| "The Rise of the Blue Beetle!" | |
|---|---|
| Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode | |
 The title screen | |
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 1 |
| Directed by | Ben Jones |
| Written by | Michael Jelenic |
| Original air date | November 14, 2008 |
"The Rise of the Blue Beetle" is the first episode of the animated television series Batman: The Brave and the Bold . The episode introduces Blue Beetle in his first on-screen appearance.
The episode opens with Batman and Green Arrow (James Arnold Taylor) breaking out of Clock King's clockwork death trap clock that would have lowered them into acid, before going on to fight him and his henchmen. The main plot starts after the theme song airs.
Teenage Jaime Reyes (Will Friedle) has become the new Blue Beetle but is not convinced that he has what it takes to be a superhero, partially because he has a few problems with controlling his powers, such as when he tried to rescue a cat from a tree. Batman decides to take the young superhero under his wing and asks Blue Beetle to help him stop a meteor. The mission is stopped, however, when Blue Beetle's scarab creates a wormhole which sends the two superheroes to a distant planet. The planet is inhabited by intelligent single-celled aliens called Gibbles that are under constant siege by the intergalactic pirate Kanjar Ro, who wants to harvest their bodies for fuel. The aliens mistakenly believe Blue Beetle is another, alien, scarab-wearing Blue Beetle who is their savior, and who Batman correctly guesses was killed, and think Batman is his sidekick. Blue Beetle is not confident that he can save them, although he decides to try when he sees the hope they have for him. Batman tells the Blue Beetle to give a speech to the aliens to encourage them to help him and Batman fight Kanjar Ro. Kanjar Ro is meanwhile draining energy from the Gibbles to power his ships for raids on the Medra Quadrant, but Batman, Blue Beetle and the Gibble army attacks and Blue Beetle starts getting the hang of controlling the suit. He saves Batman from Kanjar Ro, then fights and defeats him, but Ro returns, freeing his crew and using his Gamma Gong on Blue Beetle, which he knows that he has a weakness for; its sonic waves eliminates his suit, and was how he killed the last Blue Beetle. Batman is incapacitated, and another blow of the Gong completely strips Blue Beetle's armor away; when Ro sees his greatest foe is a child, he realizes he did eliminate the Beetle the last time they fought.
After the Gibble army is soon after defeated, Ro has Batman and some Gibbles tied to a satellite floating in a part of space with fish-like space monsters that come to eat them, but Batman plugs one of the satellite's cables into the body of the Gibble next to him, charging it with power to electrocute one of the monsters and scare the other monsters away. Meanwhile, Ro has tied up Blue Beetle and is now using the Gong to find the right frequency to remove the Scarab. As Batman enters and Ro is knocked into the Gong, the scarab is removed by the created tones. Ro attaches it to his spine and uses its power to fight Batman. Meanwhile, Jaime thinks creatively and escapes his bonds, and before Ro can kill Batman, he arrives with the Gong and uses it to strip away the armor and remove the Scarab from Ro. Enraged, he tries to attack them, but the Gibble from before arrives and uses a newly made weapon that utilizes the power from its body to knock Ro out. Before he and Blue Beetle leave their planet, the Gibbles thank Batman for his part in helping Blue Beetle and themselves to defeat Kanjor Ro.
Returning to Earth through the wormhole, they find it has brought them back to not only the exact place, but also the exact time after they had gone through it the first time. This gives them enough time to finish the mission to stop the meteor that got them sent through the wormhole in the first place, and after making sure his partner is ready, Batman and Blue Beetle take on the meteor.
Michael Jelenic, the story editor and co-producer of the show, wrote the scene with Jaime and his friend Paco, commented on Batman and Green Arrow on television because that is the type of thing that he imagined fanboys arguing about. The Clock King segment includes pop culture references while Jaime's room has a The Dark Knight Returns poster. [1] The episode has easter eggs of characters that didn't appear in the episode. [1]
Dan Phillips of IGN said that people would not like The Rise of the Blue Beetle! very much if they have a problem with "wormholes, single-cell organisms and evil intergalactic pirates being mentioned in the same breath as Batman". [2] Scott Summers of Toonzone liked the plot of the episode while also noting that there are references to older Batman animation. [3] Rob M. Worley of Mania said that the episode has "laugh-out-loud moments" and praised the action and plot twists. [4]
Blue Beetle is the name of three superheroes appearing in a number of American comic books published by a variety of companies since 1939. The most recent of the companies to own rights to Blue Beetle is DC Comics, which bought the rights to the character in 1983, using the name for three distinct characters over the years.
