Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes) - Powers and Abilities

Powers and Abilities

The Blue Beetle scarab is grafted onto Jaime's spine, and can manifest a number of powers at its own volition, an act usually accompanied by blue energy emitted by the scarab's "antennae". Over the course of the first year of his ongoing series, Jaime had little, if any, control over those powers, but slowly began to assert himself over the suit after this first year. When Jaime is in danger, the scarab activates, crawling out on to Jaime's back and generating a high-tech suit of powered armor around his body. The armor is resilient enough that it can protect Jaime against atmospheric re-entry from Earth's orbit. When the danger passes, the scarab deactivates, dissolving the costume and retracting back onto Jaime's spine, causing intense pain.

When in use, the suit can reconfigure itself to produce a wide array of armaments. Common functions include an energy cannon, a sword and shield, a grappling hook, a device resembling a communications satellite, and a set of foot-long powered blades that can shear through tree trunks. In addition, the suit can produce a set of wings for flight, which can also act as shields. Jaime alludes to weapons which may be powerful enough to harm even the Spectre, one of DC's most powerful characters, claiming that some of the weapons are of W.M.D. caliber, but Jaime's refusal to use lethal force keeps him from making use of them. The suit can adapt its technology to different situations: such adaptations include producing energy discharges from the hands that can neutralize magic, discharging Kryptonite radiation, tuning "vibrational frequencies" of extra-dimensional objects to make them visible, and other assorted functions. The suit has been observed to create armaments of different composition and style. The wings, for example, were initially composed of the same blue opaque armor of which the rest of the suit is composed, but beginning with Blue Beetle #12 (April 2007), they began manifesting themselves in the form of a colorless, translucent material. The scarab also apparently has the ability to track anything or anyone it has previously encountered.

The scarab has at least one power it can manifest whether dormant or active; it can give Jaime a peculiar form of "sight" to perceive extra-dimensional objects, which is used to gather information on the scarab user's adversaries. The scarab is able to communicate with him in a more comprehensible fashion if need be. The scarab's language of communication has slowly morphed into a format resembling English, claiming Khaji Da as its own name and Jaime as its first real friend. However, it has occasional relapses into its original language. The suit is capable of compensating for the digestive system of Jaime's body, so that he does not need to expel waste materials when the suit is in use, even able to make paper out of dead skin cells the suit collects.

The scarab exhibits a reluctance to harm nature, as evidenced in Blue Beetle #4, in which Jaime is attacked by a pair of anthropomorphized trees, and the suit declines to use great force against them, until Jaime convinces the scarab that his life is in danger and wrests control over the suit to destroy the trees, much to the scarab's displeasure.

When necessary, Jaime can have the Scarab take over in Infiltrator Mode. When this happens, the suit becomes taller, more muscular and grows spikes and allows the scarab to fight without Jaime's conscience as a restriction and is more brutal and violent in its attacks. However, Jaime and the scarab do not like to use it and is only done in desperate situations.