Legacy comic book characters — which are essentially the folks who fill the suits when the original hero gets taken down for the count (maybe for an arc or two if they’re lucky) — typically have a pretty rough go of it. Some fans hate them because of how resistant they can be to change; normies don’t recognize them as the heroes they watched on TV back in the day and get confused, and writers and editors often fail to do anything with them after coming up with the idea. It’s usually just a waiting game until the OG hero gets back, but there are a few notable exceptions to that rule — for instance, most people are now going to know Jamie Reyes, not Ted Kord, as Blue Beetle, given that he’s the one getting a big feature film made in his honor.
For those unaware (yeah, you losers, having lives and such instead of reading comic books), Kord was killed off by Geoff Johns and company at the start of Infinite Crisis and, aside from his friendship with time traveler extraordinaire Booster Gold, wasn’t exactly a notable character or particularly beloved by anyone except for the most devoted. Reyes was given a new set of powers and a much more relatable back story, and he’s been a hit with readers ever since his debut. And judging by this trailer that Warner Bros. dropped earlier on Monday, we’re thinking he’s only gonna get more popular in the months to come.
Peep it:
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Here’s a synopsis, just in case the trailer didn’t fully do it for you:
“Recent college grad Jaime Reyes returns home full of aspirations for his future, only to find that home is not quite as he left it. As he searches to find his purpose in the world, fate intervenes when Jaime unexpectedly finds himself in possession of an ancient relic of alien biotechnology: the Scarab. When the Scarab suddenly chooses Jaime to be its symbiotic host, he is bestowed with an incredible suit of armor capable of extraordinary and unpredictable powers, forever changing his destiny as he becomes the Super Hero Blue Beetle.”
Blue Beetle will fly into theaters on August 18. And if you’re one of those passionate fans mentioned above, well, it’s up to you to start getting your friends and family hyped up for this one, because James Gunn and company are waiting right by with an axe if it flops. You saw what they did with Shazam, right?