Blue Beetle #20

Sinestro's Reach!

That's the title, and it took me two days and numerous readings before I even noticed it, but darn it to heck, that's clever. Well, actually, the title is Fear to Live, but I like the one on the cover better.

So, this takes place during all the hoohah going on with the Sinestro Corps war, and the Green Lanterns and everything. The GL's have been given a license to kill, and quite a lot of them, think that that is just fine and dandy. Therefore, Sinestro rings have been flying all over the place, looking for new candidates, and lo and behold, WHO should get one, but Peacemaker!

Peacemaker isn't really very enthusiastic about this, but that smarmy little Reach guy shows up with some of his equally smarmy cohorts and decide that being covert allies of Sinestro is a good idea. And it turns out that poor Peacemaker really DID have a scarab embedded in his spine as well.

Jaime of course knows that SOMEthing strange is going on, and keeps trying to contact various super people, but he can't because they are all out fighting Sinestro, Superbrat Prime, Henshaw and the Anti-Monitor. Man, they are all going to sleep well tonight! Jaime scarabs up, and flies off to Fort Bliss, trying to get them to evacuate, since the Sinestro Corps is going after military installations, when he is attacked by the newly Sinestrofied Peacemaker, who now resembles a bigger, meaner version of Blue Beetle, with the added touch of a yellow clown collar and Parallax emblem.

So they fight. A lot. Meanwhile, the Reach guys are gloating.

However...as Jaime is fighting SinestroPeacemaker, he notices that he doesn't rant about Order, or Fear, he keeps saying that he'll bring Peace. This is of course, highly unnusual, and Jaime is about to try and figure it all out, when Brik from the Green Lantern Corps shows up.

I like Brik. She's this large rocky lady, who was recruited by, and has an unrequited crush on Hal Jordan. (Join the club, Brik!) She is also doing her level best to fry Jaime, because her ring is reacting to the Scarab, and like Guy before her, she thinks that Beetle is a BAD guy. Poor Jaime is trying to dodge her attack, and also mentions that it's really ok, and that he KNOWS Guy Gardner, and they're cool. Brik replies hotly, that he's not worthy to even mention Guy's NAME! Gosh, it's so nice to see Guy getting a little respect for a change.

SinestroPeacemaker finds all this to be a hoot, and is trying to kill them both, while Jaime is desperately trying to hold him off, and explain the entire thing to Brik.



Meanwhile, the Reach are getting impatient. Shouldn't Jaime have been killed by now? And SinestroPeacemaker STILL keeps babbling about peace. Oh, and if Blue Beetle surrenders, he'll kill him somewhat LESS slowly. So while Brik distracts him, Jaime manages to breach their armor, and his..."scarab's system can interface with your scarab's neural pathways. We're in your brain!"

Peacemaker is restrained there of course, but in proper hero fashion is still desperately trying to resist being taken over by the Scarab and the Reach. Naturally, Jaime talks him down, and he's able to overcome the big bad Sinestro ring, while USING the Scarab, which was a nice touch. The ring gets pissed and flies off, and Jaime thinks that everything is hunkydory, when Peacemaker grabs a honkin' big knife and hacks the scarab OUT of his spine! That's seriously hardcore!

He then apparently expires in Jaime's arms, after explaining that he was the monster that he was afraid that Jaime would be, and could he just have a little peace now?

*sniff*

I really hope he isn't dead, because Jaime has one of the best support groups of any comic book, and he can't afford to lose ANY of them. On the other hand, if he is really dead, he had a much better death scene than Big Barda. ( I know, I should just let it go.)

So, good stuff as usual. I really do wish that more people were buying this book, it is one of the best that DC puts out.