I’m Still Disappointed That Blue Beetle Wasn’t In El Paso

The Blue Beetle movie was a lot of fun but did you know the comic book character it was based on, Jaime Reyes, lives in El Paso, TX? The Blue Beetle has been around for a long time but one of the more recent versions of the hero in the comics was a character named Jaime Reyes who lived right here in the Sun City.

What Changed?

Initially, the movie was going to be set in El Paso and the director, Angel Manuel Soto, even visited our city to scout things out. Soto met with a lot of different people in the city and Old Sheepdog Brewery even wound up making an official beer for the film, it was even in a scene in the movie which was pretty cool.

Unfortunately, the official story of the studio was that they wanted Jaime Reyes to have a city that felt as iconic as Metropolis for Superman or Gotham for Batman. The idea was that Jaime should have his own place that felt special to him, so they created the city you see in the movie now, Palmera City. A lot of fans didn't love this change though, especially since anyone who has been here knows how special this place is to Mexican-American culture.

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Palmera City

Palmera City was meant to be this sort of futuristic big city full of Latin and Hispanic culture. What a lot of fans of the comics, and myself, felt instead was that it was basically just Miami. Angel Manuel Soto has said that he put some of his home into the city too, meaning that instead of Jaime Reyes home feeling more Mexican, it became a blend of different Hispanic cultures. Instead of Palmera City being a border town, it was still set in Texas but was made to feel like a Gulf city instead. The movie was filmed in parts of Miami, Atlanta, and Puerto Rico. This was a thing fans took issue with, making Jaimes home, which is a specific hub for Mexican-American culture, and blending us together with the others. Some even accused the director, Soto, of replacing the Mexican culture of the character with his own Puerto Rican culture instead.

The fans didn't have a problem with the culture being present, but what El Pasoans and Mexican comic book fans all over the country had a problem with, was having a distinctly Mexican superhero introduced as the first Latino superhero but making him and his home a blend of cultures. The change made Mexicans who looked up to Jaime Reyes feel a little slighted, the beauty of El Paso is that it is so distinct from other places with high Hispanic and Latino populations. Technically Palmera City existed in the comics before the movie, but Palmera City was created especially for the film and was only introduced in the comics 7 months before the movie was released, more than likely as a promotional tie in.

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El Paso, TX

Lots of fans took to comments boards all over the internet to talk about how they felt that El Paso would have been a better setting for the story. The city wouldn't have been as flashy, but it could have introduced the unique setting of a border city to a larger audience and finally painted El Paso in a light that isn't so heavily focused on drug trafficking and cartel crime. However, if it did choose to follow that angle, it would have given Mexicans a superhero like Batman or Superman who fights specifically for us in our own town.

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How cool would it have been to see a Mexican superhero fly across the border to stop some terrible cartel crime then watching him hang out for some elote form a street vender before he flies off to stop the next crime? The possibilities for what we could have seen were endless and the way a superhero could have highlighted El Paso's border community in a positive way is insane. Maybe in the future we will see the Mexican cast of a sequel Blue Beetle movie visit family in El Paso and we will get a small glimpse of the hero we could have had.

I will say that for some people, the movie probably did feel very close to home. The main actor, Xolo Mariduena, who played Jaime Reyes in the movie is Mexican, Cuban, AND Ecuadorian, having a city that connects all of our cultures was probably pretty cool. I'm sure others with mixed backgrounds like this were also very at home in the movie and that's awesome! I just think the movie could have felt very unique if it focused on a setting as distinct as a border city. Maybe in the future when they eventually remake and reboot this movie too.

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