Blue Beetle is Mine!

Blue Beetle is Mine!

No, don’t worry, I’m not trying to stake a claim on DC’s latest super hero jaunt. On the contrary, they need the win, and Blue Beetle was quite the win. I say let ‘em have it. As an MCU fan for life, I haven’t been into a DC movie theater since Man of Steel, but I went out on a limb for this one and was glad I did. Blue Beetle was fun, entertaining, and - most importantly - had a consistent, coherent story throughout.

Something that stood out to me, however, was towards the climax of the film, the villain tells the hero “the scarab may have chosen you, but it doesn’t belong to you”. That set off bells in my young economist brain.

For a little context, I’m currently reading Mine!, a book about the hidden rules of ownership by Michael Heller and James Salzman. I haven't finished the book yet, but I’ve read enough to have covered their arguments on two of the kinds of ownership claims we see in the real world. One is the rule of first come first served (or first come last served as the authors argue), and the ownership claim of current possession. Both the heroic Blue Beetle and the villainous CEO are staking a claim on the scarab from all the Journey album covers - the source of Blue Beetle’s power.

At the beginning of the film, the audience sees the dig site where Kord Industries is excavating what they believe to be the crash site where the scarab arrived on Earth. Later on, we see the scarab in their facilities, confirming to us that Kord Industries did indeed put in the work and expend considerable resources trying to get their hands on the scarab and its powers. They own the scarab.

In an entertaining twist, however, our protagonist Jaime unwittingly acts as an accomplice in stealing the scarab from the evil corporation and the scarab literally attaches itself to him in the most intrusive way. Just like that his world turns upside down and he is told that the powers of the Blue Beetle will be his until death. Jaime owns the scarab.

And just like that, we’re able to boil down this superhero movie into a simple disagreement of what constitutes ownership. As we’ve seen time and time again, it’s the person with the most compelling story for ownership that wins.

In their book Mine!, Heller and Salzman share a similar anecdote about two fox hunters. The one pursues the fox over miles and miles of wild country, with all his hunting gear, his best hounds, and a determination worthy of a big screen. Just as he finally corners the creature, however, a second hunter stepped in and stole the kill. Despite all his resources and efforts, the first hunter lost his prize to the hunter who was actually successful in nabbing it. Feelings were hurt, a lawsuit was filed, and, after a court trial, the fox was awarded to the second hunter. Ownership, it was deemed, is more than just wanting something most, even if that want is backed up with impressive expenditure of resources. Just like in a war for territory, two sides could spend all sorts of resources that they can’t get back, but they can’t both conquer the same land. Ownership is in flux and it’s up to our institutions (both formal and informal) to settle things as needed.

To learn who wins the ownership claims battle for the scarab, I encourage anyone interested to go watch Blue Beetle. DC fans in particular, you have a good one, show up for it and signal to your studio that you want more like it. And as for Mine!, I’ll keep up my journey and learn even more about “how the hidden rules of ownership control our lives”. Who knows, maybe I’ll come to find that all of my beloved Marvel stories are really just conflicts of ownership (infinity stones, anyone?). Until next time, adios!