I’ve always had a chip on my shoulder when it came to Jamie Reyes, aka the Blue Beetle. I never read one of his stories until recently. And, well, I found myself enjoying the adventures of this version of Blue Beetle.
Let’s back up for a minute to 2006 when Jamie was introduced as a replacement for Ted Kord, the former Beetle. DC was different than today, where these days they have no problem with multiple Flashes, Lanterns, and even Beetle running around. DC, like Marvel, has gone through phases of replacing legacy characters—in sometimes fatal ways, like Kord, who died at the hands of Maxwell Lord in a way that took some creative hoops to bring him back.
Of course, Ted Kord is not only back, but so is his Blue Beetle, which has a long history and is a fan favorite. First, he was created by Steve Ditko at the long-defunct Charlton Comics. One day, Ditko handed in his last Spidey story, leaving Marvel and going to Charlton. Charlton, to me, has always been a fascinating company, but that is a story for another day.
Beetle originally appeared as a backup in Captain Atom before getting his series, which ran for a scant five issues. Those issues, like countless other Charlton Comics, are available via Comicbook+, a massive repository of 1000s of public domain comics. Not much was heard of Ted Kord for almost twenty years when DC bought all the Charlton heroes and incorporated them into the DC canon during DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths.
This year, Crisis celebrates forty years, and older fans remember the event and how it changed not only DC—but the industry as a whole. Newer fans owe it to themselves to read this iconic epic. From there, Beetle received a series and became part of the lineup for the most different Justice League of America series ever. It’s the polar opposite of the current series by Mark Waid, but it’s a fantastic read if you’ve never tried it.
For a whole generation—Ted Kord was OUR Blue Beetle. Of course, Ted is back in the DC mythos, and that probably contributed to my checking out Jamie’s adventures. It was two recent series, Blue Beetle: Graduation Day and the series that followed, during the Dawn initiative, that made me decide that Jamie isn’t all that bad as Blue Beetle.
Part of the reason is that it incorporated the Ted Kord mythos into Jamie’s adventures. It also served to introduce a new character into Kord’s life, his sister Victoria Kord. Wait! The fun doesn’t end there because they also managed to loop into the series—the original Blue Beetle!
Dan Garrett was the first Blue Beetle and was introduced in the first issue of Fox Comics’s Mystery Men Comics back in 1939. Like many Golden Age heroes, he appeared in a newspaper strip and as a radio serial. His series ran for 60 issues on Fox and lasted until 1950. After Fox went out of business—Charlton picked up the series. Again, many of these Golden Age classics can be found via Comicbook+.
Currently, there are no Blue Bettle series going, but both Jamie and Ted continue to appear in comics—most notably in the current Justice League series. But with all the fantastic comics coming from DC’s ALL-IN initiative, maybe we’ll get a new Blue Beetle series yet!
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