Blue Beetle: Jaime Reyes, Book One

Blue Beetle: Jaime Reyes

by Keith Giffen, John Rogers, Cully Hamner (Illustrator)

The mystical Blue Beetle scarab has chosen its new guardian, Jaime Reyes! But supernatural powers can be a blessing or a curse, and when it comes to the powers of the Scarab, you don’t get one without the other!

Jaime Reyes is more than just your average high schooler. When he’s not awkwardly trying to flirt or taking tests, he’s Blue Beetle! Follow the Blue Beetle’s first year of adventures as Jaime tries to learn what his powers are, how to use them, and his place in El Paso…and the DC Universe!

Blue Beetle Jaime Reyes Book One collects Blue Beetle #1-12.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Young Adult, Superheroes, Comic Book, Science Fiction

297 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 28, 2007

About the author

Keith Ian Giffen was an American comic book illustrator and writer. He is possibly best-known for his long runs illustrating, and later writing the Legion of Super-Heroes title in the 1980s and 1990s. He also created the alien mercenary character Lobo (with Roger Slifer), and the irreverent "want-to-be" hero, Ambush Bug. Giffen is known for having an unorthodox writing style, often using characters in ways not seen before. His dialogue is usually characterized by a biting wit that is seen as much less zany than dialogue provided by longtime collaborators DeMatteis and Robert Loren Fleming. That approach has brought him both criticism and admiration, as perhaps best illustrated by the mixed (although commercially successful) response to his work in DC Comics' Justice League International (1987-1992). He also plotted and was breakdown artist for an Aquaman limited series and one-shot special in 1989 with writer Robert Loren Fleming and artist Curt Swan for DC Comics.

Giffen's first published work was "The Sword and The Star", a black-and-white series featured in Marvel Preview, with writer Bill Mantlo. He has worked on titles (owned by several different companies) including Woodgod, All Star Comics, Doctor Fate, Drax the Destroyer, Heckler, Nick Fury's Howling Commandos, Reign of the Zodiac, Suicide Squad, Trencher (to be re-released in a collected edition by Boom! Studios)., T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and Vext. He was also responsible for the English adaptation of the Battle Royale and Ikki Tousen manga, as well as creating "I Luv Halloween" for Tokyopop. He also worked for Dark Horse from 1994-95 on their Comics Greatest World/Dark Horse Heroes line, as the writer of two short lived series, Division 13 and co-author, with Lovern Kindzierski, of Agents of Law. For Valiant Comics, Giffen wrote XO-Manowar, Magnus, Robot Fighter, Punx and the final issue of Solar, Man of the Atom.

He took a break from the comic industry for several years, working on storyboards for television and film, including shows such as The Real Ghostbusters and Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy.

He is also the lead writer for Marvel Comics's Annihilation event, having written the one-shot prologue, the lead-in stories in Thanos and Drax, the Silver Surfer as well as the main six issues mini-series. He also wrote the Star-Lord mini-series for the follow-up story Annihilation: Conquest. He currently writes Doom Patrol for DC, and is also completing an abandoned Grant Morrison plot in The Authority: the Lost Year for Wildstorm.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a long break from reading I finally finished this off so it is hard to rate and review but I think this is fair. The start of the book I found a bit confusing as I hadn’t read infinite crisis so I had to take a step back to do some research into what I was missing reading this. Once that was sorted though, this was a really enjoyable read about a new blue beetle finding his feet and trying to understand his powers.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've always liked the character of Jaime Reyes whenever I've seen him pop up in the various animated DC shows, and since he's getting his own movie (assuming Warner Bros don't cancel it) I figured I'd give this a shot.

It's little confusing initially since Jaime is already Blue Beetle when this begins and has already had one adventure with the Justice League (one of their many Crises) so I had to read a synopsis of the increasingly inaccurately named "Final Crisis" to get a refresher on how he featured.

Aside from that it's a pretty fun 'young hero coming to terms with new powers' type storyline, so I'll probably pick up the next volume just to see where the story goes. Jaime is a likeable protagonist and it's nice getting some more representation in the DCU... depending on the art he also looks weirdly a lot like Xolo Maridueña who is going to play him in the live action movie (assuming Warner Bros don't cancel it).

[London Heady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably like a low 7/10. Some of the art is great, but some is pretty rough. Giffen at times has some really witty dialogue that fleshes out all the characters in this in new and interesting ways, but at the same time it's also abundantly clear most of the time that he is most certainly not a person of color and is not very good at writing them.

