Despite existing for less than twenty years, the Jaime Reyes incarnation of Blue Beetle has garnered quite a passionate fanbase over the years. Debuting in 2006 during DC’s Infinite Crisis event, Jaime is the third character to hold the Blue Beetle mantle and by far the most popular thanks to his unique look and powers, fun personality, and his lack of a secret identity amongst his family making his stories feel like a breath of fresh air in the superhero genre.
It should come as no surprise then that Jaime Reyes is making his way to the big screen soon in the 2023 Blue Beetle movie, the first entry in James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new reset DCU continuity. But this is far from the first time he’s stepped out of the comics and onto the screen. Over the years, Jaime’s Blue Beetle has appeared in a ton of TV shows, movies, and even video games. And in celebration of his live-action film debut, we’re going to look at (almost) all of them. Without further ado, let’s get started.
Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2008-2011)
Jaime’s incarnation in Brave and the Bold is noteworthy not just for being the first major adaptation of the character, appearing in the show’s first episode only two years after his comic debut, but also because he’s one of the only characters in the largely episodic series to have a major story arc that plays out over multiple episodes. And of the myriad of heroes to appear in the series, he’s the closest to a direct Batman protege other than Robin. Which is fitting given that he’s voiced by Will Friedle, who played Terry McGinnis/Batman Beyond in the DCAU.
Design-wise, he’s near identical to his comic book counterpart, save for the eyes being red instead of yellow and being larger to accommodate the show’s expressive art style. His teenage cockiness and superhero fanboyism is also carried over, but his lack of a secret identity is not, with his identity as Blue Beetle being very much unknown to his best friend Paco, the only member of Jaime’s civilian supporting cast that appears in Brave and the Bold, for the entirety of the series.
That aforementioned story arc begins in the series pilot, “The Rise of the Blue Beetle,” in which Jaime teams up with Batman on a space adventure to save an oppressed race of alien goo people from the space pirate Kanjar-Ro and in the process learns not to solely rely on superpowers. His next major development happens in the cold open of “Invasion of the Secret Santas,” wherein we learn that the alien scarab that gives Jaime his powers has started talking to him directly, similar to a less toxic version of Eddie Brock and the Venom symbiote.
Then, in “Fall of the Blue Beetle,” Jaime learns the truth about his predecessor Ted Kord and must grapple with the fact that not all heroes have a happy ending. After learning how to be a rational human being around women in “Night of the Huntress,” Jaime gets his most notable appearance in Season 2’s “Revenge of the Reach.”
In this episode, Jaime learns that the alien scarab is actually a weapon created by the titular Reach, an alien hive mind species that uses the scarab technology to create brainwashed superpowered soldiers to conquer planets. Jaime briefly falls under the Reach’s control before his willpower and heroic spirit allow him to take back his power and fend off the invasion. This would ultimately bring Jaime’s story arc to a close, though he would have a few standalone adventures afterwards; even becoming a founding member of the Justice League International towards the end of the series.
Smallville (2011)
This is probably the biggest outlier in terms of Jaime’s appearances in other media. Portrayed by relative unknown Jaren Brandt Bartlett, Jaime plays a minor role in the Season 10 Smallville episode, “Booster,” which mainly centers on the eponymous Booster Gold traveling back in time to take Clark Kent’s place in history as the greatest hero on Earth as Clark begins to work on his mild-mannered persona before making The Blur a publicly known hero.
As for Jaime’s role, he’s a regular teenager who stumbled into a Kord Industries lab experimenting on an alien scarab that previously attached itself to Dan Garrett, with Garrett and Ted Kord being the first and second Blue Beetles in the comics, respectively. The scarab holds Jaime prisoner within the armor until Booster inspires him to fight back and take control; with him ultimately deciding to keep it so he can learn to use its power and be a hero. This training process was never shown onscreen as Jaime didn’t appear in any of Smallville‘s remaining episodes, though he would join Jay Garrick’s Teen Titans team in the Season 11 sequel comics.
As far as adaptation goes, this version of Jaime is a lot more reserved than the comics or Brave and the Bold, but his love for superheroes and personal ambitions of doing the right thing are still present here. The armor design is mostly intact and the yellow eyes have been restored, but it’s weirdly bulky compared to every other incarnation. This episode also leans more into the scarab as body horror, a direction seemingly also taken by the new movie, and both references to its alien origin and Beetle technically being the antagonist feel like nods toward the Reach storyline previously adapted in Brave and the Bold.
