Squishy Beetle

Blue Beetle #1

One of the best things about the DC Reboot has been the return of Jaime Reyes as the Blue Beetle. It’s a complete reboot for the character, with the alien conquerors the Reach still in business in the distant past, and in the present day, Jaime still just a normal El Paso High School student. Looks like his supporting cast is intact, including his family and his friends Paco and Brenda — though Paco has been changed into an irritating gangsta stereotype. Brenda’s aunt is still a crimelord, so Jaime’s parents won’t let him attend Brenda’s birthday party — so Jaime and Paco sneak out so they can make an appearance — just in time for the new Brotherhood of Evil and a bunch of La Dama’s metahuman enforcers to get into a fight over the legendary blue scarab — and that leads to Jaime getting a new blue addition to his spinal cord.

Verdict: Ehh, not sure yet. My major complaint is with the new cartoon-lowrider-gangster look they saddled Paco with. It looks stupid, it adds nothing to the character, and it gives DC another black eye when it comes to doing pointless racist crap. Combined with the awkward dialogue — and extremely obtrusive and gratuitous Spanish, dropped here mainly to remind everyone that HOLY COW, EVERYONE, WE’VE GOT A BROWN-SKINNED CHARACTER! — this title isn’t looking so good. I’ll probably stick with this one for a while, ’cause I do love this character, but it’s a far cry from the glory days of John Rogers’ run on this title.

Tiny Titans #44

Beast Boy is terrified of the crossing guard patrol — because they’re actually Elasti-Girl, Robotman, Negative Man, and Mento — the Doom Patrol! Well, they don’t seem so bad. Robin really likes Elasti-Girl, Robotman is really enthusiastic, Mento loves to think, and Negative Man is negative about everything. So what does Beast Boy really have against the Doom Patrol? What’s their fiendish secret origin?

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, very cute and funny, and it’s great to see the Doom Patrol in this series. Any chance we can get Crazy Jane in here sometime?

Today’s Cool Links:

• Two different takes on the awfulness of the Rebooted version of Starfire — one from a seven-year-old and one from a cartoonist. Would someone please corner Dan DiDio again and ask him why DC Comics is becoming such an anti-woman company under his tenure?
• I had a pretty strong suspicion, when I first heard about it, that Frank Miller’s “Holy Terror” was going to turn out to be an exercise in lowbrow bigotry. But it’s still not good news that this is what Miller has fallen to.
• The guys working on Atomic Robo completely and unequivocably rock.