Here’s a little secret: I love Ted and Jon. Booster and Kord, most likely known to most readers on this site as the two goofballs that were very prevalent in the early run of the Justice League International, as well as Booster’s extremely memorable episode of Justice League Unlimited (Written by The Flash and Supergirl’s own Andrew Kreisberg), titled The Greatest Story Never Told. To me, They’re a bit more than that. For those that were keeping up with Identity Crisis, you may remember that very infamous scene of Ted Kord, beaten and bloodied, being offered a place in Maxwell Lord’s new world order, only for Kord to promptly tell Maxwell to rot in Hell, seconds before having his brains blown out, the hole in his head large enough to make the passing wind whistle. Yes, it was a gruesome end, but it did give us something: Jaime Reyes.
Which, by the way, is the most snarky Blue Beetle
For those unaware, Jaime Reyes was the newest incarnation of the Blue Beetle following Infinite Crisis. He was a 17 year old Latino-American, living in El Paso, Texas with his mother, father, younger sister, and two best friends, Paco and Brenda. However, after a small meteor shower (otherwise known as a recently exploded Rock of Eternity) saw many magical artifacts spread across the globe, the Blue Scarab was launched out and found its way to Jaime, connecting to his spine. From there, Jaime researches his predecessor, Ted Kord, and becomes the new Blue Beetle.
Why do I bring these guys up? Well, for those that remember, Greg Berlanti (Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, and Vixen) was contacted by DC Films/Warner Bros to develop a live action Booster Gold and Blue Beetle film, all the way back in September of 2015. While we haven't heard much come out since then, the project was described as “A buddy-cop film between Booster and Beetle”, which usually would signal a Kord & Carter dynamic. However, reports claimed that it would indeed be Jaime Reyes taking the mantle of the Beetle. This caused some confusion amongst fan, with some claiming that Jaime would just take the place of Ted in the Bromance, while others suggested Jaime could be amalgamated with Ted to simplify things. Personally, I think there’s a third option: Time Traveling Buddy-Cop film. Thus, I present to thee:
BLUE & GOLD: THE GREATEST STORY NEVER TOLD
The Story starts out in El Paso, Texas. Jaime, 17 year old aspiring dentist, is walking with his two friends, Brenda and Paco. As his two friends argue over their different styles of life, a fire erupts in a local Lexcorp building. Jaime rushes in, trying to get people to safety outside, only to get trapped in one of the research labs. As the fire around him starts to engulf him, one of the crates containing a blue scarab latches onto his back, transforming him into The Blue Beetle. As the building collapses around him, Brenda and Paco are screaming his name, thinking he’s dead. However, Jaime soon bursts from the rubble and retracts his armor, making Paco faint and Brenda question herself. However, Jaime just laughs and says he’s become a superhero. Jumping to a month later, Jaime Reyes is taking care of a few crooks, all while desperately trying to hurry home for his sister’s birthday. After some minor complications when one crook slipped away into their car, driving off, Jaime makes it just in time to sing Happy Birthday.
Exhausted, Jaime lies in bed and reminisces about his life, how he’s become someone that can do good on a wide range of people. As he starts to doze off, we see a flash of light outside his window, and from it, a man stands up. As the man opens the door and walks through, the Beetle prods Jaime awake, telling him there’s a trespasser. As his door opens, The Scarab produces an arm cannon and points it at the man, only for Jaime to push his arm up at the last moment and create a massive hole in his house. Annoyed, him and the scarab start to argue, only for the dust from the explosion to clear, revealing Booster Gold, minor superhero, and star of Blaze Comics.
