DC’s Blue Beetle ending explained

As the DCEU comes to close and a new era for DC Studios begins with its eagerly anticipated DC Universe, the new movie Blue Beetle leads the charge into the future. Described by DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn as the first DCU hero, Blue Beetle brings one of comics' cosmic superheroes to the big screen for the first time. With so much of DC’s cinematic future still undisclosed, there’s a lot riding on Blue Beetle as Jaime Reyes claims the power of a mysterious scarab as his own. Fortunately, Popverse is here to help explain the ending to the movie in full, including the multiple scenes appearing after the credits roll begins.

Here is a full overview of Blue Beetle ending, how it sets up a potential sequel and Jaime’s future in the DCU, which major characters perish by the conclusion, and what other significant references to the DCU are included in the film.

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Blue Beetle!

How does Blue Beetle end?

After kidnapping Jaime to analyze and drain the scarab’s energy, the villainous Victoria Kord and her henchmen fall back to her secret island base just off the coast of Cuba. Armed with tech from Ted Kord, Victoria’s missing brother and the father of Jaime’s burgeoning love interest Jenny Kord, the Reyes family sets out in Ted’s Blue Beetle aircraft to rescue him by any means necessary. Jaime manages to fully bond with the scarab and free himself from his restraints, but not before Victoria has drained enough of its power to complete her right-hand man Conrad Carapax’s transformation into O.M.A.C., a cybernetically enhanced one-man army corps.

After a brutal battle between the Reyes family and Victoria’s troops, the Reyes family emerges triumphant, and Jaime angrily attacks Carapax after mistakenly believing the villain killed his Uncle Rudy. The scarab convinces Jaime to spare Carapax, not wanting the young man to become a killer, while Carapax’s memories are restored after interfacing with the scarab. Carapax then turns on Victoria, killing her and himself while destroying her base, along with the O.M.A.C. army she was developing.

Back in Jaime’s hometown of Palmera City, the neighborhood comes together to support the Reyes family after the recent loss of their home and death of Jaime’s father Alberto in the crossfire. Now the head of Kord Industries, Jenny visits the Reyes family and pledges to restore their home while absolving them of their recent financial hardship, and gifting Uncle Rudy a new truck after his previous one was destroyed by Carapax. Finally ready to embrace his superhero destiny, Jaime embarks on a romance with Jenny as the two fly away together.

Does Blue Beetle have a mid or post-credits scene?

Yes. Blue Beetle features both a mid-credits and a post-credits scene. Read more about them below.

What happens in the Blue Beetle mid-credits scene?

The mid-credits scene takes place entirely in Ted Kord’s superhero hideout under his abandoned mansion on the outskirts of Palmera City. Though no one is in the room at the time, Kord’s main computer activates on its own, with Kord broadcasting a message through it, though his face is obscured by technical interference. Detecting that his computer was used recently, Kord implores anyone who can hear him to relay to his daughter Jenny Kord that he is still alive.

Kord’s disappearance hangs heavily over the film’s story, allowing his evil sister Victoria to take over Kord Industries and transform it into an unscrupulous megacorporation. Kord being alive will certainly impact Jenny's life and probably Jaime's as well.

What happens in the Blue Beetle post-credits scene?

The Blue Beetle post-credits scene is played entirely for laughs and based on a distraction provided by Rudy earlier in the film. While infiltrating Kord Industries’ headquarters, Rudy reveals his technological aptitude by using an amateur jamming device in his truck to affect Kord Industries’ security systems. This jamming signal manifests as a cartoon for the Mexican television hero El Chapulín Colorado.

This cartoon is only seen in the periphery during the movie, with the action focused on the security guards’ reaction to having their CCTV system hijacked by an outside source. The post-credits scene focuses entirely on the cartoon as El Chapulín introduces himself to the audience. This is followed by one last boisterous exclamation from Rudy, officially closing out the film.

Who dies in Blue Beetle?

