Blue Beetle's Weird [SPOILER] May Reveal More About DC's Universe Than You Think

Contains spoilers for "Blue Beetle"

For the most part, "Blue Beetle" doesn't dig that deep into the lore of the comics. We're told that the Scarab that bonds with Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) is of alien origin and that it possesses dangerous amounts of power, but no other details are provided. The plot itself is pretty terrestrial, with villain Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon) standing in for pretty much any evil corporate imperialist or military-industrial baron. The main themes of the film are grounded — family, community, and the dangers of private policing.

But then, right at the end of "Blue Beetle," we get a very different kind of scene. While strapped into Victoria's strange machine that transfers the Scarab data into Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo), Jaime faints. He "awakens" in a dreamlike version of his family's garden, where he encounters his dead father Alberto (Damián Alcázar). At this point in the story, Jaime knows that his dad had another heart attack, but he doesn't know for sure that he's dead. In the "dream," though, Alberto confirms his death to Jaime before encouraging him to embrace his destiny as a hero.

The whole thing only gets weirder after Jaime's dream house starts to dissolve, revealing a shining cosmic void with a massive Blue Beetle exosuit floating through it. To awaken properly, Jaime has to make a leap of faith, reconnecting with the Scarab in a curiously biblical moment. On its own, this scene is quite mysterious, but it could also hold some big clues about the new DC film universe.

If you've read the "Blue Beetle" comics, you probably know all about the Reach — the civilization of dangerous alien conquerors who created the Scarab. The device was sent to Earth with the mission of dominating the planet for assimilation, bringing it, like so many other worlds, under the boot of the Reach. The movie doesn't really get into any of that background, but if "Blue Beetle 2" happens, it's safe to assume that we'll get a lot more exposition.

With all of that in mind, it's possible that Jaime's dream sequence has some connection to the Reach. We're told in the film that the Scarab has bonded with his brain, making it impossible to remove. That means that the Reach technology within the Scarab could be influencing his subconscious, determining the things he sees while he's asleep.

Is it possible that the version of Alberto that Jaime sees is a construct designed to make him accept the Scarab? As a world-conquering weapon, it needs the host to be bought in, and what better way to make that happen than by using the image of a loved one? Even if the dream sequence isn't malicious, its cosmic aesthetic suggests some sort of Reach involvement.

Another possible explanation for Jaime's bizarre dream sequence is that it's magical. In some versions of the comics, the Scarab is changed by magical powers on Earth, which turns it from a weapon focused on world domination into something else. After allying with Jaime, Khaji-Da, the sentience within the device, becomes a force for good on Earth. It's possible that the movie version of the Scarab has been altered by a similar force. That might explain how Jaime knows that his father is really dead. Their conversation feels much more real than a simple hallucination, and if the Scarab has a magical component, it could be connecting Jaime to a greater power or intelligence.

Again, this is purely conjecture, but it fits with the comic book version of the Scarab. As James Gunn and his team build out the new DCU lore, it could also set up some interesting implications for other characters and storylines. Hopefully, Ángel Manuel Soto gets the "Blue Beetle" trilogy he's alluded to so that we get some answers to these lingering questions.