The DCU’s First Hero Is Exactly What The Flash Wishes Barry Allen Was

The DCU’s first hero, Jaime Reyes from Blue Beetle, outshines The Flash by being the hero Warner Bros. wished Barry Allen to be. While Blue Beetle was produced under the banner of the DCEU before James Gunn’s reboot, the film was largely self-contained. While containing a few references to wider DC heroes, every Easter egg in Blue Beetle could be retroactively attributed to James Gunn’s DCU going forward.

This makes more sense when taking into account James Gunn’s consideration of Blue Beetle as the DC Universe’s first character. Despite Superman: Legacy acting as the starting point of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DCU in terms of film or TV projects, Jaime Reyes is officially the franchise’s first hero. This highlights another problem with 2023’s The Flash, with Jaime exemplifying the exact kind of hero that DC wishes Barry Allen was.

Blue Beetle’s Superhero Origin Story Is What The Flash Wanted Barry Allen To Be

When concerning Barry in The Flash, the film attempted to portray him as a relatable underdog. However, the way Barry’s life was presented meant that this did not translate the most effectively. For one, the plot of The Flash allows Barry to easily understand complex, multiversal concepts alongside his fundamentally genius science brain that he utilizes in his hero career which many regular audience members cannot relate to. This leads to his job at the CCPD crime labs which the film portrays as a good occupation, with only Barry himself sabotaging his own career.

Combined with Barry’s connection to the Justice League, all of this means The Flash fails to adequately portray Barry as the “everyman” character the film intended – a characterization done much more effectively in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. With Blue Beetle though, Jaime Reyes is positioned as a reliable, sympathetic underdog almost instantaneously, proving him to be the hero that DC wishes Barry was in The Flash.

Why Jaime Reyes Is A More Relatable DC Movie Superhero Than The Flash

What immediately stands out about Jaime is his sympathetic nature. The film instantly portrays him as a recent college graduate with the weight of student debt on his shoulders alongside the pressure of securing a career to help his struggling family. The combination of this initial characterization with his demeaning job for Kord Industries, his family’s social status on the “poor” side of Palmera City, the imminent loss of his family business and house, his dad’s health issues, and his longing for things being different all make Jaime an instantly sympathetic, relatable underdog.

This instantly makes Jaime Reyes much more of a relatable superhero than Barry Allen was in The Flash. While The Flash‘s Barry story fits the comics, the translation of such in the script, unfortunately, lacked the relatable side of Barry that is integral to his character and was showcased well in other iterations like Zack Snyder’s Justice League or CW’s The Flash. Despite Jaime’s story in Blue Beetle ending on a more positive note regarding his initially relatable origins, it is done in a way that feels earned, proving the DCU’s first, low-level hero to be much better characterized than an icon like the Scarlet Speedster in true underdog fashion.