"Hi. My name is Traci 13. I'm dating your son. I brought cookies."

[khaosworks]

Quick non-spoiler review of Blue Beetle #24. This is one of those comics you should be really be reading because it brings both the fun and the awesome.

Jaime, trapped on an alien mothership, stripped of the scarab and his powers, shows the Reach exactly why Blue Beetles don't need no steenking powers, while on Earth his friends show the same aliens what happens when you mess with a man's family. It also helps if your girlfriend has magic powers.

Once again, writer John Rogers shows us why Jaime Reyes would make Ted Kord so, so proud. If Kyle Rayner had been written like this when he started out, I think people would have been a bit less pissed off about him.

The last two words of the issue actually made me squeal with delight. That's our Beetle - always a half step ahead, even with a gun to his head.

Comments

[gingicat]

Yet another reason to be annoyed that they're rebooting...

[tavella.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping Blue Beetle won't be too affected by Final Crisis.

[ionlylurkhere.livejournal.com]

I think I'm going to have to pick up the Blue Beetle trades; I've only come across Jaime when he's been in Events (Infinite Crisis, Sinestro Corps War, and the business in Booster Gold #6 and #0, which have actual Ted'n'Jaime interaction if you haven't read 'em) but he is great fun.

[querldox.livejournal.com]

Of course, Kyle was initially written such that pretty much every longstanding DC character he met had to do a bow and scrape at the end of the story and tell Kyle how he was really the best GL ever...despite being just this guy in an alley and following up on the previously actually shown multiple times to be a great GL Hal Jordan. That and how Hal was written out put a bad taste in most folks' mouths about the character.

Jaime, on the other hand, has at best only gotten this sort of thing once (Batman being way more forgiving and cordial in his interactions with Jaime than, well, almost anyone else). Things reasonably built up to him being supercompetent in this issue, including specific training. And Ted both went out heroically (although the overall setup was very questionable) and, frankly, was never at the Hal Jordan level of respect.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

Everyone was pretty much ready to hate Jaime when he appeared, not because Ted was respected on a Hal level, but because of the silly way he went out, heroic mode notwithstanding. And while Ted was still the bwah ha ha ha guy at that point, people had a real affection for the character. Thankfully, for the reasons you pointed out, among others, Rogers and Giffen managed to make Jaime likeable and relatable, not to mention his entire supporting cast.

I didn't really pay much attention to the title until I listened to the buzz on scans_daily, and evn then didn't pick it up until I read that amazingly written little scene where Guy hands over Ted's copy of BH Liddell Hart's Strategy to Jaime. We were told how wonderful Kyle was. With Jaime, we were shown.