First Look: Possible Blue Beetle Live-Action Television Series

Over the weekend, comic book writer Geoff Johns (Green Lantern, The Flash) revealed on Twitter (spotted by Mel Valentin) that DC/Warner Bros is "hoping to develop a live-action show. Fingers crossed!" I'm guessing this is one of the WB's possible answers to the fastly approaching series conclusion of Smallville. Johns also announced that they "have a live-action test of Jaime Reyes' scarab activating his suit. It. Is. Awesome." Johns says he will bring the test footage to San Diego Comic-Con International as a "wrok-in-progress".

Update: We won't have to wait until Comic-Con, Johns has put some screen captures from the test footage online. Check them out, after the jump.

Here is a note from Johns:

I feel very fortunate to have been a part of Blue Beetle's introduction way back in INFINITE CRISIS. I've said it before, but thanks to the BLUE BEETLE series launched by Keith Giffen and John Rogers with a great design by Cully Hamner, Jaime Reyes rocks. Great character, great story, great look. He's already appeared in animation, had action figures and right now he's on my computer in live-action glory. I have an early special effects test that has been floating around of what his armored scarab-suit could look like. This isn't final. This isn't greenlit. It's only a test that was done. We still have a long way to go to see if we can get this off the ground and a lot of people to jump on board...but check out some stills. Pretty cool, huh? We'll be bringing this short clip to San Diego Comic-Con and playing it in as many DCU panels as possible so everyone gets a chance to see it.

/Film reader Ray P sent us two more photos that weren't released on the DC Blog website:

The Blue Beetle has been around since 1939, but the most recent incarnation was introduced in 2006. The series written by Keith Giffen and John Rogers with artist Cully Hamner, tells the story of an El Paso teenager named Jaime Reyes, who becomes fused with the mystical blue scarab, giving him an advanced alien suit of powered armor. According to wikipedia:

Over the course of the first year of his ongoing series, Jaime had little, if any, control over those powers, but slowly began to assert himself over the suit after this first year. When Jaime is in danger, the scarab activates, crawling out on to Jaime's back and generating a high-tech suit of powered armor around his body. The armor is resilient enough that it can protect Jaime against atmospheric re-entry from Earth's orbit. When the danger passes, the scarab deactivates, dissolving the costume and retracting back onto Jaime's spine, causing intense pain.

You can definitely see why WB is testing this character as a possible replacement for Smallville, as a story about a teenage struggling to learn and control his superpowers seems like the next logical set. But is this comic book character big enough to support his own live-action television series? People watched Smallville because it was based off a classic comic character everyone knows — Superman. But is Blue Beetle really a selling point? Even the comic book series was initially canceled due to "poor sales".