Booster and Jaime continue their conversation outside, talking about how Jaime isn’t the first person to hold the name of The Blue Beetle: Ted Kord was. Jaime, slightly taken back by this, restates the response: “You’re telling me that THE Ted Kord, the guy who looks like Mark Zuckerberg's big brother, is a superhero?”. After a bit of explaining, Booster reveals that Ted was a small time superhero known as the Blue Beetle, traveling across the world to fight crime bosses, drug traffickers, and terrorists. Booster points out that Ted was a bit of an enthusiast, wanting to stop all crime and make the world a better place. Real Noble. However, he reveals that after tracking down a man by the name of Anatoli Knyazev, he discovered that Lex Luthor was a monster of a man: Murderer, Drug Trafficker, Manipulator, and overall terrorist. Unfortunately, Kord was discovered by Luthor, and after a rough business takeover, causing much of Kord’s business to collapse, he offered him a choice: Work for him, and have a seat of power, or die. Kord, promptly, telling Luthor to rot in Hell, is shot through the head.
Booster found out about this after Luthor’s arrest during the Doomsday event, and wanted to go back to save his friend. Discovering that Luthor had begun to take all of Kord’s research and technology from his facilities, Gold was able to trace back most of his tech and keep it out of Luthor’s reach, but couldn’t locate the Scarab: Until now. He politely asks Jaime to remove the tech so he can give it back to Kord once he saves him, but Jaime refuses, pointing out that he CAN'T take off the Scarab as its fused to his back, but that even if he could, he wouldn’t. Jaime has used his powers to save countless lives and stop crimes, as well as do nothing but good, and that if everything he’s said about Ted is true, than he would have been proud of what he’s done. Booster ridicules Jaime for this, saying that Kord has saved countless lives while Jaime has, at the most, saved a dozen. The two look at each other, before Booster caves in. He admits that he’s, in fact, a time traveler. Jaime, disbelieving, says yeah right. But right before he can leave, Booster disappears and reemerges immediately again, saying exactly what Jaime says as he’s walking away. Jaime, slightly, confused, agrees to listen to his proposal. Booster is suggesting to bring Jaime along with him back to the day of Ted’s murder, replace him with an organic duplicate with no memories, and then hightail back to present day, so that Ted can continue living out his days with Jon. Jaime casually asks if Jon has… relations with Ted, in which he shoots back that “WE’RE NOT GAY”.
As the two arrive on the day of Ted’s death, they enact their plan. After initially taking out a few guards and Mercy Graves, the two prepare to use Skeets to pilot the empty body of the Ted Kord look alike, and thankfully kidnap Kord moment… only to have Mercy Graves (Revealed to be enhanced genetically) wake up and sound the alarm, causing their cover to be blown. As Jaime takes on the guards and Booster takes Skeets and Kord back to their ship (also telling him that he’ll explain everything later), Luthor watches, smiling benevolently. With their mission almost going according to plan, they traverse the time stream, rebracing each other, and Ted thanking Jaime for his work, stating that he’s a true hero.
However, as their ship returns to a decimated Metropolis, with no oceans, crumbled buildings, winged demons above, and giant fire pits rising hundreds of feet in the air, they realize something is not right. Horrified, the Trio retreat back into the timestream to escape the army of Parademons, only narrowingly escaping. They ask Skeets what caused this, with time records being displayed that show Lex apparently opened the codex and summoned Darkseid much sooner than he was initially supposed to. Jaime blames himself for allowing his powers to be seen, as the alien technology that is his scarab inspired Luthor to open the codex, but Booster retaliates that it's his fault, as he should have accommodated for this. As the two argue, Ted steps in to break up the two, stating that its neither of their faults. They regroup and decide to try and stop their slightly younger selves from enacting their plan, namely by knocking themselves out very carefully.
They decide to instead kidnap Luthor, as he wouldn’t be able to enact the order to kill Ted, allowing them to merely move past Ted to a safe location. Unfortunately, Luthor uses this event to fuel his case of combating metahuman threats to the US government, using the people on the “Super folder” (AKA Justice League commercial) to create a team of Metahuman Super villains that successfully kill millions in The American Great West following a fight with Superman. After a few more tries, the trio continuously fails to stop a catastrophic future, save the time stream, and keep Ted Kord alive. Booster, frustrated, briefly leaves the two Beetles to go out and do the one thing that he KNOWS will save everything: Kill Luthor. However, before Booster can walk through and kill a young Alexander Luthor, to stop all of this, Ted places a hand on his shoulder and embraces him, hugging him. The two have a private moment together, and Booster apologizes for not saving him. Kord smiles and simply comforts him.
