Was anyone clamoring for a new Blue Beetle book? The Jamie Reyes version has already flopped twice and this one is actually worse than the previous two. The book doesn't even seem to follow the continuity established in the new 52 version. The Blue Beetle suit no longer comes from space I guess. Now it's magic based because Dr. Fate showed up and mysteriously said so. The previous version was a total ripoff of X-O Manowar, exact same origin.

The series has absolutely no direction and hardly any villains. Six or Seven plot threads are started and then left dangling. The story just meanders from one boring encounter to another with zero purpose. God, was this bad.

Hear that? That’s the sound of DC scraping the bottom of the Rebirth barrel with a title no-one was looking for: Blue Beetle! Just the name itself conjures up the lazy hackery that superhero comics can too often be. And, yes, Blue Beetle Rebirth is pure hack comics.

There’s no real story in this first (and probably penultimate!) volume. Some Latino kid in El Paso called Jaime Reyes is Blue Beetle because diversity and Ted Kord is his tech-savvy/super-rich Alfred. Together they fight probably the most obscure villains ever who’re only there to give Blue Beetle something to do. A gang of somehow even more forgettable nobodies called The Posse also join Blue Beetle on his tedious “adventures”. Also Doctor Fate is mysterious as usual for mystery’s sake.

Every issue struggles to make an impression on the reader and fails each time. The annoying characters’ dialogue reads like a sixty-something-year old trying hard to write dialogue for teens, which is exactly what it is. It’s the same critique I made with his Scooby Apocalypse series but it’s true: 64-year-old Keith Giffen cannot write convincing young people dialogue at all, it always comes off as forced and fake. And he was never a great writer to start with!

Giffen tosses off Blue Beetle’s origin in a handful of piss-poor pages towards the end: Jaime finds a blue scarab floating in some water, it fused to his back and now he’s Blue Beetle. Wow, ain’t that inspired… There’s no defined villain, what I’ll generously call a story was vague and meandering and Scott Kolins’ art was as ordinary as you can get with superhero comics.

Blue Beetle Rebirth felt like DC attempting their version of Power Rangers: bad high school drama/characters combined with superhero schlock to make something only dumb kids could possibly find entertaining (and I say that as a former dumb kid, now a dumb adult, who loved Power Rangers once upon a time!). Sheer boredom from start to finish, Blue Beetle, like Power Rangers, is terrible and fit only for the nearest landfill!

Did not finish: thought the writing a little bit dry and the action sequences bland and predictable. Wasn't for me sadly.

I was really excited when I saw that Blue Beetle would be featured in DC's Rebirth event. I've always liked the character and felt this would be a great way to get him to the masses. So when I got my hands on this graphic novel, I instantly devoured it. But I was quite disappointed.

The script felt juvenile, the characters felt flat, and the animation was average at best. There was never really a good twist in this book, and the whole story and direction felt confusing. I know the Rebirth event has spawned some fantastic books but this just isn't one of them.

The writing feels like it belongs a terrible kid's cartoon, not a DC comic. The art is even worse. This is just bad.

This isn't one of the better DC Rebirth books. The story just wasn't gripping enough.

Blue Beetle isnt one of my go to heroes, I did enjoy this book, loved the art and overall story.