might combine the origin stories of all three Beetles, specifically that of Ted Kord, with Jamie Reyes possibly being swapped in for him. Because, as you might know, Carapax gains his “powers” after visiting Pago Island and being exposed to a wire that transfers his consciousness into a robot, thus giving him his moniker.
And as we’ve mentioned earlier, Ted Kord took Dan Garrett to Pago Island in an effort to stop his evil uncle Jarvis. While speculation about the plot details of the film will be rampant until the first trailer drops, the one thing we can celebrate is the fact that it is happening. Blue Beetle is one of the only prominent superheroes of Hispanic ethnicity, and seeing his story being adapted for a global theatrical release is a victory for Latinos all across America.
Why Blue Beetle Deserves More Recognition
Confusing comic book characters are often difficult to invest in. The Spectre is notorious for having such a convoluted back story that it took nearly 10 writers to get that character right. Blue Beetle has also gone through a similar “feeling out process”, having multiple canceled volumes to his name. But what makes him such a great hero is the fact that you can identify with him, especially if you’re a young person who has just gotten into reading comics.
The Jamie Reyes incarnation of Blue Beetle introduces the scarab to the one quality that its Reach Empire creators wanted it to eliminate, and that’s humanity. The fact that this little kid was able to overwrite eons of programming and malevolent intent with his sheer optimism and innocence is a Herculean feat and a half; though, granted, his predecessors helped him out quite a bit in this regard.
And speaking of whom, the fact that Blue Beetle is the only superhero character to have multiple names attached to it WITHOUT any beef amongst them is even rarer! Comic books have a standardized story-telling formula, and whenever someone new takes up an old position, a rivalry between both parties involved is almost expected if not already penciled in. That isn’t the case with Blue Beetle.
This character’s story has been one of true heroism, with each previous incarnation of the hero helping groom the next one through thick, thin & retcons galore. Dan Garrett, Ted Kord & Jamie Reyes are different people, but each of them feels inter-linked like they’re part of a bigger, ever-evolving story which is reflected by their designs and the interactions they have with Khaji Da. Blue Beetle is a truly unique existence in the comic book world, and deserves to be recognized- and we’re aware of the irony here- for its vulnerable and “human” nature. Because if it didn’t have that, Planet Earth might have been sold off to the highest bidder by The Reach at this point; and that is a prospect no party involved will be much too happy about.