That being said, it's pretty compelling and I'm a sucker for Blue Beetle. Will continue reading when the next trade comes out, but didn't blow me away or anything.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Warning. the is a straight collection of the series. It references other series and can feel disjointed as a surprising amount of stuff happens off panel . Otherwise I might have pushed this rating to a 5 star.
I get it, sometimes they can't add the panels from another series for cost issues, but a link or mention of what other series to pull up would be nice?
Anyway
New Beetle Jamie Reyes.
Thought it would be hard to replace Ted Kord. I can say that because I followed Ted from day one. Got laughed at as he did not have powers, but his powers were his brains. Jamie surprised me as he is similar in that the suite gives him powers, but still figuring out how to use them, Picture an old tv show "Greatest American Hero" where a guy gets a super suit and looses the instruction manual. Very similar. Think that show is on YouTube and worth the watch.
If you don't mind the plot gaps from the other stories this is a good read and Jamie is a worthy successor to Ted.

[Danii Savage · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series is so fun! A likable protagonist with complex characters. I love any superhero story that has a sci-fi basis, so this was right up my alley.
The beginning was a little hard to follow with the flash forward in time, but it was eventually explained. I also enjoy any superhero of color. Great story!

[Zilliz · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A confusing but fun adventure
Jaime is one of my favourite comic characters for a reason and his accidental wit had me cracking up throughout
The supporting cast are also extremely well written with not a single bad character - notable mentions to Paco as Jaime's guy in the chair and Peacemaker as his mentor
Whilst the start is overwhelming providing more questions than answers, it does well to provide context with a brilliant origin story - whilst 'The Reach' remains a mystery, that seem to be the focus of the next volume which I'll be definitely picking up.
Knowing what I know now, don't be surprised to see this get 5 stars on a reread

[Louis Skye · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really like Jaime Reyes and was looking forward to reading this book.

But I don’t know who decided to put this group of creatives behind this book because they didn’t do a good job. It’s painfully obvious that there are no POC writing this book. Veteran or not, the writer does a horrendous job of capturing Jaime’s heritage, and the dialogue is so painfully inauthentic, it hurts to read.

There also a throughline of misogyny regarding all the female characters that made this deeply unpleasant. Not only does the writer not know how to write characters of Hispanic heritage, he’s also never bothered to speak to a woman.

The story also appears to be missing elements? There’s this whole plot line of Jaime going on a mission with the Justice League but when the hell does that happen? I’m so foggy on the timeline that it took me right out of the story.

The book really only got interesting in the last 2 issues. Before that, it was dragging quite a bit, with characters that ended up being of little consequence.

The art was patchy, at best. Some of the issues, it was gorgeous, others, it looked ridiculous and the characters looked awful.

This book doesn’t do justice to Jaime and it’s a very frustrating read. I hope I find something better soon.

[Pradeep Rajput]

Good Read

It's a origin story of third blue beetle Jaime reyes. A facsinating journey of a school kid and his challenges as a super hero.

[DragonboneChair · Rating 3 out of 5]

My introduction to Jaime was through Young Justice and the animated Teen Titans movies. I liked him enough to want to delve into more of his comic book appearances.

I think this collection of comics is effective in introducing us to Jaime and his life in El Paso while having a lot of fun connections to the rest of the DC world. As someone who isn’t familiar with his comics having characters I do love, like Batman and Oracle, pop in did help anchor me in the story.

As this was written in 2006, some of the dialogue does feel like a product of the culture of the time.

Because this looks to be connected to a bigger DC event that was happening at the time, it feels when reading this that you are missing parts of the story, which didn’t hurt my experience but I also feel it would have been easier to jump into if I was reading that story alongside this. I’ve never been a fan of solo books connecting to larger events and feel they should be treated as their own entity, so that is more of a personal preference in my comic book storytelling.

Some of my favorite parts of these issues relate to Jaime trying to navigate being the human host to the scarab. I think that’s where the writing is strongest. I love how he describes it as “smelling like electricity” and when it changes that “it feels like gears grinding” inside him. I enjoyed reading the conflict he has with the scarab over killing people and Jaime having to fight it on the importance of not killing innocence. For me, that’s what always appealed to me about the character in the cartoon, so I enjoyed reading about that conflict between the scarab and Jaime here.

In addition, his relationship with his friends Paco and Brenda helps to build out his world and provide us with human characters to connect with outside of the superhero antics. I really loved the dynamic between Jaime and Peacemaker, who serves as a mentor to Jaime, due to his knowledge and connection of the scarab going into the series.

The volume ends with our introduction to the Reach the role of the Scarab and Host in their larger goals.

