As Blue Beetle draws to a close, fledgling superhero Jamie Reyes has managed to stop Victoria Kord of Kord Industries from taking the alien tech from the scarab-shaped device that gives him his powers and perverting it into a devastating weapon for the military. In addition to some help from his family, Jamie was also aided by Jenny, Victoria Kord’s niece. Jenny’s father, the previous owner of Kord Industries, had studied the scarab but was unable to unlock its secrets. Still, he was inspired to be a superhero who also went by the name Blue Beetle, fighting crime with an array of self-designed gadgets before he mysteriously disappeared. And that disappearance is the only plot thread left untied off as the film’s credits begin to roll. But just because the credits are rolling it doesn’t mean that the movie is over.
Ted Kord Is Alive!
The mid-credits scene returns us to Ted Kord’s secret base for his Blue Beetle operations underneath the abandoned family estate. Lights flicker on, as does the computer terminal Uncle Rudy used to track Jamie to Victoria Kord’s compound on Pago Island. As the computer comes to life, it begins playing the song “I’m All Out Of Love” by the 1980s band Air Supply. But the song is interrupted by a squeal of static as one of the monitors lights up in a vastly distorted image of a face.
“Whoever turned on my computer, get a message to my daughter,” a voice intones through some digital static. “Please tell her that I love her and that her dad is still alive. Ted Kord is alive!”
But What Does It Mean?
And just like that, the movie answers, at least partly, one of it’s major questions that was left dangling at the end of the film – “What happened to Ted Kord?” – while simultaneously setting up a hoped for sequel. And that does seem like a logical direction for a follow-up film to go in. One of the major themes that runs through the DC Comics universe is that of legacy, new characters taking on the heroic mantle of older heroes and as Blue Beetle shows us, Jaime is now the third person to take on the Blue Beetle name, following Ted and before him, Dan Garret. This was all touched upon in the film, so it is already there for a sequel to explore further. The film also concentrated on Jaime’s family and their closeness, which stood in contrast to the relationship that villain Victoria Kord and her niece Jenny have. The theme of family would obviously be further explored as a second film followed the hunt for Ted.
And needless to say, it is conceivable that Ted could be playing a bigger role in the new, James Gunn overseen cinematic DC Universe. When Gunn took the reigns of the franchise, one of the future projects he announced was a made-for-HBO Max, now just Max, series centering on the character of Booster Gold. Booster is a time traveler from the 30th century who travels back to history’s Golden Age of Heroes, i.e., our present day, to become a hero in his own right utilizing his knowledge of the future and the advanced technology he brought back with him. In the comics, Booster and Ted are best friends, often getting into trouble when one of Booster’s latest get-rich-quick schemes goes hilariously and disastrously wrong. Fans have been enjoying the pairing of the Blue and the Gold in comics for three decades and it doesn’t feel like Gunn would ignore the possibilities of having the two together.
