#carapax

In the comics, Jaime has a theme of choice. He can't choose the hand he's dealt, but he can choose what to do with it. He had no choice with the scarab, but he made do and became a hero when it was expected he would be an infiltrator or a general threat.

While it's more subtle than his family, Jaime and Carapax in the movie emphasize it, especially at the end.

When the movie begins, Jaime can't choose his family's situation, but he chooses to stay and help instead of getting them in more debt with grad school. He gets a job, and chooses to defend Jenny before even knowing she's a Kord. Jaime chooses to use his powers to help, chooses not to kill, and chooses to synchronize and accept the scarab when before he had been trying to have it removed. He chooses to work with Khaji Da, and chooses to address the people in his life. He chooses to see people as people.

2026/05/15 carapax YORGO FLAT #1 CIGVË TRIGGER OBJECT MARGARETH UKNOWN / WJM HEBBEX D’EXPECTATIO EXPECTATA RUMP STATE .PK./JDZ SISTEMI AUDIOFOBICI BURP Zaubergarten Berlin - DE

Firefist was there to fight Jaime even tho that fucker died in Ted's run. (Like, a lot of Ted's villains fucking died in their confrontations with Ted. In his DC solo usually from their own bullshit offing them, he did kill people occasionally pre-DC)

And that fucking redesign of Carapax to be steam powered to avoid being defeated via technological means? Ted didn't defeat that fucker through technological means, he just keep dumping Carapax's heavy robot ass into deep bodies of water to buy time.

But also why the fuck would Catalyst be here? Just for payback on a dead man he ran into all of once when the writers never fucking got to the potential bigger storyline with him, the kidnapping, and the corporate espionage?

And also just blatantly not utilizing fuckers effectively is also what gets my goat. Like? The Live action movie utilized Carapax well as a threat for Jaime to fight (made him a whole different character in the process, but frankly it was an improvement). If yer gonna have villains fighting above their weight class, you gotta have them fucking fight smart rather than just throwing them at Jaime as a group for the sake of a fucking cameo/callback and shitting on Ted's era further by choosing not to utilize bitches better.

Like? Catalyst especially, is not a fucker that attacks people directly. He's a fucking corporate spy who sneaks up on, drugs people, and then kidnaps or kills them. Why the fuck is he here attacking in the open with a big ass group rather than targeting and kidnapping Jaime's family?

The Masked Marauder too is also a sneaky spy type bitch who is not about some fucking action unless he catches someone he thinks he can take off guard and isolated. If he does fight he's fighting just enough to get the fuck out of dodge. Like, make him a fucking mastermind type and organizing shit from the shadows instead of just putting a bunch of Ted's villains on page just to show them and then toss them aside.

---

But its also shit like how no one fucking seems to get the Madmen even tho they have an extremely simple premise. They're distractions for hire (formerly a gang of bank robbers and occasionally opportunistically commit crimes on their own) they dress like clowns and act wacky to distract superheroes while their clients commit crimes while the superheroes are distracted.

It's a very simple premise! Also its a very easy villain group to keep going, franchise shit its a business have new fuckers take up the grease paint.

The fact that writers outside of the Blue Beetle 1986 run kept trying to give their leader Fleeter fucking mind control powers to make him more of a threat while failing to address the fact that if the fucker can mind control people to be his minions why wouldnt he just mind control Ted? But also the Madmen aren't following Fleeter against their will, they're homies and have practiced shit a lot don't fucking be lazy and try to undermine that. They don't need powers, they're literally just dudes who's entire thing is being distracting they dont need to be much more.

(But also stop underestimating a bunch of very athletic dudes? Like there's a good number of superheroes that are literally just athletic dudes, they can be just as threatening.)

And probably the worst incarnation of the Madmen were the Madniks (granted that's a really cute sounding name) from the DCAU tie in comics where they just fucking made them 'crazy' wereclowns like the DCAU's version of the Creeper. Which is bad thanks.

---

Just... you can tell how much folks don't give a shit about Ted Kord/Blue Beetle 2 outside of the shit from Justice League International and its spawn and spinoffs and that in turn means folks don't give a shit about Ted's villains.

---

— BLUE BEETLE.

Part One, 500 Screencaps.

Part Two, 405 Screencaps.

ages ago, after i finally watched the blue beetle movie, i wondered what life would have been like for carapax if he had survived the end of the movie. obviously he would have been in Serious Medical Trouble because of the explosion but.

what would he do with his new life? how would jaime react? would he have to go into hiding? DOES HE KNOW TED IS STILL ALIVE?

A lil more introspection-y but here!

His body moves without his order, as it so often has done. His skin has burned, fused with the half melted metal that functioned as armor and as skeleton in one, that he once allowed to be made part of himself. His lungs protest the smoke, dirty and dark. Not woodsmoke, not a cookfire, but destruction.

He should be dead. The woman he dragged into the heart of the fire is, so much charred bone and flesh. For all her power, she was nothing more than that. And He lives. She never thought of him by any name but the weapon he was. He will not deign to name her in his mind, even sluggish with pain.

He should be dead. The boy, the beetle, they both together ought to have cut him down. That would have been just. The fire should have claimed him. That would have been natural. But they spared him. That has always been the way of flame: to take and take and leave just a little in the ash.

He stands. One leg, the other. His body understands what his mind strains to: that he must move. For what? To find the boy and hope he strikes in mercy? To find the dead man, also wronged by the woman he tried to die destroying? To what end? There is no end.