For me personally I enjoyed the stories written by John Rogers more than Giffen, but I understand those earlier comics were connected to a the larger infinite crisis event.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I saw the new Blue Beetle movie last week and LOVED it, so I did the next logical thing: I went and I found all his comics. I'm familiar with the way various runs can change character, personal details, backstory, story focus, and myriad other things so I was prepared for at least some of the four different runs I purchased to be very different from the movie I saw. That being said, this comic is just bad. There are threads of what might have been an interesting story if it had been more tightly plotted or focused on being emotionally compelling, but it wasn't. Jaime disappears for a year due to a portal accident (?), which understandably upsets and causes a rift with his family, but that is basically ignored for most of the book aside from some shock value ("you've been gone a year!" *big panel of Jaime's shocked face*). The more...superhero-y part of the story jumps around a bunch and doesn't seem to go anywhere, then finally ends off on the most interesting potential plot thread! And this particular version of the Blue Beetle is a teenager and a fair chunk of the story revolves around dealing with being a high school aged cape, which is just...not my thing. As a general rule, I don't like the tropes of YA as a genre or dealing with a high school setting, and this story did not prove itself to join the exceptions. I thought about ditching this book more than a few times, but finished it out specifically so I could leave this review. I just hope the Rebirth series, which I'm on to next, is even moderately better.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I guess with a movie coming up this was on Amazon Prime to read. It's the origin of the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle, which I think the movie is about. It was also featured in I think season 2 of Young Justice.

The actual origin would begin in Identity Crisis or Infinite Crisis--one of those mid-2000s crises. The Golden Age Blue Beetle was some kind of Egyptian magic thing. Then there was Ted Kord's Blue Beetle that was more of an Iron Man-type thing with a rich scientist making cool toys. This Blue Beetle is an alien thing that bonds to young Jaime Reyes.

The tone and subject really call to mind Marvel, especially Spider-Man, both Peter Parker or Miles Morales. There are also plenty of other teen heroes who would be similar. There's a lot of the usual stuff of Jaime having to balance his superhero life and high school life. And he also has to try to find out what the scarab is and what it does.

Overall while not really deep or inventive, it's pretty fun. The art is pretty cartoony but I guess that was probably supposed to appeal more to younger readers who might be more familiar with manga and stuff like that.

(Fun Fact: This also includes Peacemaker, who is just about nothing like the John Cena version on the big and small screen.)

[Angel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jaime Reyes is my son and I love him.

As far as comics go, I've always thought this introductory run for Jaime as Blue Beetle is really solid. While I don't really know how he ended up with the Justice League, I never felt the need to go back and read up on it cause Jaime's story is easy enough to understand. It's self contained and doesn't get interrupted with crossovers from other DC storylines. He's just trying to figure out the whole superhero thing with the support of his family and friends. That's what I've always liked about Jaime. He's a genuinely good kid who's not doing the whole brooding secret identity thing that other heroes have. Practically everyone knows who the Blue Beetle is and they are 100% in his corner every time. I enjoy the snappy dialogue here (most definitely courtesy of John Rogers, creator of Leverage) although I will say that I cannot speak to the authenticity of the Mexican-American characters here as both of the writers are white.

[timkontruther · Rating 4 out of 5]

first "comic book" ive ever read!! quotes bc jfc this thing is huge💀

im obsessed w/ blue beetle (specifically jaime) cuz of young justice and i wanted to know more about him and his story. i went to my local library and i found this monolith of a book by chance and i like it!! it takes a while to get going imo but it gets better and more interesting as you go on.

maybe im just not used to comic format since i read mostly books and fics but the way it kinda jumps around threw me off :( they kept talking about how jaime was gone for a year and he'd talk about being called in by the JLA but then u dont actually see what happened to him until half way thru.

cant wait to pick up book 2 tho, i wanna know how much the reach arc differs from the tv show👀

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

This didn't do much for me. Maybe my exposure to Jaime Reyes takes too much from
other media like Young Justice or Injustice which utilized him better, but as his first ongoing this is not a very good introduction, definitely not exciting enough to make a new fan. A lot of it is spent with choppy dialogue of Jaime and his two friends, and less super heroics than I had hoped for. Usually Giffen writes better than this, and especially the first issue is kinda rough dialogue wise, evident he's trying too hard to write both our lead, his friends, and Guy Gardner.
The plot jumps around a few times too many, never staying long enough where it can, like the infinite crisis flashback, and very few concrete engaging storylines. I'm holding out hope next volume is better, but this isnt a very strong first impression. Unless more Scarab related story's happen, this will be a disappointment

[Childofhate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been a Blue Beetle fan since I saw Young Justice way back when and this book is the definitive Blue Beetle origin story. The characters are well written and Jaime's character writing is very very good. The writing team decided to setup the basic characters and their quirks and motivations before building upon them for the rest of the book. Peacemaker's role is very weird for me as the only avatar of his I've had extensive acquaintance with is the one John Cena portrayed on-screen. However, he works well here as the grizzled mentor and his interactions with Jaime are almost wholesome.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for anyone wanting to get into Blue Beetle.

