Blue Beetle is the name of three fictional superheroes appearing in a number of American comic books published by a variety of companies since 1939. The most recent of the companies to own rights to Blue Beetle is DC Comics, which bought the rights to the character in 1983, using the name for three distinct characters over the years. The three characters are:
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Dan Garrett: The original Blue Beetle was created by Charles Nicholas Wojtkoski and Fox Comics and later owned by Charlton Comics. The first Beetle was Dan Garret (later spelled Dan Garrett), who initially gained superpowers from a special vitamin, which was later changed to gaining powers from a "sacred scarab".
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Ted Kord: The second Blue Beetle, created by Charlton Comics, was the brilliant Ted Kord, who had no powers to speak of, but carried on the Blue Beetle legacy with just his wits and his fists, along with a whole lot of gadgets and a sharp sense of humor.
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Jaime Reyes: The most recent Blue Beetle is Jaime Reyes, a Mexican-American teenager from El Paso, Texas who bonded with Dan Garretts Scarab. The artifact gave him incredible alien armor which he used to defend his hometown from all manner of metahuman criminals.
The powers of Blue Beetle's suit are tied to the Scarab attached to his body. The Scarab is a form of technology that originated from an alien race called the Reach. Jaime Reyes is the third character to assume the mantle of Blue Beetle, but is substantially different from his predecessors.
