Blue Beetle in "History of the DC Universe"

A couple months ago Shag Matthews and Rob Kelly of Firestorm Fan, the Aquaman Shrine and the Fire and Water Podcast took a look at 1986's "History of the DC Universe" by Marv Wolfman and George Perez. It had been a while, years actually, since I'd looked at it myself. While listening to them recap it I found myself thinking several times "Wow...I didn't realize Blue Beetle was mentioned that much!"

Yep! We start with a reference to Dan Garrett! Well, sort of...we get a neat page set in ancient Egypt that references the blue scarab of Kha-ef-re. My interest was piqued by the couple pages here that hint at ties between several characters including Blue Beetle, Black Adam, Doctor Fate, Hawkman and...uh, Northwind...moving on...

Later we do see Dan at the moment he discovered the tomb and the scarab.

And a few pages after, we get the introduction of Ted Kord! I really like the BUG flying behind Green Arrow and Blue Beetle swinging down from it into his own panel.

There's even a nice shot of the Justice League (International) with Blue Beetle

Now, you may not think 4 appearances is much, but its more than some heroes got! ***cough, cough, Wonder Woman, cough*** So around 1986, Blue Beetle was a pretty decent part of the DCU. He had an ongoing series, was part of the JLI, was in "Who's Who", "Legends", "History of the DC Universe" and even part of the "DC Heroes" role playing game. Makes you wonder what happened along the way to the present, doesn't it?