Blue Beetle (Ted Kord)
Ted Kord as the Blue Beetle. Art by Dick Giordano.
The replacement Blue Beetle created by Charlton Comics, and later published by Americomics and DC Comics, is Ted Kord, a former student of Dan Garrett, a genius-level inventor and a gifted athlete. Kord and Garrett were investigating Kord's Uncle Jarvis when they learned Jarvis was working to create an army of androids to take over Earth. Garrett changed into Blue Beetle, but was killed in battle. As he died, he passed on to Kord the responsibility of being Blue Beetle, but was unable to pass on the mystical scarab.
Ted had the scarab for some time, but never used it. He carried it during the Crisis on Infinite Earths when he was chosen by the Monitor to protect the multiple Earths, but it only reacted when he was attacked; it did not give him superpowers.
As the Blue Beetle, Ted funded his adventures through his company, Kord Industries, and was chronically short on cash.[volume & issue needed] He joined the Justice League and met his best friend, Booster Gold. Each was considered a second stringer, and for many years, the Blue Beetle was a member of one second-rate superhero group or another.
During the "Death of Superman" saga the Blue Beetle and the other JLA members tried to stop Doomsday's path of destruction.[volume & issue needed] Doomsday displayed his near-invulnerability and, while brutally defeating the League, put the Blue Beetle into a coma. Upon recovery, he continued his tenure with the JLA as well as its offshoot Extreme Justice.
In Countdown to Infinite Crisis, Blue Beetle discovered a renewed Checkmate organization led by Maxwell Lord, former bankroller of the JLA. Kord covertly entered Checkmate headquarters, where he found a database containing information on every metahuman on Earth. However, he was captured before he could return to the JLA with the information, and while in Lord's custody was executed with a single gunshot to the head. Before dying, he had used the scarab in an attempt to contact Captain Marvel, but was forced to leave it with Shazam in the Rock of Eternity when the wizard sent him back to Earth.]
Some time later, Booster, along with Jaime, Dan, and the Black Beetle in the guise of a Blue Beetle from the future, travels back in time to rescue Kord moments before his death.Ted later travels back to guarantee his own death.
Powers and abilities
Ted Kord had no superpowers; however, he did possess a genius-level intellect, with an IQ of 192 (Countdown to Infinite Crisis). He was proficient in numerous sciences such as chemistry, physics, engineering, aircraft, and solar tech, as well as an understanding of alien tech. Despero once claimed that Ted's mind was second only to that of J'onn J'onzz. Former Justice League teammate Guy Gardner claims that Ted was smarter than Batman, "although nobody ever noticed." Kord was an Olympic-level acrobat, and skilled hand-to-hand combatant, having studied in the martial arts of karate and aikido. He was also highly skilled at espionage (DCU source, Ted Kord).
Equipment
* Kord created numerous gadgets, including suction pads, sight-enhancing lenses, and a protective costume. To prevent being forcibly unmasked, especially if rendered unconscious, Kord's cowl had a lock mechanism that only opened when he touches with a chip in his gloves, which would at least force an enemy to perform the more troublesome task of cutting through the material to unmask him.
* He also created a power armor suit for his friend Booster Gold; the suit contained a fully functioning artificial arm, and also provided life-support for Booster as he recovered from potentially fatal injuries. He later converted a suit of alien armor for Booster to use.
* His BB gun was a handheld weapon that could blind villains with a flash of light, or knock them out with a compressed air blast capable of felling a charging rhino. The original BB gun was designed with a security feature, so that it would function only when the Blue Beetle held it, becoming inactive without contact with special circuitry in the Beetle costume's gloves. It was shown during the Eclipso annuals that it was solar powered.
* Blue Beetle's airship, the Bug, contained high tech equipment, could electrify or magnetize its hull, fire electrical energy, and fly at 600 mph. All models had booster jets hidden under the shell of the Bug. The boosters on the first two models could speed the Bug up to the speed of sound for a short period of time; no time limit was ever given for how long the burst lasted. Later models of the boosters were used for intercontinental travel at supersonic speed. It was also 90% solar powered. Later models also had energy weapons of various types from lasers to plasma. The last two models were capable of reaching orbit (L.A.W #6, Infinite Crisis #5), all models could operate underwater. No depth was ever given that they could go to, but one model Bug was seen operating on the sea floor after going through a underwater volcano (Blue Beetle vol 7, #16). All models were remote controllable from controls built into Kord's gloves.
* He also built flight pads similar to Mister Miracle's flight discs (Extreme Justice), and claimed to Barbara Gordon that he could keep the Birds of Prey jet flying 24-7 with technology based on the New Gods' Mother Boxes (Countdown to Infinite Crisis).
* As a Black Lantern Blue Beetle is equipped with a "decayed", damaged version of the Bug, and black, power ring-derived constructs of his Blue Beetle suit and his BB-Gun. This iteration of the BB Gun is an aggressive rather than a defensive weapon, able to pierce the powerful shields in the Supernova suit.
Information from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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