#but also on a personal level: YES they captured the way Jaime leans on his family and his community in the comic perfectly in the movie!!

[stvlti]

Jaime's the title character of Blue Beetle, but in many ways, he's not its hero. At least, not its sole hero.

He's chosen by the alien mech-suit, yes, but he's anything but yet another Chosen One hero. He's not some lone figure charged with carrying the weight of responsibility on his own — he's part of a collective that offers him support and strength and moral guidance. He's not a Superman who floats above us, he's an Everyman who's one of us — because he doesn't simply protect those he loves, he entirely depends on them as well. And they, in turn, take extraordinary steps to save him when he's in danger, a neat inversion of the classic hero/sidekick relationship. His family members are not his sidekicks — they're all members of a team or, to put it another way: a community.

Fans have been saying that we need more diverse superhero stories in live action adaptations: diverse not just in representation but from the character archetypes shown on screen to the cultural specificities woven into the very quirks and plot beats of the narrative. We have in Blue Beetle the clearest example of what a movie like that looks like. Here's to hoping DC will continue on this trajectory after the win that is Jaime Reyes' own movie.

Go watch Blue Beetle if you haven't yet!

#blue beetle #op ed #what I've been reading #film talk #this is a gorgeously written piece of journalism #but also on a personal level: YES they captured the way Jaime leans on his family and his community in the comic perfectly in the movie!! #dc meta