Blue Beetle #2

When does Ted Kord come back?

Jaime has just turned into the Blue Beetle and doesn't quite understand what is happening yet. The Scarab has covered him in armor and turned him into some kind of terminator unit. Jaime can see his target's brains and hearts since those are the best places to blast away for a lethal hit. I don't yet know what Blue Beetle blasts when he attacks because Jaime is refusing to follow the Scarab's orders to kill Burlap Sack Head and Day of the Dead.

Burlap Sack Head's costume would be dangerous to run around in.

Jaime grows giant claw fingers and stabs both villains through the chest. With all five stabby talons. Five for Day of the Dead on his left hand and five for Burlap Sack Head on his right hand. Right through the chest and out their backs. Nice row of giant holes. He does this when he gets emotional about his friend and he yells as he stabs them. This speech bubble has a blue ring around it. I don't know if that means he's currently being controlled by the Scarab or if it's just emphasizing his anger. Either way, these guys could easily be dead even though Jaime doesn't want to kill anyone.

If you don't want to kill anyone, stop acting so stabby.

The Scarab seems perplexed that Jaime isn't following orders. I doubt it's because Jaime is so much stronger than every other creature that was ever host to the Blue Beetle. It's probably because Green Lantern damaged this Scarab in a critical way.

Jaime finds his way back to Paco's car where the Brotherhood of Evil are getting their asses handed to them by Wolfguy. Which seems a bit odd since Phobia should be making him see spiders and Warp should be warping his arms off and Plasmus should just, you know, be disintegrating him in goo.

I prefer saying "Cabra de Dios".

Blue Beetle picks up Paco and pulls him to safety, leaving the Brotherhood of Evil needing to track him down next issue. And hopefully they're headed to the party now for some high school drama.

La Dama, Brenda's aunt, collects some pretty cool stuff. She wants the Scarab for this collection.

Jaime drops Paco off at the party but La Dama's guards put up a fight. He commands his suit to take out the guards in a non-lethal manner and it attacks them with flying bugs. If that's all he has to do to fight, this comic book isn't going to be very exciting!

Blue Beetle: OH NOES! I'M UNDER ATTACK!
Scarab: Kill them.
Blue Beetle: NO! YOU STOP THEM NICELY!
Scarab: Done.

I'm sure he'll get more control as the issues pass (if he doesn't get cancelled in the next wave!). Although why would he want more control when he doesn't even need to think up a way to take down his enemies. He's one step beyond a Green Lantern now! Green Lantern has to imaginate a light creation to knock out an enemy. Blue Beetle just has to wish for the guy to be knocked out. I suppose it makes sense since one Scarab alone is meant to take out an entire planet and get it ready for the Hivemasters.

Speaking of the Hivemasters, they're on their way! They got a message from the Scarab when it activated. They'd thought it destroyed hundreds of years ago. This has never happened before so they decide to go investigate immediately. Well, the Hivemasters don't. The crew that preps the worlds for the Hivemasters are heading to Earth. You know, to prep it. Which means to destroy it and web it up like a big space spider cocoon.

This issue of Blue Beetle continues the origin stuff so it's still kind of hard for me to judge how I feel. It's telling the story well. It's got a fairly decent sized cast with new as well as old enemies. I think La Dama can be interesting. As of this reading, I have Blue Beetle ranked one below Voodoo. Neither comic is great but I've read four issues of Voodoo and just two of Blue Beetle. Voodoo may have a more intriguing story than Blue Beetle, so I'll leave Blue Beetle where it is. If it continues to be decent (yeah, just decent. Big pressure, BB!), I'll move it up a rank past Voodoo after next issue.