About Heroes

Blue Beetle #1 Review
Written by Keith Giffen and John Rogers
Art and Cover by Cully Hamner

By the end of the book I liked it. I wanted to say that before I got into anything else. I liked how the story moved from the current or rather the One Year Later set up and to the days of and after the new Beetle was picked. The action scene, which was the OYL time period with Guy Gardner were a little weird though. The action was very one sided, not very interesting to look at because it was from one angle. Gardner was spouting off mumbo jumbo, half of which I know was the fault of OYL Infinite Confusion and the other was foreshadowing the future plot of the book. So I can let the weird talk go for now. I thought that the new Beetles power manifestation was really cool though, the way they wove in the tech-magic aspect was tricky and risky but I think the team pulled it off over all. The style of the costume is a little unusual but as you can see I dug up some familiar friends that pose a striking resemblance to the Blue Wonder. The scenes with the new Beetles friends was a nice touch and brought the human side out in the character, which is good early on in his establishment. The book as a whole made me laugh two times out loud which is always a plus. One of which was a personal issue regarding Paco’s fear of sock puppets (no comment), so people may not have laughed as much as me at that part.

The art was really good and the flow from panel to panel was so good I didn’t even notice it. The last few pages were very well addressed but I think the dialogue could have been reworded a little, but the point comes across all in all. I had a big problem with this book to begin with (in case you didn’t know from the Podcast). It wasn’t so much this book as it was the idea behind it, and possibly a little paranoia. I believe that overall the creation of a new Blue Beetle is the product of jump-starting the market. Think about the set up: Blue Beetle is for the most part a cult icon from a group formerly known as the Justice League (yes, that is meant to plug into the last real book he was in), he was more or less inactive from his hero duties. Then Countdown comes out, they put the Beetle up on a pedestal of underdog superhero and then they blow him away making everyone a little sad.

Sad because they didn’t give the character a chance or sad because the heroes didn’t give him a chance, whatever the case may have been, a second chance is brought to you and the DCU provided by the Execs! And what happens? People fall all over it; well they at least give this new guy a helluva shot. Am I saying this is bad? No. Am I guilty of it? Yes. But it still needs to be pointed out for people to see and judge for themselves. That being said the new Blue Beetle gets a proud A-