Blue Beetle, Vol. 1: The More Things Change by Keith Giffen

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I received this book in digital form off of Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

In this book, Jaime Reyes has the Blue Beetle scarab and is working with Ted Kord, the post-Crisis Blue Beetle, who is now sidelined. Kord provides Jaime support in the field while also helping him study the scarab with hopes of getting rid of it. Their dynamic reminds me a bit of the 1990s series Batman Beyond with Kord being a somewhat more easygoing but also less helpful than Bruce Wayne was in that series.

This book seems to be trying to recapture the spirit of Reyes' original series from the mid-2000s with Jaime being an El Paso-based teenager whose family knows about his superpowers. I liked the series but this just doesn't give the same vibe.

In six issues in this book, there's not really a compelling storyline and it doesn't have the same sense of fun as the earlier series. The dialogue is often repetitive which gets old fast.

The biggest problem in the book may be Jaime. He's not particularly likable as written. There's one story where he spends several pages being a jerk to a metahuman girl who's just trying to be playful and friendly. Jaime is whiny, a fact that is called out by other characters in multiple issues. It only makes the whining slightly less bothersome.

The book has some good supporting characters who sadly don't get enough focus and there are a few moments that call to mind the good old days, but overall, I left the book uninterested in what happens next. I have to say this is one of the more disappointing DC Rebirth titles I've read.



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