Blue Beetle #10 Review and *SPOILERS*

Out of the Frying Pan........

Written By: Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis

Art By: Scott Kolins, Romulo Fajardo Jr., Josh Reed

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: June 28, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

After last issue of Blue Beetle, I started having dreams about a book that could finally be something that I would be all about each and every month that it came out and one that people who were "iffy" on the title finally going out and picking up themselves to enjoy because while the story really hasn't changed since the series began, we had J.M. DeMatteis on script duties now and it seemed to really tighten up the story.  Hopefully, those dreams continue to come true because after so many issues that were underwhelming in my mind, I finally had fun in the previous issue, where Jaime, OMAC, Ted Kord and Teri Magnus went down in the bowels of Arion's domain to take the sorcerer on.  It wasn't all pinatas and RC Cola though because Teri sped off with the helmet of Fate to go reunite it with Kent Nelson and Jaime was lured away from the fight with Arion's Horde by a strange voice.  Let's jump in this issue and see if OMAC and Ted Kord can hold their own and see if our heroes can bring the big bad Atlantean sorcerer down.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Jaime finding out that the strange voice that was leading him away from battle is none other than the scarab itself, still psychically linked to him, even though it's now bonded with Arion and giving the big bad the power to break through his dimensional pocket prison below El Paso and into the rest of the world, which he'll certainly see destroyed since he's all crazy and whatnot.  The scarab tells Jaime though that he has the power to break Arion's connection with it because of their deeper bond, but when Jaime tries, he gets a psychic head full of spikes and is down for the count for the majority of this issue......... until he wakes up and Mordecai decides that it's payback time against Jaime, where he's down for the count again.

While Jaime's dealing with Arion and Mordecai, Ted is trying to keep himself alive against the insect Horde and OMAC is of no use because he's blinded by one of the Horde and become pretty useless for the entire issue, but things pick up when Teri comes back with Doctor Fate by her side, but even with all of this going for our heroes, it seems that Jaime is the only one who can stop the nonsense, which he immediately does once Arion tells him that his connection with the scarab is unique and with that bit of knowledge, Jaime tries to connect with the scarab again and this time succeeds in pulling the scarab out of Arion and bonding it to himself once again.

In the end, with the scarab gone, it seems that Arion doesn't have the power he needs to destroy the world and Jaime begins just giving him an ass whooping until he's called off by Ted Kord, but things have just gone from bad to worse because even though Arion seems to be defeated, it seems that the scarab has taken over Jaime completely and doesn't look to friendly to the rest of his team.

That's it for this issue of Blue Beetle and while the issue picked up towards the tale end of it, the majority of this issue was a shit load of over the top dialog, wrapped around a fight scene that really went nowhere in the long run.  Not to mention, Jaime just being able to pull the scarab off of Arion out of nowhere even though his first attempt simply knocked him out.  There's still some charm to this issue and the art looked great, especially when Jaime became the Blue Beetle again, but the majority of this issue seemed to be filler until it needed to rush to its ending.  

Bits and Pieces:

After the last issue of Blue Beetle I was really starting to think that this series was on the right track, but this issue seemed to take a wrong turn off that track because the majority of this story seemed to be a filler fight scene that really went nowhere, until it had to rush towards its cliffhanger that felt forced.  The art was decent though and I still hold out hope that this series can be something worthwhile in the future......... this issue just wasn't that great though.

5.8/10