DCU Comic Book Reviews

BLUE BEETLE #4

Person of Interest

August 2006

Written by Keith Giffen & John Rogers

Pencils by Cully Hamner

Inks by Cully Hamner

Cover by Duncan Rouleau & David Self

Synopsis

While surfing the internet for information on the previous versions of the Blue Beetle, Jaime receives a transmission from Oracle of the Birds of Prey.  She wants to send a operative to El Paso, but Jaime wants to know where they were when he disappeared for a year.  At the El Paso Medical Center, medical tests reveal Jaime is in perfect health.  Elsewhere, La Dama sends one or her men, Diviner, to confirm the rumors of the Blue Beetle.  Walking home from school with Paco and Brenda, Jaime decides to tell Brenda his secret.  Before he can change, he is suddenly attacked by walking trees.  As the Blue Beetle, he is able to defeat the trees. Later, Jaime decides he is tired of not knowing what he is going on. He tells Paco to tell the Posse that he wants answers.  Now.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

“Did the shadowy genius mastermind behind the world’s greatest heroes just fail to recruit a sixteen year old boy?”

So far, this series has really intrigued me.  With a strong balance between humor, action, and mystery, this is one of the best new series to debut since the One Year Later launch.  My biggest fear with this series is the potential for the writers to reveal too much too soon or to integrate Jaime into the DC universe of heroes too soon.  As much as I like Oracle and the Birds of Prey, it was refreshing to have Jaime turn down their offer of help.  The cover to this issue has Oracle all over it, but she barely appears for a page or two, which is fine.  The slow learning process and the gradual introduction of the various elements in the story (who is that man on the motorcycle?) are part of what make this a good read each month.  If Jaime gets answers too quickly, or if he gets help from other heroes, I think the book will suffer.  By the same token, if the book could easily become stale if nothing is revealed or nothing moves forward.  For this issue, we finally see La Dama and see she has big plans and we also learn an important aspect of the beetle’s nature regarding its relationship to, well, nature.  Both of these points move the story forward or reveal new information, but don’t reveal too much that make me ask the same question to both revelations:  why?  I can’t wait to find out the answers in the coming months.

  

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