- "Guard that with your life, but do not open it. Do not even touch it, don't even look at it."
"Okay, I'm just gonna guard it with my life."
"Yeah, you're a quick learner." - ―Jenny Kord and Jaime Reyes[src]
The Theft of Khaji-Da was a successful mission carried out by Jenny Kord against Victoria Kord's plans with the alien artifact Khaji-Da, which she stole and later delivered to Jaime Reyes.
Background[]
- "Should’ve called before making the trip out, Miss Kord. This could be another decoy."
"It’s in there. I can feel it." - ―José Morales and Victoria Kord[src]
When the archaeologist Dan Garrett discovered an ancient scarab-shaped alien artifact during an expedition. The artifact, later known as Khaji-Da, turned out to be an advanced piece of biotechnology, whose purpose was to serve as a device of conquest: when fused with a host, it granted them a living arsenal capable of destroying entire armies. However, the Scarab refused to fuse with Garrett's protégé Ted Kord, so Ted became a superhero known as Blue Beetle, relying solely on his intellect, gadgets, and technology to fight crime. Nevertheless, he kept the Scarab hidden and under study, believing it might still hold a key to understanding larger threats on Earth.
Victoria Kord finds Khaji-Da.
With Ted Kord's mysterious disappearance, control of Kord Industries passed to his sister, the relentless Victoria Kord, an ambitious woman with a more aggressive vision for the family legacy. Under her leadership, the company abandoned its philanthropic initiatives and refocused on weapons development. Its most ambitious project was the Project OMAC, a secret initiative to build cybernetically enhanced soldiers using alien technology. To this end, Victoria recovered Khaji-Da, which had been stored in a secure warehouse in South America, with the goal of deciphering its structure, replicating it, and turning it into the basis of her private army.
Jenny Kord confronts Victoria Kord.
Meanwhile, Jenny Kord, Ted's daughter and legitimate heir to his heroic legacy, returned to the company hoping to redirect it toward its original ideals. Upon discovering Victoria's true plans and realizing the global danger that releasing technology like Khaji-Da under military control would pose, Jenny decided to act. Knowing she couldn't trust anyone within the company, she devised a plan to steal the Scarab before its code was completely decoded and corrupted by OMAC engineers. During a tense argument between Jenny and Victoria, Kord Industries employee Jaime Reyes tried to intervene, and Victoria fired him, but Jenny apologized and asked Reyes to go to Kord Tower to try to get him another job at the company.[1]
Theft[]
Jenny Kord infiltrates the Kord Tower lab.
- "There’s been a security breach. Lock the building."
- ―José Morales[src]
The next day, Jaime showed up at the entrance of the Kord Tower to meet Jenny Kord and get the job, and nervously, he was encouraged by his family who accompanied him. Inside the tower, José Morales began experimenting on Khaji-Da to learn how to use it to create cybernetic armor on Victoria Kord's orders, but left to take a break before eating a burger from Big Belly Burger. Knowing of Morales' break, Jenny Kord, disguised as a scientific employee and with her face covered, infiltrated the corridors of Kord Tower, bumping into Morales to pickpocket his card and enter the lab's lair.
Jenny Kord escapes with Khaji-Da hidden in a Big Belly Burger box.
Once inside, Kord removed her mask and began to search for the scarab, finding it on a table where energy was being extracted. Kord took the scarab and put it in Morales' hamburger box, taking off her scientist's costume to walk normally through the Kord Tower and down the elevator, being spotted by Jaime Reyes who started to follow her trying to get her attention. Upon returning, Morales sat down in his chair to eat his Big Belly Burger, but quickly realized that Khaji-Da had been robbed, prompting him to order the building sealed off to prevent the perpetrator from escaping.
Jaime Reyes takes care of the hamburger box.
When Reyes met with Kord, she told him to hurry, but Reyes insisted that she needed the job, even though Jenny said it wasn't the right time. Seeing that many security guards were on alert, in an act of desperation and knowing that Reyes was willing to do anything, Kord handed him the box, telling him to protect it with his life, but not to open it or look inside. Following instructions, Reyes left the establishment with the box, surprised to realize it was a Big Belly Burger box.[1]
Aftermath[]
Jaime Reyes sees the scarab activate.
- "The scarab chose you, that’s true, but it doesn't belong to you. It belongs to me."
- ―Victoria Kord to Jaime Reyes[src]
The Scarab bonded with Jaime Reyes, selecting its host in a way that neither Victoria Kord nor Kord Industries could have anticipated, or control. The fusion was irreversible without lethal consequences, rendering all of Victoria’s extraction protocols useless. More critically, the Scarab's armor had become fully operational, elevating Jaime to a level of power that threatened Victoria's entire operation.
Victoria Kord, enraged by the failure of her security systems and the loss of her prize artifact, launched a full-scale effort to capture Jaime alive and forcefully extract the Scarab. She deployed her personal militia, cybernetically-enhanced agents, and her experimental OMAC prototype, Carapax, to track down Jaime and neutralize him.
Victoria Kord tracks down the Reyes family.
Meanwhile, Jaime's family, who had initially been unaware of the Scarab’s nature, found themselves targeted by Kord’s forces. Their home was raided, and Jaime was captured and brought to Kord’s facility for forced extraction. Victoria's desperation led her to accelerate the activation of the OMAC weapon system, using the data extracted from Khaji-Da’s neural patterns. With Carapax fully outfitted in the OMAC Armor, she attempted to eliminate Jaime and secure the Scarab once and for all.
Victoria Kord is killed by the sacrifice of Ignacio Carapax.
However, the OMAC system proved unstable, and Jaime, guided by Khaji-Da's evolving moral reasoning and with the help of Jenny and his family, defeated Carapax. After a moment of unexpected clarity and shared memory, Carapax turned on Victoria, destroying the facility and ending her campaign of militarization. Victoria perished in the explosion, and the OMAC program collapsed with her.[1]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Blue Beetle