Blue Beetle (2023) Trailer Review and Breakdown

By Jose Bermudez

The first trailer for Blue Beetle, the newest entry in the DC Cinematic Universe, has dropped and delivers on all the fun, chaos and excitement I would expect from a character not living in the dark, “blue filtered” world of previous films from that universe.

The Blue Beetle is the story of Jaime Reyes, a young Mexican American boy from Palmera City (originally El Paso) who is transformed into a battle armor clad superhero via a mystical/technological Blue Scarab artifact that attaches itself to his spine. 

As the trailer begins, we see Jaime surveying the ocean from a beach resort deck looking like an important man contemplating the world. He is quickly brought back to reality by his sister Milagros, who reminds them they’re there for their menial jobs as resort housekeepers. Jaime is a dreamer with doubts of ever succeeding, but as Milagros reminds him in her mocking and loving way: “You always land on your feet, bro. You’re Jaime”.  Cut to an embarrassed Jaime who shows up to a job interview, at Kord Industries, with his family in tow chanting his name.

Jaime! Jaime! Jaime!

Later, at Kord Industries, Jaime looks toward a descending elevator with a young lady he knows as Jenny riding down. She exits the elevator with a package in both hands, distressed as alarms go off and building security is running along an upper floor.


What’s in the box?

In the middle of all the pandemonium, Jenny hands Jaime a box and tells him to guard it with his life but not open it.  He brings the box home and it’s a BIG BELLY BURGER! This is clearly the first sign we’re in the same DC universe as the other heroes: Batman, The Flash, Superman, etc. Seeing that John Byrne caricature on the box always makes me smile.


You went in to get us jobs, but all you brought back was a hamburger?

The box is opened and, instead of a hamburger, a blue trinket in the shape of a beetle is inside.  Jaime is wowed as the scarab begins to walk on his hand and he finds himself amused as he thinks it is showing he likes him.


I think it likes me.

But the fascination and wonder over this charming little scarab turns quickly into a little horror show as it goes all Ridley Scott on Jaime and makes like a ”facehugger” from Alien clamping down on Jaime’s face. Uncle Rudy, played by George Lopez, tries to fight it off of Jaime but is soon zapped by an electrical charge that releases energy all around the neighborhood. Then it attaches itself to Jaime’s spine where it makes a series of transformations that are reminiscent of everything from TheExorcist, Venom and even Iron Man. At the end of the transformation, it becomes a self-contained suit of alien metal armor which rockets Jaime through the roof and out into space.


Oh! I’m in space.

Panicky at first, Reyes finds a quiet calmness as he is in the mesosphere and takes in the fact he is out in space. The calmness is, however, short lived as the suit announces its descent with re-entry systems ready and it starts a rapid dive towards earth. It stops within inches of crashing into the ocean as gossamer wings flutter out and he hovers over the surface like a hummingbird.


Float like a butterfly, sting like a beetle.

One brief logo teaser later and Jenny is shown leading the Reyes family through sliding doors in what appears to be a Kord Industries lab. She begins to explain the nature of the scarab and the suit as alien technology used to destroy worlds and protect its host. The scarab will protect but mostly acts on its own independent of its host


Jenny leads the way

The next clip shows how it protects its host by creating a cocoon like force shield with a razor front as a bus comes toward Jaime on the street.


I think I cut a bus in half.

The next group of clips show what appears to be an entire array of mini scarabs followed by a clip of Vicki Kord, played by Susan Sarandon, explaining to Jaime that the scarab chose him, but it still belongs to her. 


The scarab chose you, but it belongs to me

And in a fashion befitting an evil industrialist with all the power money can buy, we see her try to regain the scarab as her minions tear through the Reyes household. And we are introduced to the suit’s first real menace in the form of Carapax , played by Raoul Max Trujillo. Carapax concern trolls Jaime by proclaiming that his biggest weakness is his love for family.


The love you feel for your family makes you weak!

Jaime is clearly in beast mode with his family in danger and tears through baddies while they are hiding out in what may be Ted Kord’s laboratory. Ted Kord was the non-scarabed Blue Beetle before Jaime and is/was Vicki Kord’s brother. His family shows that they’re no slouches as we see Uncle Rudy firing up Ted Kord’s ”Bug” as if he were taking his carrucha out for a Sunday drive on the boulevard.


Fighting for family


Love for a family that is not weak is not a weakness. I mean checkout out Nana’s
big gat!


There is a reason this will remind you of The Watchmen. Long story.

