Each Friday, we'll be letting a different DC.com writer share what they'll be reading over the weekend and why you might want to check it out. Here's this week's suggestion for a perfect Weekend Escape!
 

If you’re anything like us as September sets in, you’re already missing the responsibility-free, long clear days of summer. Unfortunately, you’re going to have to wait for another trip around the sun for us to get back there in real life, but you can always dive into a graphic novel that transports you back to sunnier times. Lucky for you, it’s always sunny in Palmera City, home of Jaime Reyes, and you can book a trip back now with a Weekend Escape into Blue Beetle: Scarab War!
 

The Premise:

This volume of Blue Beetle picks up immediately after the prior Graduation Day miniseries, where a fresh out of high school Jaime Reyes decides he’s not ready for college just yet. His family understands, on the condition that if he’s not going to school, then he’s going to work—at his aunts’ restaurant in the technologically advanced Palmera City, the new home of Kord Industries. While he’s there, Jaime gains an internship with Ted Kord, runs into some new human-beetle hybrids, and encounters the Horizon—a population of peaceful refugees split off from his old intergalactic imperial nemesis, the Reach, who are seeking Earth as a potential asylum. The miniseries concludes with the Horizon choosing to settle in Palmera City and as Blue Beetle begins, we find Jaime, Kord Industries and the world dealing with this new development.

As if that wasn’t all, the oldest of all Blue Beetle antagonists has returned from the grave in a surprising new form, and has a score to settle with Jaime’s scarab, Khaji-Da. The Blood Scarab has arrived, and he’s here in Palmera to exterminate some beetles.
 

Let’s Talk Talent:

Josh Trujillo is a video game and comic writer with credits in Batman: The Enemy Within and the Rick & Morty comic series. He’s also the guy who wrote this legendary panel:

Blue Beetle’s artist, Adrián Gutiérrez, is a rising visual artist with a manga-inspired style with hyper-kinetic expression, energy and action that makes Blue Beetle look nothing like any other book on DC’s shelves.

Trujillo and Gutiérrez continue their collaboration here from Graduation Day, telling a clearly quite close-to-home story about personal identity and growing up in an environment that isn’t always welcome to who you are. For their visual approach to Blue Beetle’s diverse mechanical powers, and literary approach to Jaime figuring out the next steps in this stage of his life, there’s no better team in comics right now to be telling the story of Jaime Reyes.
 

A Few Reasons to Read:

  • Super Robot Action: The manga-inspired visuals that Gutiérrez brings to Blue Beetle translate to some of the most exciting fight scenes in modern DC Comics—especially when Blue Beetle clashes with Blood Scarab. This volume ends with an epic football stadium showdown that tests Jaime like never before, pushing him beyond his boundaries. Playing an unexpected role as mentor figure, the Teen Titans’ Starfire gets some choice action scenes too.
     
  • Respecting the Classics: This is technically the tenth time we’ve had a comic book series called Blue Beetle, and this series never forgets that. Josh Trujillo steeps this incarnation deep in Blue Beetle history—not just pulling the character beats from John Rogers and Keith Giffen’s 2006 series that defined Jaime and Khaji-Da as we know them today, but also deeply entrenched in mythology developed in Len Wein’s ’80s Blue Beetle series and the 1964 Charlton Comics run by Joe Gill and Bill Fraccio, which gave us the very first origin of Dan Garrett’s scarab. No matter what era of Blue Beetle fan you are, there’s something in this volume for you.
     
  • En Español: In theme with its deep roots in Latin American culture, Blue Beetle is available digitally and in bookstores across the United States in both English and Spanish editions.
  • Victoria Gosh-Darn Kord: As deliciously, unrepentantly evil as Susan Sarandon plays Ted Kord’s sister Victoria in the Blue Beetle movie, Trujillo and Gutiérrez’s take is a world apart—but no less entertaining. Victoria’s skyscraper-sized ego and mad scientist aspirations make her a scene stealer every time she appears, and it’s a joy to see her wrap herself around Ted and Jaime’s lives.
     
  • The Khaji-Da Connection: Maybe the most beloved aspect of the Jaime Reyes tenure as Blue Beetle is the bond of friendship he shares with the sentient cybernetic scarab grafted to his spine, Khaji-Da. It’s the heart of both his narrative arcs in the Young Justice animated series and the recent live action Blue Beetle film. And yet, in the comics, it’s not something we get to see explored too much firsthand. This Blue Beetle series is arguably the first time we’ve really gotten to see that dynamic explored in depth on the comic book page, as Jaime and Khaji clash and grow with each other, becoming closer partners with each new challenge. And what happens at the end of this volume may be the greatest challenge to their relationship yet.
     

Why It’s Worth Your Time:

Blue Beetle: Scarab War! is a breezy read full of strong, dynamic characters who feel big emotions and have big fights. It’s anime. It’s wrestling. It’s comedy. It’s DRAMA. Trujillo and Gutiérrez’s collaboration on Blue Beetle has come to a close with one more volume following this one…at least, for now. Scarab War! is worth your time because your support of it may make or break the chances of ever getting more Blue Beetle adventures from this incredible team. And after reading this first volume, you’ll definitely be lining up for that.
 

Blue Beetle: Scarab War! by Josh Trujillo, Adrián Gutiérrez and Wil Quintana is now available in bookstores, comic shops, libraries and digital retailers. It can also be read in both English and Spanish on DC UNIVERSE INFINITE.

Alex Jaffe is the author of our monthly "Ask the Question" column and writes about TV, movies, comics and superhero history for DC.com. Follow him on Bluesky at @AlexJaffe and find him in the DC Official Discord server as HubCityQuestion.

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Alex Jaffe and do not necessarily reflect those of DC or Warner Bros. Discovery, nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.