Ted Kord

Blue Beetle II

Ted Kord

## Biography

### Early Life

Theodore “Ted” Kord was born on November 4th, 1984, in Silicon Valley to Thomas and Danielle Kord. Thomas was a computer programmer struggling to make ends meet, while Danielle was an aspiring actress. The lack of income in the household caused immense tension. Shortly before Ted’s third birthday, his parents got in a screaming match, leading his mother to storm off to stay with her sister in L.A, only to drive off and never be seen again, due to the city’s destruction at Adrian Veidt’s hands hours later.

Thomas was completely distraught and moved in with his brother, Jarvis, in Chicago. Jarvis was a real estate broker who had become affiliated with an esteemed philanthropist named Daniel Garrett. When Ted was just five years old, he watched his father and uncle build Kord Omniversal from the ground up.

In a stable school environment, everything started to click for Ted, as he began excelling in science and english especially. It was believed that at age eight he had an IQ of 100. As Kord Omniversal got off the ground, Ted was recruited to help create the first Kord Omniphone - an invention that would put K.O on the NASDAQ and propel the family into fame.

Despite inventing a smartphone at age ten, Ted stayed in school for a little while, mostly to keep an eye on his best friend, Michael Jon Carter, who was often bullied on the playground. Despite his status, Ted also became a victim of playground bullying, but he often got the last laugh by engineering some contraption to impede the bullies.

When Ted was seventeen, Ted invented the BB Gun, which became K.O.’s best-seller and made him a multimillionaire. He dropped out of high school and became head of the weapons development projects at K.O’s Metropolis branch. He moved into a penthouse apartment and invited Michael to come live with him too and secured him a job at the conglomerate as a janitor. Dan Garrett also took Ted under his wing and told him about his adventures as Blue Beetle.

### Blue Beetle

Shortly before his eighteenth birthday, Metropolis was attacked by alien invaders, and Ted’s uncle Jarvis, who had become head of marketing, assigned Ted to research Dan Garrett’s Scarab, where he discovered it possessed an ultra-intelligent digital consciousness named Khaji Da, which paved the way for Ted to create Skeets.

Jarvis wanted Ted to be the frontman for a corporate-sponsored superhero team called the Goldstar Program (for heroes that fit the “gold standard”). Ted had Michael stay late one night to test out experimental armors with him. After a few drinks, Ted fell asleep, and Michael decided to take it for a test spin - jetting out to the streets to put criminals in their place.

Ted was pulled out of his alcohol-fueled nap by Khaji Da awakening him and alerting him to his friend’s endangerment. Khaji Da then affixed one of the armors with its own upgrades and flew Ted to Metropolis where he saved Michael’s life. Kord Omniversal was quick to claim the two as the first members of the Goldstar Program.

Ted became the second man to be the Blue Beetle, and Michael took the name of Booster Gold. They would patrol Metropolis at night together. Ted began to grow suspicious of his uncle, especially after his father’s office was bombed by corporate saboteurs, killing him.

Ted utilized Skeets to investigate the bombing, where he discovered that Jarvis had hired an espionage group named the Squid Gang to pull off the assassination. His exposure landed Jarvis in jail and attracted the attention of the Justice League, who extended invitations to the two heroes. It also resulted in K.O. 's near destruction were it not for STAR Labs annexing it.

At age 21 on induction, day Michael and Ted were the youngest members of the Justice League - and they felt it. Booster and Beetle were in way over their heads and were often left on monitor duty or to clean up collateral damage when a metahuman brawl arose. However, Ted got the chance to prove himself when the Shaggy Man android was suddenly zeta-beamed onto the satellite while he was alone on monitor duty. Ted single handedly managed to defeat the android and disable his O.S. before any reinforcements could arrive - which gained him long-coveted approval from Batman.

Batman and Ted began working together on designing new technology, with Batman lending some unused designs for the Batwing to help Ted construct the Bug Mark I, an impressive VTOL aircraft and true feat of mechanical engineering. However, this vehicle was put out of commission when Ted crashed it into the side of Brainiac’s ship during his invasion in ‘07.

