Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Blue Beetle

<-------- definitely a fan of back-up features

You say that now, but what happens when Legion's the back-up feature in Action?

let history repeat itself.

If its good in quality, well then better than the crappy threeboot.

Happy to hear Blue Beetle is coming back (in some form or another) I hope it's Jaime, but wouldn't mind seeing him meet Ted Kord.

However, I'm not sure about the $4 price tag. I have to do some serious thinking and examining of the pull list when the June solits come out. I'm trying to stay within a comic budget for the year.

Yup.

Mike Norton will be drawing BB.

I collected Jamie Reyes’ entire last series so naturally I wanted to pick up the relaunch and see what its all about. Plus, I like Tony Bedard as a writer, so that was a bonus. Reading #1, I can see it basically picked up right where it left off in terms of tone and characters, although it actually erases the entire prior history and starts from scratch.

I really dislike, however, the idea of no Ted Kord (or even Dan Garrett) in the DCU history. That hurts a bit. If there was any Blue Beetle I’d have liked to see, it would be Ted Kord. It will be very difficult for me to explain that to my father, since the Ted Kord Blue Beetle is one of his favorite superheroes of all time. But obviously, DC wants a Hispanic lead character—and a teenager at that—to try to hit a new audience, and I can fault them for that.

The story itself was solid and hit all the right notes, but it did feel slightly by-the-numbers at times. I would have preferred if Jamie transformed into Blue Beetle earlier in the issue instead of the last page. I do appreciate Bedard using the Brotherhood of Evil, as well as some familiar super-villains in the employ of La Dama to heighten the intensity though. I feel like this whole month has seen a lot of terrorists and secret societies but not that many super-villains.

One thing Bedard didn’t do a good enough job of was get the point across that Jamie is a bit of a nerd. I think that is a mistake because I specifically remember Red Arrow (LW Poster) saying that if she knew Jamie was a nerdy character prior to his series being cancelled, she’d have checked it out, since that would have made him a little different than a lot of other DC teens. Bedard did do a good job reintroducing Paco and Brenda and their relationship with Jamie, so the bases are all covered there at least.

The issue has a strong Mexican cultural basis and that is a nice thing to see to make it different from the other things DC is doing. I grew up in a half-Hispanic neighborhood, though it was mostly Columbian families, so while there are some similarities, I know there will be some differences. I guess the point is that I read online that some readers felt it was very forced (re: a white guy writing about a Hispanic family). I didn’t feel that way but I don’t really know if I’d truly know if it was forced or not.

I do notice DC now had both Static and Blue Beetle coming from strong, normal families. Both run the risk of being really boring or really cliché so they have to make sure they play it right. I know I usually found Jamie’s family to be a bit boring in his last series, especially once they learned he was Blue Beetle.

This was pretty good but it was a little bit less exciting than a lot of what else is out there by DC right now. I’ll be sticking with it, for now. For my usual comparison of whether I liked it as much as JL #1, I would say it was about the same.

#2 was more the same: the series continues to be good and worth buying but there is a lot of room for improvement. Not serious aspects, just roughing out some edges.

At the core is a strong teenage, nerdy lead with a solid supporting cast. I'm hopeful the sci-fi element will kick in more fully too. Also, I'd love if Peacemaker showed up in the same manner as the last series.

What needs to be cut is the uber-violence that is a trend of all DCnU comics and the 'random usage of Spanish words in English sentences', which is really distracting.

I'll likely continue to buy this series for awhile but it's definitely on opposite spectrum of the DCnU's best among those good enough to keep buying.

Anyone else reading?