Blue Beetle #2 – Josh Trujillo, Writer; Adrian Gutierrez, Artist; Wil Quintana, Colorist
Ray – 8.5/10
Ray: If there’s one rule in comics, it’s that when a color-coded character exists, the other variants are out there—and they’re probably out for blood. That seemed to be what Jaime Reyes was dealing with in the first mini by this creative team, but the villainous new beetles turned out to be Xiomara and Roma, two innocent young women who were partnered with scarabs aligned with a rebel faction fleeing the Reach. A partnership has been forged—but the same can’t be said for the new Red Beetle who has emerged, leaving Ted Kord for dead at the end of last issue. He survives, but just barely, and Jaime is out for revenge despite the attempts by the JLI to wave him off the path. He’s noticed that Victoria—who now has Brenda working as her harried assistant—is acting oddly, and she’s definitely acting a bit more villainous than she did in the first miniseries.
However, if Victoria knows more than she’s letting on, that’ll have to wait for later—because the mysterious red-clad assassin is back, targeting both the refugees of the Horizon and their scarab-wielding protectors. Roma and Xiomara barely escape with their lives, their scarabs weakened, and it becomes clear that this isn’t as simple as a Reach assassin—it’s something else, and it’s going to require bringing in one of the best characters from the John Rogers run, who hasn’t interacted with Jaime in some time. While I wish some of the original characters were playing a bigger role here—particularly Jaime’s family members—Trujillo has done a great job of bringing in new players and expanding the mythology of this book, setting us up for what might be the biggest-scale Blue Beetle story ever. Hopefully Ted is back up and running before too long, though! We’re all pulling for him.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