Young Justice (2012-2021)
Debuting in the fan-favorite show’s second season and portrayed by voice actor Eric Lopez (No relation to comedian George Lopez, who plays Jaime’s Uncle Rudy in the new movie), Blue Beetle would become one of the most prominent and important characters in Young Justice, as Season 2 is mostly a season-long adaptation of the Reach storyline from the comics and Brave and the Bold.
By the time we meet Jaime in the Season 2 premiere, he’s already been with the Team for a few months and is already having direct communication with his alien scarab, which now speaks fluent English (and some Spanish) instead of beeping noises like in Brave and the Bold. His armor has the most comic-accurate look so far, though his eyes now have visible pupils for some reason, and his fanboy tendencies are largely absent; focusing instead on his struggles to control his powers, balancing civilian life with hero life, and eventually making sure he’s the one in control of his body rather than the Scarab or the Reach.
See, once the Reach arrive on Earth, time-traveling speedster Impulse informs Jaime that the reason he came back was to stop the Reach from rebooting Jaime’s malfunctioning scarab and turning him into their ultimate weapon. Jaime is desperate to remove the scarab from his body after learning this, but nothing works. The Team then meets a seemingly heroic Green Beetle from Mars who offers to help Jaime learn to control the scarab, but he ultimately turns out to be a traitor working with the Reach and the villainous Black Beetle.
From here, Jaime ends up an unwilling pawn of the Reach for a good chunk of the season until the Team is able to subdue and transport him to an ancient temple; wherein Zatanna performs a magic ritual that permanently frees both Jaime and the Scarab from Reach control. This allows Blue Beetle to join the heroes in taking down the Reach for good in the Season 2 finale, which would also serve as the series finale for over half a decade.
While Jaime’s character in the revival seasons is still good, he ends up being a victim of the character juggling act that hampered the show as a whole. They were so busy constantly introducing new characters that they forgot to give proper arcs to the ones they already had. He does have some nice solo action set pieces in Season 3, even joining the “Outsiders” team from which this season gets its subtitle; but he’s promptly tossed aside after that. Case in point, I completely forgot he appeared in one episode of Season 4 as part of Beast Boy’s intervention until writing this article.
Justice League Action (2017)
The best way to describe Justice League Action‘s take on Blue Beetle is simplified. The various markings on the armor have been toned down, the coloring is more focused on solid primary colors rather than varying shades, and the larger, more expressive eyes are back alongside the Scarab, now referred to by its comic book name of Khaji-Da, speaking only in beeping noises. His mask has no visible mouth, a design trait shared by the live-action film version, and his dual identity plays no role whatsoever. The name “Jaime Reyes” is not mentioned once here, only Blue Beetle.
Moreover, his personality is fairly simplified as well. Voiced here by Jake T. Austin of Wizards of Waverly Place fame, the cockiness and superhero nerd status are present, but there’s no real identity struggle or any layers to how he communicates with Khaji-Da. But that doesn’t make it bad by any means and it’s largely to be expected. The entire point of Justice League Action is to deliver bite-sized chunks of superhero spectacle and Blue Beetle himself only appears in 2 of these 11-minute episodes.
And the two episodes he appears in are a lot of fun. The first one, “Time Share,” features Beetle and Batman traveling back in time to stop the supervillain Chronos from killing Batman on the night of his first case. Beetle’s abilities and fun personality are shown off really well here and it features some great homages to Batman: The Animated Series from the classic rooftop pose to the music to even getting the late Kevin Conroy to reprise his role as Batman.
The second episode, “Field Trip,” is a clever and surprisingly intense team-up story where Blue Beetle, alongside fellow teen heroes Firestorm and Stargirl, have to stop General Zod and his two Kryptonian cohorts after accidentally freeing them from the Phantom Zone. The tension at play with inexperienced heroes having to hold their own against highly trained combatants while attempting to keep them contained to the Fortress of Solitude so they aren’t exposed to Earth’s yellow sun and gain superpowers is genuinely palpable despite the short runtime and overall playful tone.
The DC Animated Movie Universe (2016-2020)
Now that we’ve covered TV, let’s move on to Jaime’s film appearances. In addition to his upcoming solo feature, Jaime appears in the New 52-inspired DC Animated Movie Universe continuity as a member of the Teen Titans. His design is nearly identical to his Young Justice incarnation, though his civilian form has a noticeably lighter skin tone and a bizarre buzzed central mohawk hairdo during his first appearance in Justice League vs. Teen Titans.
