Where Does Blue Beetle Fit in the DCU and DCEU?

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Blue Beetle is one of the last films in the current DC Extended Universe. Now at the helm of the DC Universe, James Gunn and Peter Safran have said that, even though the franchise will receive a “fresh start” in a few years with the release of Gunn’s Superman: Legacy, there is the potential for some of the characters from the DC Extended Universe to return. Audiences and fans are clamoring to see whether the newest hero to enter the fray, Blue Beetle, will be among those set to return. Does Blue Beetle tease a return for the superhero in more movies in the future?

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Blue Beetle is Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña), a Latino college graduate, who is selected by an alien scarab to be its host, giving him a powerful suit of armor that turns him into a superhero. He is then hunted by a villainous CEO, Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon), who hopes to harness the power of the scarab to create an army of super-soldiers.

If it wasn’t obvious, the rest of this article will contain SPOILERS for Blue Beetle.

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Also Read: Blue Beetle Review: Representation Strong in Fun but Generic DC Flick

What happens in Blue Beetle?

After Jaime Reyes gets his powers, Kord and her henchman Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo) set out to capture him. They encounter him at the Reyes family home, where they incapacitate Jaime, burn the house down, and Jaime’s father Alberto (Damián Alcázar) dies of a heart attack. Eventually, Kord and Carapax succeed and take Jaime to harvest the power of the scarab. 

While Kord’s team extracts the scarab’s code, Jaime fully syncs with it, allowing him to break free of his bonds, but not before Carapax is enhanced by the scarab’s power. A fight ensues, and Jaime reigns victorious. However, before he is able to kill Carapax, avenging his father, the scarab convinces him to spare Carapax’s life. Carapax sacrifices himself to kill Cord and destroy the batch of scarabs Kord has built to create her army of enhanced soldiers.

Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine) is named the CEO of her aunt’s company and announces an initiative to return the company to its foundations of creating technology to help people. After Alberto’s funeral, Jenny and Jaime share a kiss before flying off to her childhood home — which contains the lair of her father, Ted Kord, who was the previous Blue Beetle.

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Will Blue Beetle be in the DCU?

Unlike the other 2023 DC Extended Universe movies, Blue Beetle does not feature any cameos from other DC superheroes. While Shazam! Fury of the Gods had a cameo from Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, and The Flash featured Ben Affleck as Batman and Jason Momoa as Aquaman, Blue Beetle remains a relatively self-contained origin story. However, the film does acknowledge the existence of other superheroes with mentions of characters like Batman and Flash.

The post-credits scene of Blue Beetle does not set up an interconnected world for the character, but rather, a subsequent entry in which this iteration of the character — Jaime Reyes — may get to team up with a former version of Blue Beetle from the comics, Ted Kord. This means that Reyes’s form of Blue Beetle could very well return in James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new DC Universe, as there is no explicit connection to the previous DC Extended Universe.

What do you think? Will they bring back Blue Beetle in more movies in the new DCU? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!

Also Read: Blue Beetle: Every Version of the DCU Superhero Explained Including Xolo Maridueña’s Jaime Reyes

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Written by Sean Boelman

Film Critic and member of the CACF.

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