After the invasion, a large amount of Kryptonite was found in the bay of Brainiac’s ship, and Batman suggested it be entrusted to Kord Omniversal. Ted agreed to keep it for safekeeping and hid it in one of their warehouses. But, word got around, and a heist group called the Madmen were sent after it - forcing Beetle and Booster to defend the stash.

Ted began to indulge in his millionaire lifestyle. He purchased the island of Kooey Kooey Kooey and he and Booster designed the Marino Casino and Resort. In addition, for a prank, Ted bought the Chocos company and briefly stopped manufacturing them, sending Martian Manhunter into a panic. He also helped overhaul the Watchtower and make some adjustments to STAR Labs’ latest fleet of Javelins for the League. He donated a hefty piece of real estate to ARGUS that would become the future site of the Hall of Justice.

With his continued experimentation on Khaji Da, the scarab one day suddenly went dead. After continued tests didn’t bring it back to life, Ted returned the device to Dan Garrett, who slipped it into his desk drawer in Taos. A few months later, Garrett came to Ted with his intern, Jaime Reyes, who had somehow awoken the scarab and fought off two assassins sent by the Light. Due to the recent death of Jason Todd, Ted swayed Jaime away from becoming a superhero - and instead offered to pay for all of his schooling and employ him at K.O after his graduation. Obviously, Jaime agreed.

That winter, Ted took up a romance with Justice Leaguer Ice, while Booster started dating her best friend, Fire. The four rented a home in Malibu together, where they operated as the “Super-Buddies” for a brief time in the coastal town, along with occasionally teaming up with Guy Gardner. Eventually, both relationships fell apart. When the girls left, Ted and Michael spent the night drowning their sorrows together, which ended with Ted confessing his long-standing crush to his best friend. The rest of the night was awkward, and the next day Michael decided to head back to Metropolis.

What he didn’t tell Ted was that he had accepted a job offer from Lex Luthor - to join his own corporate sponsored superhero team - the Conglomerate. When Ted found out, he showed up on Michael’s doorstep and yelled at him for a solid half hour before storming out.

For a few weeks, Ted spiraled, hitting the bottle pretty hard and having a number of one night stands. The bender put a couple pounds on him but he eventually was able to snap himself out of it. He got in contact with Karen Starr (one of the aforementioned one night stands) and the two started working on StarrWare together. Booster eventually apologized to Ted and the two mended their friendship, but Michael made clear to him that he had no greater feelings for Ted.

### Death & Legacy

Near the end of 2015, Ted was approached by Maxwell Lord, Director of Checkmate, to work with him on a Think Tank along with a number of other esteemed scientists and consultants including Mister Terrific and Cyborg. Ted helped with Max’s Think Tank which eventually molded into the creation of the Brother Eye satellite and the OMAC Project.

While Ted was preoccupied, his company was being robbed blind, as the Madmen and Squid Gang had teamed up to rob several warehouses, including stealing the Kryptonite he had kept for safekeeping, as well as some experimental nanotech. Ted began to fear for his life after he survived a car-bombing. As such, he figured out a way to digitize his consciousness and made an incomplete backup for himself. He also began investigating the OMAC Project along with Huntress, Question, and Renee Montoya.

This would come in handy, as on July 4th, 2018, Maxwell Lord’s OMAC Project turned on the public, and Justice Leaguer Triumph helped execute the destruction of the Watchtower. Ted flew the Bug to the wreckage scene, where he saved the Trinity and helped get them to Checkmate HQ. Once at HQ, he infiltrated the compound, where Maxwell Lord confronted and murdered him.

Ted’s legacy lives on. While his company fell into Michael’s hands, Michael since sold most of the assets to STAR Labs. Jaime Reyes briefly took up the Blue Beetle moniker, before becoming his own hero. He, Skeets, and Green Beetle are working on reprogramming the scarab to include Ted’s digitized consciousness, but the process has been difficult.

## Notes

* Ted's bisexuality is an Earth 76 original, although some have viewed his friendship with Booster Gold as queer-coded.
* Being killed by Maxwell Lord happened in the lead-up to *Infinite Crisis*.