I love both these characters, their stories are light hearted, fun, action packed, humorous, and interesting. Now you might be wondering, why I'm not comparing these two heroes with the original Blue Beetle: Dan Garret from original Blue Beetle comics. Well its because he is not as popular as Kord and Reyes but I still love Dan Garret. For those of you who are unfortunate to not know of this great hero, I'll lay down a summary. (WARNING, THIS HISTORY LESSON IS LONG, IF YOU ALREADY KNOW ALL ABOUT THE BLUE BEETLE AND JUST WANT TO SEE THE COMPARISON GO DOWN TO THE BOLD LETTERING.)
In 1939, the character of Blue Beetle (Dan Garret) was first featured in Fox Comics' Mystery Men Comics #1 which was written by the creator of The Spirit himself: Will Eisner, who's grave was spit on by Frank Miller with The Spirit movie...I hate Miller. Also I just realized, Blue Beetle and original Spirit crossover would have been awesome. The art was done by Charles Nicholas Wojtkoski of Fox Comics. The main story was that a rookie cop named Blue Beetle took a new drug called Vitamin 2X and it gave him super-energy and he wore a bullet-proof suit. Remember kids always take drugs to get superpowers! His run in comics didn't last long, I've never read those comics but I hear they are pretty good. Because of the fall of Fox Comics in the mid 50s and the rise of the Golden Age of Comics, Blue Beetle faded into obscurity but was still around in a radio-show like the Spirit. After the fall of Fox Comics, the Blue Beetle comics were bought up by Charlton Comics who are responsible for the creation of characters like Captain Atom and E-Man. No that's not He-Man spelled wrong. Over the years, Blue Beetle was still in obscurity but still surviving, he went through a reboot when he was owned by AC Comics, this version is the one most people remember: Archaeologist Dan Garrett finds a mystic scarab in Egypt and it gave him the power to fight crime and so he would transform into the Blue Beetle by yelling the words "Kaji-Dah!" This reboot I've heard is awesome but why don't we get to the the guys we're supposed to be talking about. In 1967, co-creator of my favorite Marvel superhero Spider-Man: Steve Ditko wrote the revision series about Ted Kord, a student of Dan Garret who is given the scarab when Garret is killed but the scarab didn't bond with him like Garret so he did not obtain powers, but he wanted to continue the work of the Blue Beetle so similar to Batman, he built an array of blue beetle themed gadgets, suit, and vehicles and he went out into the night to fight crime. I love Ted Kord he was a fantastic hero, I'm going to save my opinions until the comparison but I have to give credit, I love was Ditko did. May his legacy live on in his creations: Ted Kord, Spider-Man, the Question, Doctor Strange, etc. The fanbase for Blue Beetle grew over the years even those he kept switching companies but it wasn't until the 80s when DC Comics bought the rights and he's been there since. The series of Ted Kord ended in 1987 with the comic most Blue Beetle fans rage over where Blue Beetle is killed off mercilessly by the villain by getting shot...I'll save my thoughts for the comparison. The series ended there but...in Infinite Crisis #3 in 2006 the new Blue Beetle was revealed indicating a new series. Jaime Reyes from El Paso, found the Scarab of the original Blue Beetle and it bonded to him, allowing him to become the new Blue Beetle in a metal/biological suit (Think Guyver meets Iron Man) in his new series, and it kicked ass! The series was a fun as hell series...until DC cancelled it due to low sales....CRAP! See fans of Blue Beetle were so biased about loving Ted Kord that no one could replace him so they looked at this new version and pretty much said, "Screw that!" Kind of like how Doctor Who fans feel about new regenerations every single time, they hate him at first but grow to love him. Jaime Reyes has returned once again in the New 52 reboot series...but I'm not fan. There's nothing horrible about the first issue I read, I just really didn't get into it as much as the 2006 one.
(NOW THE COMPARISON BEGINS)
So these two great heroes need to be compared by a huge fan of them, why not me? We're going to put this into four categories
Personality.
Action.
Art.
Story.
Let's begin this is Ted Kord VS Jaime Reyes: The Blue Beetle
Personality: Both of these characters are likable in their own ways, one is the man who wants to do the right thing while keeping respect to his mentor and his identity of the Blue Beetle. The other is a teenager who is gifted with this high tech scarab and responsibility and is trying to learn the right moral values in life while dealing with the alien race that built the Scarab or other threats to Earth, but who's personality is better? Kind of a hard choice but I have to go with Ted Kord, even though I definitely connected to Jaime seeing how I'm also a teenager, I just found the Indiana Jones like personality of Ted Kord to put more of a smile on my face.
Action: Now just because the action of today's comics are much more EXTREEEEEEME doesn't mean its more satisfying, this category is judged by the style, execution, and how much the action satisfies me. Both the action of Kord and Reyes are done really well, of course their wasn't a lot of flying around with explosions in Kord's fights because it was the Silver Age of Comics at the time, but in my personal opinion and I will try not to do this in the future but I think the action gets a tie from both sides. I just couldn't choose between them.
Art: The art of Kord was also done by Steve Ditko when he was still part of it and honestly I love his art style, to me it is the definitive Silver Age art, but I love the art of Cully Hamner for Jaime Reyes's series, everything is well detailed and standing out. Sorry Ditko I love ya but this round goes to the new art of Cully Hamner.
Story: Now we come to the biggest of the four rounds: story. Which series had more heart, was more fun, had great characters, and which had better arcs? Well let's see, now both series had their rough endings, Jaime Reyes was cancelled and Kord was killed off in a cold way, although I didn't hate his death as much as anyone else. Yes, his death sucks but at least he was killed on panel, gave a cool line to go out on, and we got to feel emotionally invested when he died, unlike in so many comics when famous heroes die off screen for dumb reasons, so I liked the ending of the Ted Kord series but I was still bummed that he died. The stories he had were greatly written and most of them aren't dated that much. Let's talk about Jaime Reyes, his story about fighting the Reach, the creators of the Scarab was a great story arc, and it had great science fiction ideas, fun characters, and awesome comedy. So who's going to be the tie-breaker and be the winner? It was hard for me to choose but...Jaime Reyes is the winner. I just felt more satisfied with his story even though it was never finished (Damn you DC) so I hope Jaime Reyes is doing good in his New 52 series.
