3 Years Later, The DCU Is Rebooting Another Underrated DCEU Hero
When a franchise is rebooted, the line is usually pretty clear: everything after a certain point is canon, and everything that came before it is in a completely different universe. But this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, as James Gunn’s tenure as co-president of DC Studios has proven. While everything produced after Creature Commandos is considered canon to the new DCU, events from the past that are referenced in canon works have retroactively been made canon, too.
For example, Peacemaker Season 2 is canon, but Season 1 isn’t. Therefore, only the events in the “Previously On” section of Peacemaker Season 2 are canon. Confusing? Definitely. But it’s otherwise a decent way to make the transition to a new universe as seamless as possible while still maintaining what worked. And in the spirit of that approach, a forgotten hero from a major DC movie is getting the same treatment and returning to the big screen.
Blue Beetle will become canon in Man of Tomorrow.
DC Studios
According to The Wrap, Xolo Maridueña is set to return as Jaime Reyes, aka the Blue Beetle, in James Gunn’s Man of Tomorrow, the upcoming sequel to Superman. He previously appeared in Blue Beetle, the 2023 movie that served as the penultimate entry in the DC Extended Universe, which came before James Gunn and Peter Safran’s rebooted DC Universe. His appearance in Man of Tomorrow makes his character, if not his original movie, canon to the DCU.
This reintroduction has been teased for a while now. Blue Beetle is set to appear in an upcoming DCU animated series, so his becoming canon isn’t a huge surprise. But appearing in an HBO Max animated series and appearing in the sequel to the DCU’s flagship movie are two very different levels of exposure.
James Gunn previously referred to Blue Beetle as the first DCU character.
Kevin Winter/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images
It’s a bit of a surprise update, but Blue Beetle certainly seems close to James Gunn’s heart. “I mean the first DCU character, for sure, is Blue Beetle, and the first full DCU movie is Superman,” he said on the podcast Inside of You With Michael Rosenbaum. This update means those two firsts are more closely related than we thought.
Blue Beetle may have been the lowest-grossing DCEU movie upon its release, but that’s not necessarily a reflection of its quality. 2023 was a difficult time for the DCEU, as Gunn’s upcoming reboot loomed and made DC’s current offerings seem irrelevant. It also came out during Hollywood’s writers’ and actors’ strikes, which made marketing the film much more difficult. A canonical reintroduction might be just what Blue Beetle needs to prove his worth with the DC fandom, because for many, it’ll be their first time meeting him.
