THIS LAND IS OUR LAND

A Blue Beetle origin tale that tackles the fraught discourse over immigration at the Mexico-U.S. border.

Once again, the border has been shut down and the National Guard deployed along the Rio Grande. Anti-immigration flyers around town have also escalated tensions in El Paso, Texas. High school student and avid astronomer Jaime Reyes would much rather stargaze—but he learns that an old friend who’s fallen out of touch has inexplicably gotten involved with an online white nationalist movement called the Legion of Patriots. Jaime decides to join his activist friends’ efforts to unearth the hate group’s violent plan of action. Complicating matters, after he finds a mysterious scarab, Jaime has meetings in his dreams with an ambassador of the Reach, a race of aliens claiming to help “destabilized planets.” The scarab, it turns out, grants heroic powers to the Mexican American teen. As the conflict between immigrant rights activists and white nationalists worsens, Jaime must also keep his El Paso community safe from the incoming Reach, whose true intentions aren’t altogether clear. This well-timed superhero outing unpacks thorny topics—online extremism, radical activism, climate change—from an earnest, almost utopian angle, reinforcing a belief in community as a method of resistance from threats both internal and external. This adventure unfortunately wraps up too swiftly. The action-oriented artwork in shades of vibrant blues and burnt oranges leverages panoramic perspectives with aplomb.

A riveting start to a superhero saga.