The Blue Beetle’s Most Formidable Foes

With Blue Beetle coming to the big screen in live-action for the first time in August, it’s time to start brushing up on his comic book history. He’s a bit of an obscure hero, but his comic book arcs hold lots of potential, especially because he has come up against some very formidable villains over the years. While the film is focusing on the Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) iteration of the hero, it will delve into Blue Beetle’s comic book history, as it features a villain who originated with the first Blue Beetle (Dan Garrett) as well as characters related to the second Blue Beetle, Ted Kord.

If Reyes sticks around in the DC Universe, pretty much all of the villains in Blue Beetle’s comic history would be fair game to adapt. Several Blue Beetle villains stand out in DC Comics, and they are the ones who keep coming back to become arch nemeses, and who have the best motives and strongest or most unique powers. Here are the 10 best Blue Beetle villains that we’d be interested in seeing in the DCU.

Silverback

Silverback is to Blue Beetle what Gorilla Grodd is to the Flash. Silverback might even be more terrifying than Grodd, though, considering his mind was transferred into a nearly impenetrable mechanical body, making him a gorilla cyborg. He was a member of the Brotherhood of Evil but got frustrated when his teammates failed to secure the scarab from Blue Beetle. Silverback threatened to kill all of them if they messed up again and set out after Blue Beetle himself. In addition to his powerful mechanical body and brute strength, he carries an arsenal of guns everywhere he goes, making him a particularly terrifying foe for Reyes.

Doctor Polaris

Inspired by his predecessor, Neal Emerson, John Nichol became the second Doctor Polaris in DC Comics. He was an evil person with a disdain for rules and preferred to use criminal tactics to get ahead. From Emerson’s lectures, he was able to give himself the power of magnetic manipulation. He can alter magnetic fields in a person’s brain, as well as the electromagnetic field of Earth, and move and lift any metallic object. With his power and ruthlessness, he managed to get his grip on the crime syndicate Intergang and left a trail of corpses everywhere he went. Doctor Polaris is an underrated but extremely powerful DC villain who came very close to killing Blue Beetle.

Chronos

David Clinton (a.k.a. Chronos) is best known as the archenemy of the Atom, but when the Atom abandoned his superhero duties, Blue Beetle stepped in stop the villain. Clinton was a petty criminal who became obsessed with time while in prison. He proved to be something of a genius by using impeccable timing to improve his criminal activity. Later, he developed time-inspired weapons and technology to directly manipulate time. He never had much motivation aside from personal gain, but his brilliance and eventual ability to manipulate time through research alone was quite impressive.

Carapax the Indestructible Man

Conrad Carapax was an archeologist who went to the site of Dan Garrett’s death, believing he died while discovering archeological treasure. Instead, Garrett died as Blue Beetle, and went down fighting Jarvis Kord and an army of robots. When Carapax stumbled on the remains of this technology, he was killed and had his consciousness transferred into the body of an indestructible robot. He went mad after this incident and became a killing machine that none of the Blue Beetles have been able to permanently defeat. It will be exciting to see this dangerous madman with a powerful and indestructible robot body make his DCU debut in Blue Beetle.

Jarvis Kord

Jarvis Kord is the evil Uncle of the second Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, as well as the villain responsible for killing the first Blue Beetle. Jarvis was a mad scientist and robot engineer who began constructing an army of indestructible robots to take over the world. He even manipulated Ted into helping him build the robots by hiding what he was actually creating and its purpose. When Ted learned the truth, he and Garrett set out to stop his uncle. Refusing to be defeated, Jarvis purposefully caused his robots to self-destruct, killing both him and Garrett in the process. Jarvis has a short history, but he’s one of the most twisted villains on this list and one of the few who actually succeeded in killing a Blue Beetle.

The Reach

The Reach are the extraterrestrial species that built the scarab that gives Blue Beetle his powers. They are a species of conquerors who would deploy their scarabs onto planets as a means of gathering intelligence before conquering it. If The Reach’s plan had worked, the scarab would’ve made Blue Beetle an agent of The Reach and the destroyer of his own world. However, the scarab malfunctioned, allowing Reyes to develop a symbiotic relationship with it and later expose and defeat The Reach. With their extremely advanced technology and covert methods, though, they conquered 10,000 worlds. Ironically, they’re both the creators of Blue Beetle and one of his most powerful enemies.

Black Beetle

Black Beetle is one of Blue Beetle’s most mysterious villains. His identity is never revealed, though he sometimes claimed to be Hector, a man avenging the death of his sister, and other times claimed to be a future version of Reyes himself. Black Beetle is from the future and travels back in time under the pretense of helping Reyes and Garrett save Kord. However, it is revealed his true intentions are to change the timeline to benefit a group of supervillains from the future known as the Time Stealers. Somehow, along the way, he also came into possession of a scarab, giving him all the powers of Blue Beetle. He’s an evenly matched foe with Blue Beetle, and his secret identity and trickery make him a very interesting villain.

Maxwell Lord

Maxwell Lord is a criminal mastermind and Metahuman with mind control abilities who orchestrated the formation of the Justice League International (JLI) and secretly sabotaged it from within for years. His Metahuman status did nothing to stop him from developing an intense hatred of Metahumans and superhumans. Lord used his powers and brilliance to become the head of Checkmate, a spy organization where he kept tabs on and manipulated the Metahuman community, even using them to try to take out superhumans at times. Unfortunately, when Kord discovered what Lord was doing in the JLI, Lord murdered him to cover his tracks.

You probably recognize Maxwell Lord as the antagonist from Wonder Woman 1984, in which he was played by Pedro Pascal. His brilliance, manipulation, and ruthlessness make him a very terrifying villain and one we’d like to see return in the DCU.

Victoria Kord

DC Comics gave Victoria Kord a brief comic book backstory ahead of her appearance in Blue Beetle. It turns out that Victoria is the sister of Ted Kord and the brilliant CEO of Kord Industries. She’s an interesting villain because she doesn’t seem very evil, just misguided. Victoria believes that all alien technology is dangerous and wants to collect all scarabs. Reyes isn’t willing to just hand her his scarab, but Victoria is prepared to go quite far to get it. Additionally, readers aren’t entirely sure what she plans to do when she has all the scarabs or if safety is her only motivation. Her brilliance, shadowy motivations, and connection to Blue Beetle make her a very interesting villain.

La Dama

La Dama is perhaps the most formidable female villain to become an arch nemesis of Blue Beetle. Her real name is Amparo Cardenas, and she is the aunt of Reyes’ friend, Brenda. On the surface, Amparo is the kind aunt who adopted an orphaned Brenda, but in reality, she murdered Brenda’s father to get close to her and Blue Beetle. She calls herself La Dama and claims to be a powerful ancient entity. Meanwhile, her research into magic gave her several powerful abilities. She doesn’t need to use her powers often, though, because she’s also a formidable crime boss who operates in the shadows and has countless other villains to do her bidding. However, she does kill fellow villain Coyote when he fails to secure Blue Beetle’s scarab.

It’s unclear if La Dama really is an ancient being and what her motivations are. Her manipulation, ruthless methods, and dominance in the criminal world make us want to see more of her in the comics and on screen.

(featured image: DC Comics)