The ‘Blue Beetle’ End Credits Tease a Surprise Character—and a Sequel?

(Warning: Spoilers follow for Blue Beetle.)

Latinos finally get their own big-screen superhero this weekend with Blue Beetle, an adaptation of a lesser-known comic-book character who derives his power from both his insectoid alien armor (courtesy of a symbiotic scarab) and, in true Dom Toretto fashion, from his close-knit family.

Arriving at the tail end of this chapter of Warner Bros’ DC universe—which is on the cusp of a major reboot spearheaded by James Gunn and Peter Safran—Ángel Manuel Soto’s film is a second-rate adventure stitched together with elements from countless superior spectaculars. While it leans heavily into its Mexican heritage, no amount of telenovela-themed jokes and Spanish-language soundtrack cuts can gussy up its generic blandness. Barring a surprise box-office performance, it’s hard to imagine Blue Beetle factoring into the reconfigured franchise’s future plans.

Nonetheless, that doesn't stop Blue Beetle from featuring two end credits scenes. The second is simply a joke, featuring a handful of quick snippets from the Mexican Claymation kids series Charlito that are punctuated by George Lopez’s wisecracking Uncle Rudy stating, “Oh, that’s sexy.”

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The preceding stinger, however, is the one that suggests director Soto would like to expand upon this origin story, which pits college-grad-turned-unwitting-do-gooder Jaime Reyes (Cobra Kai’s Xolo Maridueña) against evil corporate tycoon Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon) in a battle for the scarab, which grants Jaime his extraordinary abilities and which Victoria wants for its “code,” since that will complete her mecha-soldier technology. Much CGI fighting and Reyes clan tomfoolery ensues, all of which is defined by considerable comedic hysteria and energy-blaster action.

Blue Beetle also has Jaime fall in love with Victoria’s niece Jenny (Bruna Marquezine), a compassionate board member who runs afoul of her aunt for opposing Kord Industries’ militaristic business. As we learn throughout the course of Jaime’s journey, Jenny’s dad Ted Kord was chosen by his father to run the family company, but he went missing years ago and, in his mysterious absence, Victoria seized control.

Moreover, Ted was the original Blue Beetle, albeit a different one than Jaime; unable to unlock the full potential of the scarab, Ted was akin to a more eccentric Batman, replete with a host of gadgets, a flying bug-eyed airship, and a secret lair located beneath his mansion. Jenny misses Ted, and his doohickeys come in handy during the climax, but his fate is left uncertain by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer’s script. As the end credits scene makes clear, there’s a reason for that haziness.

In the wake of Jaime’s triumph against Victoria, the film returns to Ted’s secret lair, where everything suddenly powers on, Air Supply’s “All Out of Love” starts playing, and a strange transmission begins on one of the room’s screens. Through the static, a face is barely discernible, but a voice is audible. It’s Ted, who seems to have been awakened—or afforded a heretofore unavailable communication channel—by the activation of his hideout, and he has a message for his daughter: “I’m alive! Ted Kord is alive!” This is big news for Jenny and, presumably, for Jaime, who’ll now have an elder-statesman tech-genius superhero predecessor in just the same way that Ant-Man’s Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) has original crime fighter Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). It’s also significant for fans of the film, who now know that additional Blue Beetle installments are apparently in the cards.

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But then, are they really? Despite its cultural embellishments, Blue Beetle is a most hackneyed superhero effort, all photocopied razzle dazzle and corny platitudes about family, and that extends to this sequel tease, which implies some sort of rote pairing between old- and new-school Beetles. For those few who are deeply invested in the character of Ted Kord, or were wowed by Jaime’s maiden saga, this will be exciting stuff. For everyone else, however, it’ll play as one more clichéd gesture in a film teeming with them.

That said, it probably won’t matter either way, given that Blue Beetle is a holdover from the prior DC regime, and doubtful to survive the coming Gunn/Safran changeover—meaning that hopes for a sophomore Blue Beetle outing have likely already been squashed.

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