In this film, Jaime, voiced again by Jake T. Austin, is working alongside Raven, Beast Boy, and team leader Starfire to help newcomer Damian Wayne, the new Robin, learn how to better work with others. Like the rest of the team, he eventually gets embroiled in fighting possessed members of the Justice League and helping to stop Raven’s father Trigon from taking over the world; as well as freeing her from his control. He doesn’t have much of an arc through the film, but his power set and dynamics with the other characters make him a welcome addition.
The immediate follow-up, Teen Titans: The Judas Contract, gives Jaime a lot more to do. There’s a lot of time dedicated to his relationship with his family and how having the scarab and attempting to communicate with it have made his life that much more difficult. He also spends his spare time volunteering at a soup kitchen and developing a relationship with one of his fellow volunteers, Traci. For most of the climax, he becomes just another hero for the action scenes, which is understandable given that newcomer/traitor Terra is meant to be the focus here, but Jaime does get a heartfelt reunion with his parents during the ending montage.
One thing worth noting about Blue Beetle in both of these films is, in addition to the scarab only using beeping noises once again, its origins are deliberately left a mystery. Its efforts to communicate with Jaime and tendency to overcompensate are expanded upon in Judas Contract, but no definitive answers are ever given.
I suspect at one point the plan was to do the Reach Invasion story as the third entry in a Teen Titans trilogy. At the very least, another installment was likely discussed given the tease of Wonder Girl at the end of Judas Contract. Sadly, none of these plans would come to fruition and Blue Beetle, along with the rest of the Titans, was unceremoniously killed off in a non-speaking cameo in 2020’s Justice League Dark: Apokolips War and has not appeared in any DC animated film since.
Injustice 2 (2017)
Although Jaime has appeared in a number of video games over the years, including the tie-in games for both Young Justice and Brave and the Bold, I’d like to focus on what I consider Jaime’s most notable gaming appearance. The Injustice 2 incarnation of Blue Beetle is largely comic-accurate design-wise; though his insignia is glowing blue instead of the traditional black, same as in the new movie, and his shoulder antennae more closely resemble dual pistols than traditional insect antennae.
Voiced here by Antony del Rio, better known as Pit in Kid Icarus: Uprising and the Super Smash Bros. series, Jaime has a small but important role in the game’s story mode. As one of the youngest members of Batman’s Insurgency, he and fellow teen hero Firestorm are responsible for guarding Superman’s prison cell, as the Man of Steel is a fascistic former dictator in this universe; serving as the last line of defense in case he ever escaped.
The two heroes come face-to-face with Black Adam and Wonder Woman, two of the stragglers still dedicated to Superman’s Regime after his defeat in the first game, and do manage to hold them off before Batman decides to let him go in order to assist in the fight against Brainiac. After this, Blue Beetle largely stops being part of the story, though more details about him in this universe can be gleaned from fight intro dialogue.
Through these short interactions, we learn that Jaime is close with his extended family and friends like in the comics, the two previous Blue Beetles, Dan Garrett and Ted Kord, exist in the Injustice universe, and that the Scarab, once again identified as Khaji-Da, is known to be a Reach weapon. Additionally, there are two notable trends that crop up in these interactions: various characters wanting to take the Scarab from Jaime and oddly flirtatious interactions between him and the game’s female cast.
In Conclusion
Much like Jaime himself, the upcoming Blue Beetle movie has been constantly underestimated; which is mainly the result of depressingly low box-office projections after mainstream audiences profusely rejected previous DC films such as The Flash and Black Adam. But I don’t think people should count out Jaime Reyes just yet.
While I have yet to see the film for myself at time of writing, the comic-accurate suit, emphasis on family dynamics, and the exuberant performance of Xolo Mariduena as Jaime seen in the trailers suggest that the film is doing everything in its power to capture what makes Blue Beetle work. And if there’s anything I hope you’ve gleaned from the rest of this article, it’s that Jaime Reyes is a character whose appeal goes beyond the confines of his origin.
From episodic cartoony adventures to dramatic serialized narratives to dystopian fighting games, there’s something about a young kid suddenly given unbelievable gifts that’s universally relatable. Characters like Spider-Man have certainly done this schtick before, but not with Jaime’s unique power set or more open relationship with his family. He’s a character that always seems to make everything he’s in that much better and I only hope he can do the same for DC’s film slate.
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