Blue Beetle

Blue Beetle is the name of three fictional superheroes who appear in a number of American comic books published by a variety of companies since 1939. The most recent of the companies to own rights to Blue Beetle is DC Comics, which bought the rights to the character in 1983, using the name for three distinct characters over the years.

The original Blue Beetle was created by Charles Nicholas Wojtkoski and Fox Comics and later owned by Charlton Comics. The first Beetle was Dan Garret (later spelled Dan Garrett), who initially gained superpowers from a special vitamin, which was later changed to gaining powers from a "sacred scarab". The original Blue Beetle was featured in not only his own comic but also a weekly radio serial.

The second Blue Beetle, created by Charlton and later taken over by DC Comics, was the successor to Dan Garrett known as Ted Kord. Kord "jumped" to the DC Comics universe during the Crisis on Infinite Earths alongside a number of other Charlton Comics characters. The second Blue Beetle later starred in his own 24-issue comic. Kord never had any super powers but used science to create various devices to help him fight crime. He became a member of the Justice League of America and was later killed during DC Comics' Infinite Crisis cross over.

The third Blue Beetle, created by DC Comics, is Jaime Reyes, a teenager who discovers that the original Blue Beetle scarab morphs into a battle suit allowing him to fight crime and travel in space. Over the years, Reyes became a member of the Teen Titans and starred in two Blue Beetle comic series. In DC Comics' 2011 "New 52" reboot, Jaime Reyes was the primary Blue Beetle character, only occasionally referring to past versions. With the subsequent continuity revision "DC Rebirth", the previous versions were restored.