Bianca Reyes

Speaking of trailers, a new one for Blue Beetle has been released, and with it a new poster: we finally get a good look at the entire Reyes family, including Jaime‘s mother, Rocio. Portrayed by Elpidia Carrillo, she seems to be a much more marginalized character than her comicbook counterpart, whose name is Bianca, but it remains to be seen of course. What we can due now, as usual, is to take a good look at the original one.

Not much is known about Bianca, not even her maiden name. She was most likely born in El Paso, Texas, but it’s also possible that she was born in Mexico like her mother Elena Leal, and moved to the United States when she was very young. As a young woman, she started dating a man from her community, Alberto Reyes, the local mechanic, who had inherited a garage from his father. The two wanted to get married, but he had his duties to think of first, and he enrolled in the US Army as soon as the Dominion War started. This was an end-of-the-world scenario, and Bianca waited for months the news that her fiance had been killed in action… but they apparently deserved a happy ending, and Alberto came back home in one piece. The two immediately got married, and they finally started the simple and happy life they had always wanted. During Alberto’s absence, Bianca had become a nurse, and she was working at the local hospital. She had two children from Alberto, Jaime and Milagro, and she loved them with all her heart. She had a particular affinity with Jaime, and mother and son were closer as anyone could be… or so she though. When Jaime was in high school, Bianca managed to convince Alberto to take him as an aid at the garage, pointing out that he was just as old as his father when he began… but Jaime didn’t come to work that night, something she would have never expected from her responsible son. But the worst was yet to come.

Soon after the missed appointment with Alberto at the garage, Jaime vanished in thin air, and nobody, not even his best friends Paco and Brenda, knew where he was. Bianca simply couldn’t believe her boy had run away like the police was suggesting, and as months passed, she came to believe that he was dead somewhere. She mourned him, and things got even harder for her family, as Alberto got shot while trying to defend his work aid Luis and almost lost the use of his legs, a situation that put his job in jeopardy. Then, one year later, Jaime came back at night, and for him it was like he had been missing for one day only: when his family made him realize a year had passed, he started saying that he had been away in space with the Justice League. Obviously, Bianca believed him to be on drugs… until he summoned his alien armor. Bianca was shocked, but still in control: she took Jaime to the hospital and had him examined, but the doctors told her he was in perfectly good health, not the result she was expecting. For a time she believed Khaji-Da, the alien, was actually controlling her son, but it soon became clear that the two of them were in some kind of symbiosis, and Jaime was still himself. A new life began for Bianca, one in which her son was the superhero Blue Beetle, and in which she had to face incredible new threats for him… and also for the rest of her family, as supervillains, alien conquerors and mad scientists became the daily bread for the Reyes’. Nothing that a mom couldn’t handle.

Bianca Reyes is a smart, caring and hardworking woman, who always finds time for her family even if her job takes a lot from her. She is also quite strong-willed, and doesn’t care who she’s facing when her children are involved: she told Green Lantern Guy Gardner off when he started a brawl with her son, she wasn’t afraid to mock the vigilante Peacemaker, she even actively defended Milagro from the Black Beetle. No matter if now her world is filled with super-people who can pulverize a skyscraper with a glance: Bianca is a mother, and that gives her all the superpowers she needs to stand up to anyone and anything.