"Is that the new Tamagotchi?" asks Rocio Reyes (Elpidia Carrillo) when her son Jaime (Xolo Maridueña) brings home a burger box containing a glowing metallic insect with fries. Er, no. What Gotham University graduate turned pool cleaner Jaime has actually stumbled upon is an ancient piece of alien biotech that wastes no time transforming him into a flying bug symbiote with scorpion-like antennae protruding from his back. "You’re a superhero, cabrón!" says his uncle Rudy (George Lopez) gleefully. In a world where Supes and Batman have things pretty much in check, though, is there any need for another?
It’s a question that looms large over indie helmer Angel Manuel Soto’s neon-lit postscript to a soon-to-be-revamped DCEU, especially given how alarmingly The Flash crashed and burned this summer. By setting its sights low, though, Blue Beetle nimbly accomplishes more, giving one of DC’s lesser-known crimefighters a sprightly Latin American makeover that, like Black Panther before it, allows a previously neglected demographic to have a champion they can call their own.