The biggest loss over the course of Blue Beetle is Jaime’s father Alberto Reyes, who dies from a heart attack after Kord Industries attacks his home to lure out Jaime. Alberto’s sudden death shakes the entire Reyes family to its core, fueling their desire to take the fight back to Victoria Kord at her island hideout in the Caribbean. Alberto later appears in a near-death vision experienced by Jaime while the scarab’s energy is being drained from him, encouraging his son to fully bond with the scarab and unleash his full potential.

As for the antagonists, after interfacing with the scarab, Conrad Carapax regains memories from his traumatic past and the horrible things that Victoria did to him after finding him seeking refuge in the rainforest as a child. This, along with Jaime deciding to spare Carapax after defeating him, prompts Carapax to drag Victoria into the fires of her ruined base before self-destructing his O.M.A.C. armor, completely destroying the facility and themselves in the blast.

Are there ties to the larger DC Universe?

Blue Beetle clearly takes place in a universe where iconic DC heroes exist, referencing several directly by name, but never actually showing any of them on-screen. The name Bruce Wayne is overheard briefly during a newscast as Jaime Reyes regains his senses at home after his first flight as Blue Beetle. Later, Bruce’s costumed alter ego is invoked when comparing Ted Kord’s superhero arsenal and hideout to Batman’s, though Uncle Rudy dismisses Batman as a humorless fascist.

As Jaime acclimates to his new superhero role, he mentions both Superman and Metropolis, along with the Flash and Central City, signaling that both of these heroes and their respective hometowns exist, albeit unseen. Beyond this, the additional superhero ties are all within the Blue Beetle mythos, with Golden Age Blue Beetle Dan Garrett and Silver Age Blue Beetle Ted Kord both mentioned, while their superhero costumes are on display in Kord’s superhero lair.

How does Blue Beetle compare to the comic book?

In the comic book, the Blue Beetle scarab is kept in the Rock of Eternity by the Wizard Shazam until the Rock is destroyed by the Spectre, sending it plummeting to Jaime’s hometown. In the movie, the scarab is stored in a massive rock structure in the Andes where it is eventually recovered by Victoria Kord. The major difference with the Kords, is that Ted is truly dead in the comics at the time that Jaime bonds with scarab, murdered by the telepathic supervillain Maxwell Lord. Victoria herself doesn’t exist in the comics, nor does Ted’s daughter Jenny.

Carapax the Indestructible Man is a former rival of Golden Age Dan Garrett’s in the comics, who transforms into a formidable robot. O.M.A.C. is its own separate entity in the comics, though Batman did create a surveillance system that was co-opted by Maxwell Lord to become a new version of the O.M.A.C. Project in 2005’s Infinite Crisis, where Jaime made his comic book debut.

Another major change relocates Jaime’s hometown from El Paso, Texas to the fictional location of Palmera City, which was added recently to DC comics in 2022’s comic book miniseries Blue Beetle: Graduation Day by Josh Trujillo and Adrián Gutiérrez. In addition to Jaime’s home being different, so too is his home life, with his familiar high school friends missing in the movie while his father Alberto remains alive and well in the comics as opposed to the film.

How does Blue Beetle set up a sequel?

The biggest tease for a sequel is the mid-credits scene reveal that Ted Kord is alive, though his current whereabouts remain an open mystery. Jenny was seriously affected by Ted’s prolonged absence in her life and this sets the two up for a father-daughter reunion. Ted is also revealed to have closely studied the scarab while it was bonded to Jaime’s predecessor Dan Garrett, potentially setting the stage for the two Blue Beetles to work closely together whenever Ted resurfaces in Palmera City.

Another direction for a Blue Beetle sequel to go could explore the otherworldly origins of the scarab itself. Though Ted’s research confirms that the scarab is extraterrestrial in nature, much of the relic’s background remains unexplained, even after Jaime fully bonds with it. The comics include a much more sinister background for the scarab as the ultimate weapon in an interstellar war that could spill over to Earth in a potential follow-up to the movie.

Directed by Ángel Manuel Soto, Blue Beetle is now in theaters everywhere. Buy tickets on Fandango or Atom Tickets.

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