At the end of a fairly busy action montage we get one of the only welcomed cliches in comic books and comic book movies: The “Uncle Ben” validation. Just as Uncle Ben told Peter Parker about great power and responsibility, Uncle Rudy says to young Jaime: “The universe has sent you a gift, and you have to figure out what you’re going to do with it”. 



After all that we finally get Jaime learning the scope of the suit’s powers as it explains how much he can do with the power of his own imagination. This is how we find out Jaime has some crazy love for Final Fantasy VII as he conjures up a sick Buster Sword.


We cut to one more logo screen


And then we get a trailer’s equivalent of an end credit scene with  Jaime’s family/Team Blue Beetle sifting through all the tech and gadgets from Ted Kord’s Blue Beetle days. 


On the left, in the background, we see the original golden age Blue Beetle costume worn by Dan Garret.
On the right is the Ted Kord costume. It’s a perfect comic book match. 


It ends with Uncle Rudy giving the funniest line in the trailer: ”Batman is a fascist!”

This trailer surprised me in a very good way.  The casting couldn’t have been more perfect. They actually cast actors from Mexico to play Jaime’s parents and Nana. The Spanish will be spoken with the correct Mexican accents and none of that awkward ”Spanglish” that is used more for flavor than any attempt to get the culture correct.

The tone is spot on. Keith Giffen, who created Jaime Reyes, always wrote with a consciousness that made room for humor and it’s very evident in this trailer that the writers were keeping that same vibe. 

One of my favorite new elements is the strength of a family that knows the secrets and how they are a cohesive and supporting unit. Jaime doesn’t have to be a lonely unreluctant hero. He has a family team.

Saving the best for last. Xolo Maridueña shows us why he was pursued for this role. His natural charisma, acting and ability to do action was never in doubt. I have been this guy’s biggest fan since the first episode of Cobra Kai.  To say I’m proud of Xolo and how he represents the latino community would be an understatement. I’ll be first in line to see this in August.

Cobra Kai creator teases when S6 will begin.

By Peter Veunnasack

Contains spoilers for Cobra Kai Seasons 2-5.

Late Monday night Jon Hurwitz quote tweeted Twitter user @bryanedwardhill and had this to say:

“Similarly, S6 of Cobra Kai begins roughly a year after our S2 finale. Time moves slowly in the Miyagiverse. #CobraKai #KarateKid”

Twitter

Let me remind you some of the things that happened in the S2 finale “No Mercy”.

  • (Aug/Sep 2018) Daniel finds Robby and Sam at Johnny’s apartment and Daniel briefly squares off with his high school frenemy before being stopped by their respective offspring.
  • The teenagers return to school after a cruel summer and a karate war ensues in the halls of West Valley High School.
  • Sensei Kreese takes over Cobra Kai.
  • Johnny abandons his Dodge Challenger and throws away his phone as he’s getting a friend request from Ali Mills Schwarber over Kari Kimmel’s haunting rendition of Bananarama’s Cruel Summer.

That was all in the finale. Since then, Daniel has gone to Okinawa, setting up his relationship with Chozen, who ultimately comes to the United States to help his friend take down Silver’s Cobra Kai.

Jon mentions “time moves slowly in the Miyagiverse”. Limited to 10 episodes a season, the writers understand the plot points they need to cover in order to tell the narrative of their story. And because of that, some things have to move fast. Miguel’s recovery, many of the students’ advancements in karate skills just to name a couple. Devon Lee was introduced in S4 and by the finale of S5 she had already enrolled into 3 different karate dojos made it to black belt.

Could we see a bit of a time jump at the beginning of S6? Jon’s “roughly a year after our S2 finale.” would put us in the fall of 2019. Most of the teenagers are entering their senior year so could we skip pass the first days of school? What about Terry Silver being incarcerated and John Kreese escaping prison after assaulting law enforcement and a doctor? I’m confident these questions are being brought up in the writers room, which has been opened since early February.

“BIGGEST SEASON OF COBRA KAI YET”? Many in the fandom speculate that “biggest” means either a longer runtime on the season or possibly more episodes! The writers use their words carefully when crafting out a script. They can fill many gaps using dialogue without having to show us everything. So many questions with one final season to answer them.

Tell me if you’ve interpreted Jon Hurwitz’s tweet differently below.

Ralph Macchio recently mentioned at the ATL Comic Con that they could start filming in May. We learned from writer/producer Michael Jonathan Smith that in the previous season, they were able to start filming with two scripts ready as they were polishing the rest of the episodes.

Timeline from tvtropes.org was used as a reference. Visit for a more extensive timeline.

You can follow me on Twitter or Instagram.