On C2E2 2011: DC Universe - LIVE! someone asked if we'll find out who Black Beetle is this year. They said maybe. And I started wondering if we had enough clues to guess who he was. While there's been some hints and I have a theory of my own I can't say there's anything that would firmly point at anyone unless I'm missing a few details.

Well, what do we really know?

Black Beetle appears to be a white male.
Black Beetle has hinted that he is intimately familiar with Blue Beetle II.
Black Beetle has hinted that he is Hector, a man who blames Blue Beetle III for the death of his sister.
Black Beetle has also hinted that he is a future version of Blue Beetle III.
Black Beetle is able to time travel at will.
To date, Black Beetle appears driven only by the motivation to gain more power.

What else do we really know?

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Well nothing Black Beetle says can really be taken seriously. The only time we get any real insight from him is when he loses it when Supernova stops him from taking Waveriders' body. He said that it won't matter what he messes up in the time line because he's going to change something big once he's able to secure a means to safely travel further back.

The hints were mainly little things Jurgens put in through observations. Day of Death had the most focus on him but curiously it more or less compared him to Rip through out the arc. Rips' panel next to BB even got some wondering if it was Rip. I don't think so because Black Beetle is not as skilled at time travel as Rip. He had to leech power from T.O. Morrow to be able to do jumps until he got the red scarab and is still looking for more powerful ways to travel.

Still I think there's something interesting about how BB comments on Rip hiding his identity so well and then Rip later admitting that neither of them knows anything about the other. It seems like an intentional detail but I'm not sure if it's just a red herring or to show the parallel to hint at something deeper. After finding Black Beetles' system tap at Vanishing Point Rip wonders who is intelligent enough to even set that up.

For some reason Skeets won't tell Rip that he was able to get something from his scan of Black Beetle. Skeets expresses doubts about Rip following up on it and once he finds Jaime he asks for his impression of Black Beetle. Jaime basically says he's either the craziest guy ever or the smartest as he's able to keep you off your game by saying the wildest things. Skeets seems to ponder this. Black Beetle only appears to have two scarabs at present, but wouldn't he have three if he was Jaime?

If he's an old character I have no idea who it could be that makes sense. He seems to have a connection to the Beetles and someone Booster would know. If it was a new character then he'd have to at least look like someone Booster knows for him to be that shocked when he's unmasked.

I just hope that they won't do another Max twist and it turns out that Black Beetle is a future version of Rip, Booster or Jaime...and that the whole arc will actually start going somewhere.

Why would he have 3 scarabs if he was Jaime? Jaime is using Dan Garrett's scarab, the same scarab possessed but unused by Ted Kord. Couldn't Black Beetle's scarab just be the same scarab, darkened?

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Why would it have gotten darker? Jaimes' scarab is attached to his spine and there's never been any indication of Black Beetle talking to the A.I. Actually I don't recall him doing the same things as Jaime with it. Just time travel, engery beams and flight. The end of Jaimes' series also set up the whole "Joshua" bit (an incorrect version of the scarabs' name) with Hector taking the scarab from the body of one of the guys that attacked Jaime. Black Beetle uses that name as an alias with Mr. Mind and claims the scarab is the same one when he fights Jaime.

He may not be the most honest of guys but he obviously knows the story enough to use it. This would also be an easier way to get the power then grabbing it from someone who knows how to use it and has connections to other superheroes.

Black Beetle wears a scarab on his belt. It was my understanding that this scarab was black, but otherwise identical to the Blue Beetle scarab. The Black Beetle has since generated an alternate timeline in order to acquiring the red scarab. Black Beetle now wears the red scarab on his chest.

If I understand what you are saying, you are suggesting that if Black Beetle were Jaime, he would still have the original blue scarab attached to his spine. Black Beetle's costume is superficially similar to Jaime's (minus the face mask and claw-toed feet), even if his use of the suit is different and seems divorced from the scarab A.I.

But that doesn't mean that the Black Beetle has a scarab bonded to his spine. If the Black Beetle were a future or alternate present version of Jaime Reyes, that doesn't mean that he has been bonded to a scarab like our familiar Jaime. He could be using only part of the power of the scarabs as Dan Garrett did.

So far we only know that Black Beetle has 2 scarabs: one black and one red. When the character first appeared, I had initially assumed that the Black Beetle's black scarab was the same as Dan Garrett's original blue scarab, and that's where my suggestion came from. I find it very difficult to ascertain whether something is supposed to be black or blue in comic books unless it is stated in dialogue.

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You know, I almost hate to ask this but given the observations about his similarities to Rip--

--How many kids do we think Booster may have had?

Might have worded it wrong but I just meant that so far we haven't seen any proof that his scarab works like Jaimes'. And for some reason it seemed to have "fallen off" of him just before he throws Ted into the time sphere with him. Yet his armor stays on? Was it the same scarab or did he set that up on purpose? There's a lot of stuff to use.

Russ: I hope it's not another kid. Didn't Jurgens say something like having to be careful with all the family members? I'd prefer it if it was Teds' son. The irony of the legacy, Boosters' guilt and the parallel with Rip would just flow better for me. Plus a reason for him picking on Jaime I guess.

Also, Rips' POV in Time Masters seems to suggests that he was an only child.