Blue Beetle‘s invite to join the Justice League in the latest movie must’ve gotten lost in the post. But that’s okay, because the DCU may well bring back a new version of the Justice League in one of their new movies. But whether James Gunn and Peter Safran decide to do, we have a feeling that they won’t be drawing upon this Extreme Justice storyline for any future superhero movie.
For those not in the know, Extreme Justice was a spin-off Justice League comic that ran between 1994 and 1996. It followed a number of DC characters, including Captain Atom, Maxima, Amazing-Man, Booster Gold, and Ted Kord’s Blue Beetle, as they decided to break away from the main Justice League and form their own version of the super-team.
At this point in time, there are three Justice Leagues simultaneously in operation: the OG led by Wonder Woman, the Justice League Taskforce led by Martian Manhunter, and now Captain Atom’s version of the Justice League. While other members of the team like Kord refer to the group as the Justice League, they are referred to by others as Extreme Justice.
Either way, a superhero supergroup that can’t even decide on a name doesn’t exactly bode well, and this much becomes evident when Captain Atom leads the Extreme Justice team to an ill-fated invasion of Middle Eastern country Bialya (which, fun fact, is where Dan Garrett founded the Scarab).
The reason for the group’s invasion is that the country’s new ruler, Queen Beatriz, was rebuilding the Extremists — a terrorist group that has clashed with DC heroes several times in the past.
But things went drastically wrong when the Extreme Justice team destroyed what they believed to be robots built by Queen Beatriz, but were in fact cyborgs made from Biayla civilians. In trying to defeat what they believed to be DC villains, they actually became the villains themselves. The event was such a stain on the Justice League’s legacy, all three groups decided to disband.
While Jaime Reyes is now Blue Beetle, we know from the Blue Beetle post-credit scene that Ted Kord is still alive. So, will his days with Extreme Justice come up again? Is that the reason he disappeared in the first place? It’s hard to know for sure, but if you want to see how DC has handled the Justice League in live-action in the past, check out our guide on how to watch all the DC movies in order.
Or, see how Gunn and Safran are plotting to make the best movies DC has ever seen with their Chapter 1 Gods and Monsters slate. But before we get that far, you might want to check out our guide to the Aquaman 2 release date — the last remaining DCEU movie.