Our Biggest ‘Blue Beetle’ Burning Questions: From the Alien Scarab to the Killer Soundtrack

Warning: The following article contains spoilers about Blue Beetle.

Blue Beetle is the rare superhero film that refuses to spend time explaining itself. Palmero City postgrad Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) is chosen to be the human host for an alien scarab that grants him superpowers. That's really all you need to know. Other obvious questions, like where the scarab comes from, what its powers are, what it wants, and even Palmero City's general location, are left unanswered.

That storytelling style gives the movie what our critic Jordan Hoffman called in his review "propulsive energy," leaving ample time for oft-neglected storytelling staples like character development. It's no coincidence that a movie almost entirely devoid of expositive dialogue features some of the most well-rounded and empathetic side characters in recent superhero movie memory.

Still, for those interested in learning the unanswered questions behind Blue Beetle, we get into all the buggy details below.

What the heck was that scarab? And what does it want?

Like the Blue Beetle himself, the scarab has seen many variations since the character and motif were first introduced in 1939. A sacred creature in ancient Egyptian mythology, the scarab was initially described in comics as a mystic artifact from the pharaohs, capable of granting its wielder magic powers by calling out the incantation "Khaji Da."

However, the scarab that grafts itself onto our Blue Beetle, Jamie Reyes, was retconned in 2005 to be "a highly dangerous world-conquering siege engine from the stars" that gives its wielder a "retractable power suit with a seemingly endless array of functions," per the DC website. No longer a magical artifact, the scarab was now described as a sentient creature bioengineered by an ancient race of aliens known as the Reach. These intergalactic conquerors would send a scarab to a populated world, wait for it to find a suitable host, and then use that host to take over. In the newer story, "Khaji Da" is the scarab's name, not an incantation used to summon its powers.

So why doesn't the scarab turn Reyes into a planet-destroying weapon? Well, conveniently for us, "Khaji Da was disconnected from the Reach's database upon its arrival on Earth and failed to function properly until it was discovered by Jaime." And even after Reyes activates it, his "heart and empathy" lead the scarab to view him as a partner.

Yet another curveball arrived in 2016 when Blue Beetle co-creator Keith Giffen decided the scarab is, in fact, a magical object with ties to ancient Egypt. In the comics, Doctor Fate (recently played by Pierce Brosnan in Black Adam) even suggests the entire Reach origin story could be made up. Fortunately, we have the DC website to help sort this out (kinda): "As it happens, both stories are true — the scarab is a malfunctioning sentient biotechnological weapon from space with unique magical properties, which it gained either by design or somewhere along its way to Earth."

So, if you were wondering why Blue Beetle decided to skip getting into all this, you're hopefully starting to get the idea.

Why did O.M.A.C. sound familiar?

Clearly, you've spent some time around a comic book shop. 

When Victoria Kord (booo!) said she needed the scarab (or, at least, the scarab's code) to complete her design for the One Man Army Corps, this was a reference to something that has been a part of Blue Beetle comics for a while but actually has its own mythos. 

OMAC was created by "King" Jack Kirby during his brief time with DC Comics in the 1970s. Only lasting eight issues, it followed an everyman (Buddy Blank) who ends up changed into a fearsome soldier thanks to some cybernetic enhancements, monitored by an all-seeing satellite called Brother Eye. (The similarities between Blue Beetle interacting with the scarab made it natural for the stories to entwine.) OMAC (also stylized as O.M.A.C., so nerds could have fun correcting one another) popped up again in a run from creator John Byrne, then rebooted during DC's ill-fated "New 52" with a Cambodian-American named Kevin Kho discovering body-enhancing powers. 

What was that awesome song?

You'll need to be more specific. The pop-metal tune Uncle Rudy plays when The Bug blasts away baddies was "Kickstart My Heart" from Mötley Crüe's 6x platinum 1989 album Dr. Feelgood. The rap-metal mayhem heard during the corridor fight is "I Ain't Goin' Out Like That," a 1993 ditty from Cypress Hill. (Note! Sen Dog of Cypress Hill's real name is Senen Reyes — perhaps a relation to Jaime Reyes and the Reyes family!?!) 

But what you are probably asking is what was that lovely Spanish-language tune heard during the end memorial scene. That's "Sabor a Mí," a significant hit in the 1960s written by Mexican songwriter Álvaro Carrillo. The version we hear is by Trío Los Panchos, who later re-recorded it with Eydie Gormé. The touching ballad has been covered by everyone from Los Lobos to the K-pop group EXO and from public radio hero Jonathan Richman to (I kid you not) Charles Manson singing it in English. 

What was that awesome city?

Goodbye to El Paso, and hello to Palmera City! In the Blue Beetle comics, Jaime Reyes and his family reside in El Paso, Texas, but for the feature film adaptation, the team at DC decided to create a new, more futuristic home for its hero. "The vision was to have Blue Beetle be on the same level as someone like a Superman or a Batman who have Gotham or Metropolis or cities that are the beating hearts of the themes of the comics," Xolo Maridueña has said. The actor further explained that they thought it might be hard for audiences around the world to understand the Texas "narrative" and "border-town stories." Calling Palmera City "a metropolis of Latinos," Maridueña described it as having "the sound of a Miami and the look of a Los Angeles and the style of Barcelona."

Between the neon colors, skyscrapers, and beachfront, Palmera City is far from the desert oasis of El Paso. Still, director Ángel Manuel Soto planted a few Easter eggs, including the Reyes' home on El Paso Street and a few El Paso buildings in the Palmera City skyline. "Even though the character might have left El Paso, El Paso did not leave the family," Soto said. "We really wanted to take that journey of the Reyes family and tell the immigrant story of travelers that stayed together and kept their history and culture strong."