“Jon, it's okay. We’ve had a good run; we’ve fought villains, crooks, terrorists, time traveling tyrants, and more. We go back a long time, and you’ve shown me more than anyone else that my actions matter, but listen, train the kid. If what you told me is true, than Jaime is the most worthy person I know to BE the Blue Beetle. He’s young, but he’d done more than I ever did when I started off. I will always be with you, one way or another.”
“I’m going to miss you Ted.”
“I know Jon. You have been, and always will be, my friend.”
“Star Trek reference?”
“Yeah. Might as well, right?”
The two nod in agreement, and return to the ship. Ted prepares to return to the time stream, and remarks to the two heroes to laugh when they remember him. As Jaime and Jon return to modern day, nothing has changed from when they first left. Jaime, noticing Jon looking up to the stars, punches him in the arm, simply remarking him to smile. He does, and chuckles.
“You really do wear it well, Jaime”
The two walk back over to Jaime’s house, and Booster suggests that they’ll need to start Jaime’s training to be an even better superhero. Jaime suggests a team up, as the new Blue and Gold.
NOTES:
I wanted to write out a script for this film for pretty obvious reasons: I love Booster and Jaime. When I first got into the two thanks to Batman: The Brave and the Bold, I decided to pick up Jaime’s backup issues (Which, by the way, The Reach would totally be the villains of the sequel). After it ended, I was mildly disappointed that there wasn't much else with him in it at the time, until I found out about Booster Gold teaming up with him. That’s where a lot of this story comes from, Jaime and Booster attempting to save Ted, ruining the future, and so forth. The story was also a great love letter to past Blue Beetles, as there’s a scene where Ted Kord, Jaime Reyes, and Dan Garrett are all congratulating each other, saying they’re proud of the others wearing the name.
The story itself is a simple one. It doesn’t have any main characters from the DCEU (Minus Luthor and CGI Cameos from Superman), and really only has two main locations: El Paso, Texas, and a Lexcorp building. It’s beauty comes from Booster and Jaime’s relationship with Ted. The two superheroes very obviously want to be Ted, even arguing over who should take the blame, but by the end of the day have two very distinctive goals. Jon wants his friend back, the one he’s worked with for years and joked around with, even contemplating murder of one of the most influential men ever. Jaime’s is a bit different. He’s still new to being a superhero, and barely knows anything about the equipment infused in his spine (He assumes it’s kryptonian, as it's the only Alien Species he knows of, until Ted corrects him and says he found the Scarab in central America), and as a result is now contemplating his heroics. He hears about and sees records of Ted doing nothing but saving people and being a true hero, all without powers, and wants his approval of the name. Ted himself… Is unsure. This is a guy who hasn’t been perfect, despite Jon’s claims, and now learns that he has to die for the world to be safe, although the world can never know about his sacrifice.
Comedy wise, this is a buddy cop film. The humor itself mostly comes from Booster and Jaime’s personalities coming to clash, but also in part thanks to some very Lion King 2 ½ esque scenes where Booster looks outside his comic book shop during the Zod invasion, as well as Ted and Jon’s untold importance in the DCEU. We see that Beetle was on Luthor’s tail long before Batman was, as well as Carter’s sly references to future events in the DC Universe, namely his chalkboard of references.
The film also sets up the future of the DCEU, as Zack Snyder has pointed out before that he wishes to use smaller characters in the Justice League film, such as Blue Beetle. The whole point would that Jaime would go on to join the JL during Darkseid’s invasion, and would come back to Booster and continue his journey, whether that be more time travel or facing the Reach.
In the end, will this be the direction Greg Berlanti takes? I dont know. Maybe it will, maybe it wont. Will it still be lighthearted, fun, adventourus, and a buddy cop film? or will Warner Bros want a different direction?
Time will tell. In the meantime, have a good one my friends.
-WO