I am – Hercules!! Some folks are apparently trying to get a new TV series off the ground, one based on DC Comics’ latest version of The Blue Beetle. Some effects test footage for the project, which is still in the pitching phase, was created, and DC exec Geoff Johns just posted stills captured from the footage. The Blue Beetle has a long and tortured history. He began life in Fox Comics’ Mystery Men Comics #1 (1939) as Dan Garret, a rookie cop who gained superstrength via a “2-X” vitamin. The rights to the Blue Beetle were sold to Charlton Comics, which in 1964 decided Garrett (now spelled differently) was actually an archaeologist who got superstrength, flight and the ability to generate energy blasts from a magical Egyptian artifact resembling a beetle. In 1966 Charlton introduced Ted Kord, a student of Garrett’s who inherited Garrett’s alter ego. Kord, an inventor and gifted athlete, inherited also Garrett’s artifact but for some reason never got superpowers from it. (Alan Moore loosely based the Hollis Mason and Daniel Dreiberg versions of Nite Owl in “Watchmen” on Garret and Kord.) Charlton sold The Blue Beetle in 1983 to DC Comics, which put Kord to work as a member of The Justice League. In 2006, DC introduced Jaime Reyes, a new teen Blue Beetle who gets his powers from Garrett’s Egyptian artifact (which turns out to be a lost piece of ancient extraterrestrial technology). The funnybook series centered on the Reyes Blue Beetle was cancelled after 36 issues early last year due to poor sales. Both the Kord and Reyes Beetles were featuring on “Batman: The Brave and the Bold”: If a weekly series goes forward, it will not be the first for Blue Beetle, who was the subject of a radio drama in 1940. Find all seven effects images at scifiwire. Follow Herc on Twitter!! Follow Evil Herc on Twitter!!

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