Blue Beetle’s Jaime Reyes Age Change Fixes MCU Spider-Man Criticism

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The Blue Beetle movie ages Jaime Reyes, ironically correcting a complaint filed against the younger MCU version of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man.

The upcoming Blue Beetle movie brings DC’s Jaime Reyes to the big screen, giving DC Universe films and superhero movies in general a somewhat different kind of young superhero. One interesting element is that the hero is aging a bit from the comics, essentially reinventing his story. This ironically highlights a big problem with the most recent movie version of Spider-Man.

Spider-Man has almost always been a young adult, usually ranging from college age to older. Nonetheless, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a teenager in high school, which was something of a sticking point for some fans. Here’s how DC’s equivalent to the Webslinger might actually somehow top it on the big screen.

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The Blue Beetle Movie Makes Jaime Reyes Age

Blue Beetle’s official synopsis changes Jaime Reyes significantly. In the comics, he’s always been portrayed as a teenager in high school, with the new series Blue Beetle: Graduation Day finally putting an end to that. In contrast, the movie version of Jaime will return to El Paso after graduating from college, giving him a few years ahead of where even the comics took him before. The comics have generally delved into the hijinks of being a superhero with the responsibilities of a high school kid, so having him as an adult who’s already overcome most of the challenges of his youth is an interesting choice.

Keep in mind that, with the exception of the old Spider-Man movies, this is a direction few superhero movies take with their protagonists. Most of the superheroes in the film are older adults in their thirties or close to them, namely heroes such as Superman and Batman. Younger superheroes are usually much younger, around college age or, in the case of the Shazam movies and its heroes, actual children. This sweet spot could make Jaime Reyes particularly accessible to many young adult viewers, which kinda fits. Since its debut in the mid-2000s, it’s been seen by many as DC’s equivalent to Marvel’s Spider-Man, and it’s not just down to their similar bug themes. Both had an element of the average Joe in their characterizations, allowing readers to see themselves in heroes a bit. Since these traits influence the Jaime Reyes cutscene in a different way, it only highlights one of the MCU’s biggest mistakes with Spider-Man.

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Making The MCU Spider-Man High School Age Was A Mistake

The Marvel Cinematic Universe Spider-Man movies are the third film version of the hero. Likely to further differentiate this version of the Webslinger from previous versions played by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, Tom Holland’s Peter Parker looked, played and was younger. Maguire’s Spider-Man graduated from high school in the first of his three films, while Garfield’s did at the start of his second film. The MCU Spidey is still in high school by the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home and his whole character is much more of a “teenybopper” iteration. So, older fans were a little less happy with this “more childish” incarnation, especially since Spider-Man had been out of high school for the vast majority of his story. It was sort of a way to justify rebooting the character, and it came with many and sometimes glaring changes to the hero’s mythology.

Blue Beetle is, oddly enough, reversing that premise, being further along in the making than any cinematic Spider-Man. Even Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man was still in college, while the DCU’s Jaime will have already graduated. It could see Blue Beetle speaking to a whole new kind of audience, namely those who were kids themselves when the MCU and DCU first started and have now gone on to face life’s greatest challenges. It’s certainly risky when it comes to the accuracy of the source material, but it could greatly boost Blue Beetle’s appeal.

Blue Beetle is set to hit theaters on August 18, 2023.

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