On another board someone asked Warren Ellis how he'd revamp Blue Beetle. Here's what he wrote in response:

>>Jesus. Blue Beetle. That was just cruel, you know that?

For a start, you have to pick your version. There was the one who rubbed his magic scarab and said his magic word -- "Khajida" or something similar -- to turn into the superpowered Blue Beetle. Or there was the rich young electronics genius with his gadgets and flying beetle, whom Alan and Dave riffed off with Nite Owl II in WATCHMEN.

So we're assuming I've been offered a stupid amount of money to think about this (rather than using it as a warm-up exercise in the pub, which is what I'm actually doing).

It begins with what I want to talk about, and whether I think the character can carry it. What themes are suggested by Blue Beetle that are worth discussing? With two Blue Beetles, there's the generational option that Alan played with a little, but that kind of bores me. It's not big enough. No space to move. For me, one of the primal elements of the superhero is The Change, the point where they take on their aspect. For that reason, the original appeals to me more -- the flash of light, the emergence of the superhuman. In the original, it's achieved through an archaelogical artifact. What was that doing just laying around in ancient times? Is there a new angle to be had on Egyptian mysticism and the "forbidden archaelogy" field? I've got a book by David Hatcher Childress in the attic called FORBIDDEN ARCHAEOLOGY, all the "pyramids were made by aliens" stuff. I'd read. As I mentioned earlier, Lovecraft had a thing about pyramids. Read that too. The guy who found a slot in one of the pyramids that was supposedly designed to funnel the light from a particular star down into the guts of the building -- re-read all that. I'm going to need research on the symbolism of the scarab beetle in the period. To a great extent, magic was science in that era, all part of Chaldean priestcraft. Along with fiddling with little boys, but we'll gloss over that for the moment. Why would the savants of the era create a voice-activated device that transformed the holder into a superhuman?

Do some reading on celestial precession: what stars were in the sky of ancient Egypt? In what configuration?

Deep time. Lost knowledge.

What's on the scarab? The Rosetta Project is an effort to encode every world language on an indestructible disc. Are those really scales on the scarab? Or are those marks the encoding of an entire scientific system? Incised by a team aware they were living in politically volatile times and terrified that all their work could be wiped away in an instant? Perhaps they couldn't make it indestructible -- but they could lock it onto the device their spear-resistant superhuman would possess.

It's about The Change (as opposed to Change in general). It's about lost knowledge and deep time. It needs the human element and, being superhero fiction, it needs some form of dramatic conflict. What does someone with the scarab do with The Change? This is such old ground now. This is one reason why it's hard for me to write superhero fiction. It's such a stripmined seam that finding new jewels in it is just a pig of a job. It's got to have the ring of the new to it, or it's not worth me doing it. I don't want to go too deeply into the archaelogy riff, for fear of repeating PLANETARY, but the thing is starting to demand a theme of Exploration to me. Which suggests the conflict of a post-exploratory society. People who don't even want the knowledge for themselves. the worst kind of ignorant people -- they don't want to know, and they don't want anyone else to know. People who'd rather kill than know something. The sort of people who don't even read evidence of climate change.

Ignorance is the enemy. Three thousand years ago people died to preserve their knowledge for us, encoding it on a blue stone scarab that rendered its protector superhuman, so that we may take their gift and become great. But the more things change, the more they remain the same; and the holder of the blue beetle has his own mad kings to fight.

I think that's the general direction I'd head in.<<

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Now, I don't know how that compares to what Ditko did with Blue Beetle, but it sure sounds interesting, doesn't it?

It does sound like an interesting take on the original 1940s Blue Beetle, but it basically ignores everything about Ditko's Blue Beetle. Ditko was following the basic trend of the Silver Age with his revamp; get rid of the magical elements and replace them with science fiction and/or gadgetry. It had worked successfully for DC with characters like Green Lantern and Hawkman, and was a moderate success for Blue Beetle as well. Readers are not as amazed by gadgets any more because real-world technology has advanced so rapidly. I think a revamp of the Ditko's Beetle would have to be VERY high-tech; perhaps even a suit that was so advanced that his vehicle; the "Bug", wouldn't even be necessary.

Wait, so Ditko didn't create the original Blue Beetle as well? I assumed he did both versions.

That's an interesting point you made about technology, Kevin. You're right, modern advances in technology probably do make it harder for kids to be in awe of such things as they were in the past. But I'm not sure that the answer is to go even further in that degree, unless you want to do a Blue Beetle set far in the future (which isn't such a bad idea, now that I think about it). I think Ellis' idea might be the way to go, by mixing science with magic & mythology. But it would have to be done by a really good writer, like Warren Ellis, because in the hands of a leeser writer it could become mishmash of mumbo-jumbo.

If there's one thing I've learned in the past few months, it's that ideas are easy, but it's the execution of those ideas that's tough.

This is the original Blue Beetle. He was a Golden Age character, published by Fox and Holyoke in the 1940s. He was a police officer named Dan Garrett who used a chainmail costume and a vitamin that gave him super-strength (shades of Hourman, whom he predated.)



Charlton later acquired the rights to the character and revamped him in the early 60s. Though still named Dan Garrett, he was now an archaeologist with a magical scarab that gave him super-powers. He lasted less than two years and was basically a commercial failure. Ditko was tasked with coming up with a new versionin about 1966.



They killed Dan Garrett off and had him extract a deathbed promise from his friend Ted Kord to carry on his war against crime. However, the magical scarab was lost, so Ted Kord became a dfferent kind of Blue Beetle, a high-tech urban adventurer. This is the Beetle who was most successful in the 60s, and the one that DC has used in various series for about 20 years. So ironically, Ellis wants to use the least successful version of the character, at least historically.

The old Blue Beetle had his own radio show, fer gosh sakes!


DADDIO

Yeah, Darren, but that was the 1940s version, the police officer who used science and tech to become a hero. The "magical" version with the Egyptian scarab was Charlton's and was only around for a couple of years before being replaced by Steve Ditko's. Ellis kept referring to magic, so I assume that's one he was interested in. (It's confusing, I know, since the first two versions were both named "Dan Garrett!")

I'm with Kevin on this one: use the Ditko tech version but either make it advanced enough to really wow a 21st century audience, cutting edge pseudo science -or- use retro tech, Wally Wood gadgetry that basically does whatever you need for a given story.

Ellis' version doesn't interest me much. I've tried reading his stuff because he's supposed to be the successor to Moore and Gaiman (who I like a lot) but like Grant Morrison before him, he just doesn't move me.

While the first wave of British comics people was more about intellect and high-art aspirations (Moore, Gaiman, Morrison, etc.) the second wave (Ennis, Ellis, Millar, etc.) seems to be more about trying to show everyone how weird and shocking they can be. All of them have shown that they can do good work and have talent, but they show a real immaturity also.

I think the "tech" Blue Beetle could be wildly interesting, beyond the "Tony Stark" played out kinda version. I can see some wonderful tricks that could be created if Kord were to kind of work "SFX" into his fighting repertoire.

DADDIO