Blue Beetle #7 is such a wonderful celebration of life and comics. Sadly, we lost comics legend Keith Giffen last year, but as Giffen’s last social media post showed us, he wouldn’t want us to be without humor in this life. If you have read Giffen’s comics, he did a delightful job of exploring the human condition in his characters. Here, with this issue by Josh Trujillo, artists Adrian Gutierrez and Natacha Bustos, and friends Scott Kolins, Cully Hamner, and Howard Porter, we are treated to a first-rate celebration of comic book goodness.
Not only do we get guest artists, but we get some fantastic guest starts in this issue. Start with that main cover by Adrian Gutierrez and Luis Guerrero, and feast your eyes on such a great spread of DC Comics characters and teams from JLI to Lobo. You get the initial setup from our previews, both in English and Spanish, so this is a fun solo issue between arcs. It’s fun to witness the teaming up of “Blue and Gold” in the form of Jaime Reyes and Michael Carter to search for Ted. I don’t want to go into details and spoil the issue, but that setup is how they can use time travel to visit some “greatest hits” of Keith Giffen.
This setup is why the guest artists come in, making the issue more celebratory. The visits to different eras are fun as each artist has their style, and since most of them worked with Giffen, they take the characters and us back to some wonderfully timed nostalgia. Keep your eyes open as this is a search for Ted Kord, so you’ll see elements of him and also a group of “time protectors.” These protectors should draw a laugh as they are the most unexpected of “guardians” to take care of anything. Most of them can’t even pay attention, yet they are called by quite the “higher authority” to single out Jaime. Once you discover who the “higher authority” is you’ll either laugh at their identity or have to do some research, as it’s a deep cut.
If you can’t get to your local comic shop to pick up the issue, we have some great content for you to help with some explanation of the issue by writer Josh Trujillo. Trujillo also has an optional reading list on his social media that can help provide some “DVD extras” with the issue. Without spoiling the issue, I can tell you this was a fun adventure that can lure you back to comics if you’ve lapsed in your fandom, as there seem to be some plans for Blue and Gold along with Jaime’s adventures with the new scarabs. The guest artists played perfectly with the portion of the script they worked on, and you can tell Trujillo put a lot of heart into this one to pay an incredible honor to Giffen.
The current Blue Beetle creative team found a perfect way to honor Giffen by taking Jaime on a whirlwind tour of the DC Universe, past to future. Giving chances for other creators to come in and celebrate the late writer by visiting some touchstones one more time, but instead of giving into grief, this was a fun issue that reminds you of the joy of comics and character’s impact. It’s a perfect comic for fans to return to and a wonderful treat for the next generation to discover DC’s history and Giffen’s fingerprint on it.
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