The Clock King is the name of three supervillains appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The first Clock King debuted in World's Finest Comics #111, and was created by France Herron and Lee Elias.
The OMACs are a fictional type of cyborg appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. They are based on the character of the same name created by Jack Kirby.
Theodore Stephen "Ted" Kord is the second fictional character to use the identity of Blue Beetle, a superhero who was originally published by Charlton Comics and later acquired by DC Comics. He was created by Steve Ditko and first appeared as a back-up feature in Captain Atom #83, with Gary Friedrich scripting from Ditko's conception and plot.
Kanjar Ro is a supervillain appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. He is an alien dictator from the planet Dhor and an enemy of the Justice League.
Jaime Reyes is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Keith Giffen, John Rogers, and Cully Hamner, the character made his first appearance in Infinite Crisis #3. Jaime Reyes is the third character to assume the mantle of Blue Beetle, but is substantially different from his predecessors.
The Justice League, also called the Justice League of America or JLA, is a fictional superhero team that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. Since their first appearance in The Brave and the Bold #28, various incarnations of the team have appeared in film, television, and video game adaptations.
Batman: The Brave and the Bold is an American animated television series based in part on the DC Comics series The Brave and the Bold which features two or more superheroes coming together to solve a crime or foil a super villain. As the title suggests, the series focuses on Batman's regular "team-ups" with various heroes similar to the most well-known version of the original comic book series. This version has a much lighter and simpler, often comic feel, targeting younger viewers more than the character's other series. The series premiered on November 14, 2008, on Cartoon Network in the United States, and ended on November 18, 2011. It also aired in Canada on Teletoon. The series was followed by a comic-book continuation which ended in 2014, and a feature-length crossover film: Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold, which aired in 2018.
Booster Gold was an ongoing monthly DC Comics comic book series featuring the eponymous superhero Booster Gold, created by Dan Jurgens.
Green Lantern: First Flight is a 2009 American animated superhero film based on the DC Comics Green Lantern mythology. Centering on the first mission of Hal Jordan, the first human inducted into the Green Lantern Corps, the film was written by veteran DC Comics animation collaborator Alan Burnett, produced by Bruce Timm and directed by Lauren Montgomery. The fifth film of the DC Universe Animated Original Movies released by Warner Premiere and Warner Bros. Animation, the film was released on home media on July 28, 2009, and made its US broadcast premiere on Cartoon Network on January 16, 2010.
"Mayhem of the Music Meister!" is an episode of the Batman: The Brave and the Bold animated series. The episode features the villainous Music Meister, who uses his power to control people through song to try to take over the world. Written by Michael Jelenic and directed by Ben Jones, the episode premiered on October 23, 2009, the 24th of the first season.
Justice League: Generation Lost was a year-long comic book limited series that premiered in July 2010. It ran twice a month for 24 issues, alternating with Brightest Day, which was written by Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi.
Batman: The Brave and the Bold is an American comic book series published by DC Comics. It is based on the TV series of the same name.
King Tut is a fictional character in the television series Batman who first appeared in the episode "The Curse of Tut". He was created by Earl Barret, Robert C. Dennis, and Charles R. Rondeau and is portrayed by Victor Buono for the majority of his appearances, though Guy Way portrays King Tut in the episode "The Entrancing Dr. Cassandra". In his memoir, Back to the Batcave, Adam West describes him as the only series-original villain to be a real success.
Dan Garret or Dan Garrett is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Fox Comics, Holyoke Publishing, Charlton Comics, and DC Comics. Garret was created by Charles Wojtkoski, and made his first appearance in Fox's Mystery Men Comics #1 during the Golden Age of Comic Books. Garret is the first character to use the identity of Blue Beetle, predating Ted Kord and Jaime Reyes.
Paco Testas is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics.
Blue Beetle is a 2023 American superhero film based on the DC Comics character Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle. Directed by Ángel Manuel Soto and written by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, it is the 14th film in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). Xolo Maridueña stars as Reyes, a recent college graduate who is bestowed with an armor that grants him superpowers after being accidentally chosen by an ancient alien relic known as the Scarab. Adriana Barraza, Damián Alcázar, Raoul Max Trujillo, Susan Sarandon, and George Lopez also star in the film.