Final Rating - 3.75/5

[Jade · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the pick for the comic book club, to set us up for the upcoming movie.

A reader with no knowledge of any iteration of the Blue Beetle can wrap their head around key things that happened before the volume but some in the group did express that it could be difficult to follow at times. Protagonist Jaime's interactions with the scarab, and his family dynamic, are the strongest parts of this collection. Unfortunately some of the issues collected here are a bit meh. The art is serviceable; the action is clear and the faces expressive but the colours feel muted and I didn't have any favourite panels. Blue Beetle looks great though imho.

[Benjamin Kimble · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jaime Reyes is a cool character. I haven’t had as much of an attachment to him as other people but this book definitely built that for me. Keith Giffen is a fantastic writer, I love Justice League International, and he does an exceptional job hear with the help of John Rogers. I’ve read Infinite Crisis where Jaime is first introduced, but it’s been some time. They do a very good job at recapping everything that happened and inserting Jaime into the larger DCU. Jaime has a great supporting cast, and one who I really wasn’t expecting but was really cool Peacemaker! A hood hero should have a strong supporting cast and Jaime’s friends and family fill that role perfectly. Cully Hamner is a stylized artists who’s work takes some time to get used to. This book really made me appreciate Hamner’s style a lot more. Sure it can be a little blocky and cartoony but so could Kirby, and Hamner has great energy and dynamism in the poses and action scenes. Overall I liked the book and find Jaime to be a good character. I hope to keep reading his series and that the character can go far!

[Orlando Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I freakin love Jaime Reyes’ Blue Beetle!! I may be bias because it takes place in my hometown of El Paso and we rarely see it in any form of media. But the storyline and origin of this new Beetle is exciting. There’s a lot of mystery as to why he’s so different from the rest of the Beetles. There’s also a lot of fun cameos that add to the fin but also don’t take away the attention from the main character. Very good read and relatable to my Latine childhood.

[Samuele Martinelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite good, not spectacular

I would say this was quite good, not spectacular, but still a very nice read. Got me hooked on what is going to happen next. Nice and with a good dose of adventure, I was always fascinated by James’s Blue Beetle and it was nice reading it now.
Looking forward to the movie!

[Jeremiah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read through Amazon Prime Reading.
Read this as kind of a warm-up to the new movie. I was already familiar with some of this Blue Beetle's background from the Young Justice cartoon, but a fair bit of this was still new to me: specific family relationships, La Dama, the Posse... there's a lot here to latch on to!
Looking forward to seeing what parts they'll adapt to the big screen!

[Chris Aylott · Rating 3 out of 5]

My heart will always belong to Ted Kord . . . but Jaime Reyes is a great Blue Beetle, and Giffen and Rogers do a nice job of establishing him as a both distinct character and a vital part of the Blue Beetle legacy. Jaime's supporting cast (super and not) is also great, and I found myself looking at some well-established characters in new ways.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 The first half is all over the place even though I read Infinite Crisis. One year later is hardly touched upon after Jaime returns, the supporting cast isn't developed much, but it starts improving towards the end where Jaime starts being more of a proper superhero. Not a great start to the series, but I'm willing to read on as it looks promising.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first six issues are disjointed due to Jaimie being in Infinite Crisis, but picks up after that. I love the supporting cast, especially Jaimie and Peacemaker, and will be reading the rest of this run.

[Cody Stow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blue Beetle

Great first book. The story line was awesome. The art work was done very well. All pages seem to come alive not just the story line, but also the art was matching what was going on in the story. Looking forward to the next book.

[ISMOTU · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this series when it originally came out and the upcoming movie got me to revisit and I sure am glad I did. The art and story are really great. Jaime Reyes is a fun character and they do a great job tying him into the wider DC universe. Highly recommended reading!

[Logan Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh yeah I definitely see why most call this Jamie’s best run, definitely the most fleshed out beetle comic i’ve read. I hope in the next volume he is suited up and fighting more and with the reach coming, i’m optimistic

[Brandon Sharp · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished it on the day that it came out two years ago! So much fun. Hard to keep up with pacing at times. But so good. Hoping this is where Gunn is taking the DCU. Especially with the opening fight with Lantern and the history with scarabs, I so see it happening.

[Annalisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really fun read. I loved it!

[Karsten Jahn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice adventure. A little goofy and never boring.