Review by Frank Plowright
Blue Beetle has just completed a battle against impossible odds, finishing an existential threat, but in a way Jaime would never have done had he been in control of his armour. Scarab War ended with his disappearance. Josh Trujillo doesn’t perpetuate the mystery. He’s been whipped out of time by Booster Gold for a mission to reconstitute his ally and Jaime’s friend Ted Kord, portions of whom have been scattered through time.
What seems set up to be an epic is actually over in 22 pages, which is quite some achievement on Trujillo’s part. It involves four guest artists with very different styles to Adrián Gutiérrez, and some characters from the DC history books never explained to readers who may have no idea who they are. Still, if you ever wanted to see the Heckler again, even for a single panel, this is the place.
After that we head into the four chapters of ‘Pinnacle Achievement’. Ever since the days of Ted Kord as the primary Blue Beetle, advanced technology has played a part in the series, and that’s what’s at stake here. Victoria Kord is smart, ambitious, rich and ruthless. She’s not Lex Luthor, but neither is she greatly concerned about ethics when it comes to reaching outcomes, however well intentioned she claims to be. The problem she sets in motion comes to dominate a volume that’s a real thriller and the best of a good series. What a shame it’s also the last.
Gutiérrez has a talent for making things look alien. At it’s most obvious it’s the spiky Blue Beetle suit, which he likes drawing mid-transformation for spookier effect, but the threat here is an extension of that talent and his illustrations of it are phenomenal. Also good is the way Gutiérrez uses repetition as a visually attractive motif. Characters are seen against the same backgrounds across a page, their poses minimally altered, or presented in silhouette, or groups are shown drawn in the same formation. Wil Quintana, this time again sole colourist, highlights the sparks and lightning bolts distinctively.
The final chapter gives Trujillo the opportunity to wrap things up for each member of a large cast, which is satisfactorily handled, and to drop a few hints as to where Blue Beetle’s future might be. Of course as Forever Blue ends the series, that’s up to others. Between them Trujillo and Gutiérrez have delivered a memorable and modern superhero series ticking a lot of positive boxes, and why, oh, why didn’t it last longer?
