A goodbye to Jaime Reyes unique title and a long overview (with images) on why it rocked so hard.

I will make my bias perfectly clear- I love the Blue Beetle title. I love Jaime. I love him because he’s funny, entertaining, and most of all, not an angsty jerk.  I love the title for it’s good, fun storytelling and it awesome supporting cast. I love the amount of cliches it breaks into little pieces- Jaime is a well adjusted kid who wasn’t motivated by tragedy to become a hero, he did it because it was the right thing, and also, he has a scarab grafted on his spine so why not?

He told his friends and family his secret identity immediately, and they support and love him every step of the way.

And they are all incredibly fun characters that help the title shine. Cecelia Reyes is the best comic Mom ever.

And Paco and his alien hitting stick and Brenda and her control freak snarkiness are the most entertaining and badass best friends a hero could ever hope for.

Jaime himself is very much a typical teenager (though he is blessed with more bravery, smarts and kindness than most of us) trying to figure out the superhero thing and this maniacal scarab thing attached to his spine. And AS a teenager, presumably I’m the target group with this title, I can tell you I relate to Jaime, and all his supporting cast, beautifully. I find him genuinely likable, and if I had to pick one character in the DC universe to go out on a date with or just hang out with, it would be Jaime Reyes in a heartbeat. He’s just that cool.

There’s great storytelling too, and cute art most of the time. This title has it all! This is mostly thanks to Keith Giffen and John Rogers (mostly John Rogers…after he started writing on his own, the already good comic REALLY started to shine) and Matthew Strurges did a fine job talking up the mantle.

I had the pleasure of meeting Matt at the Heroes Comic Con, and I told him how much I love Blue Beetle, and he responded to me enthusiastically and kindly. I could see clearly he loved the title himself, and he admitted he had big shoes to fill with John. He told me he hoped I would be happy, and that he was trying to make it so girls would enjoy the title (I got this a lot at the convention. IT MUST BE SOMETHING ABOUT ME I WONDER WHAT) and I replied I thought the best thing about Blue Beetle was it was a comic for everyone.  I stand by this. There is no reason a person should not enjoy the Blue Beetle title. It’s pretty sweet.

Matt might be pleased if he knew I enjoyed his run, almost all of it. He really hit his stride at the end of the boundaries arc, and kept the spirit of the book all the way through. His affection and affinity for the title shown through, and he really “got” the characters.

I am sad to see this title go, as it had been consistently one of my favorites. I don’t blame DC. They pushed the title. Do I believe they did absolutely everything they could? Well, no, not totally, but they did a lot, and that’s all I can ask.  I blame the fans, for being so preoccupied with their retreads of the Silver Age and Crises and inability to accept new characters that they didn’t see, or accept, this gem of a comic right in front of them. All of you who didn’t buy this. Shame. Shame on you. You missed out.

There, don’t you feel cowed under my wrath? Moving on, I am grateful for what we had of this comic, and I loved every minute. Here’s hoping for a return someday.

So now that I’ve gushed and bombarded you with scans (scans of awesome), time to review the last issue.

I actually wasn’t that great. And I don’t blame Matt Sturges for this one bit. He had to wrap the series up in two issues, and it’s pretty obvious DC came up to himand was like “Oh hey, finished with your Boundaries arc? Good, title’s canned. We need to to wrap up the series and force in Geoff’s plotline he came up with over in Booster Gold. In two issues. This will require killing someone by the way. Good luck.”

See (the review contains spoilers from here on out, major ones) over in Booster Gold, Geoff Johns introduced a time traveling Black Beetle with a major grudge against Jaime. Time traveling foe was ticked at Jaime for taking “HER” away from him, and went by Joshua.

Sooo it’s pretty obvious DC told Sturges to start the ball rolling on this beloved Geoff plotline at the VERY LAST MINUTE, since very suddenly in the last issue, one of Jaime’s tech support people Nadia, DIES, and her brother Hector randomly blames Jaime for this, runs off with a scarab swearing revenge! And goes by the alias Joshua (the scarab he picks up name is Djo-za, which an airplane lady mistakes for Joshua and Hector’s all “Sure, why not.”)

This is all VERY sudden and forced. So far, the title has been a fun one, and death free. Not to say it doesn’t handle heavy, emotional subject matter and Jaime and others never came extremely close to dying, as well as a few people Jaime couldn’t save dying and lots of heartstring tuggers and oh, there was this REALLY touching death in issue #22…but it’s not gratuitous random death, no major characters have died. Not to mention the title’s free of tropes, like women being sexualized and demeaned, or WiR, or stupid villain motivations like this one.

Nadia’s death was over in two seconds. It was very glossed over, we got no reaction to it from Jaime beyond two sentences. Hector flying off the handle was also very forced. When Nadia died, Jaime was attempting to save the entire universe from a band of psychos. He got seriously injured doing this, breaking a whole lot of bones in his body. Big sacrifice (the Scarab healed most of this seventeen days later). So we have this entirely ridiculous part of Hector screaming at a boy in a hospital who is a mess of broken bones because he willingly went to his death in order to save a whole lotta people for not being there when his sister died. There was no foreshadowing Hector was this irrational. Yes, he was very close to his sister and a bit of a shut in nerd, but he didn’t seem like someone who would become a vengeful, murderous villain because someone he knows is a complete hero was busy nearly getting killed saving the world when his sister died. (Granted, there was a hologram of Jaime standing next to Hector when Nadia died who Hector momentarily mistook for the real Jaime, but I have no idea how Hector couldn’t have figured out this wasn’t Jaime, since Real!Jaime shows up all super injured from saving everyone and surely Jaime’s friends and family would have explained everything to Hector)

So what we have here is a gratuitous death shoehorned in for a cliche villain motivation by obvious editorial mandate to the detriment of the finale and plot at the end of an otherwise stellar comic. Great. Thanks a lot.

Not to mention other things rushed- how did Jaime’s family find him after he fell to the earth? How’d that field of light protect him in space? How’d he explain his injuries to his classmates? Lots of things were glossed over because this was the last issue, and that’s a shame.

It’s also a shame that Rafael Albequerque didn’t draw the last issues. He’s been THE artist for Blue Beetle since issue 13 and having Carlo Barberi draw it felt wrong, especially since his art didn’t fit the title at all.

But, I have to give props to Sturges for carrying over two great things and themes about the title through the last issue.- 1. Jaime is awesome and a wonderful hero who is AWESOME and 2. He is loved and supported by his friends and family, who are AWESOME.

So, I say goodbye to Blue Beetle with a tear in my eye and annoyance at editorial and Geoff for ruining the last issue. I hope Jaime fights on and his title even comes back someday. It’s been a great run. Love ya, Blue Beetle.