Sharon Stone is playing the villain in Blue Beetle, and one with a curious comics connection at that

Back in December, Warner Bros. announced that its Blue Beetle movie—based on one of the DC Comics heroes of the same name, specifically the younger, more recent one—was shifting its release strategy from HBO Max to theaters, a fun reversal of every movie the studio put out in 2021. With that level up, the movie has also apparently earned the ability to attract big-name actors, no offense to Xolo Maridueña (who is starring as the eponymous Blue Beetle), with Deadline reporting that Sharon Stone has joined the cast as the film’s villain.

But it’s that apparent villain’s name that is the most interesting part of this, provided you know your Blue Beetle lore: Deadline says she’ll be a woman named Victoria Kord… as in Ted Kord, as in the old Blue Beetle. This character is apparently being created for this film and doesn’t have a history in the comics, but Deadline thinks she’s the wife of Ted Kord. If she’s a villain, then, what does that mean for Ted Kord? Is he a villain? Did he die and his wife turned into a bad guy?

The fact that the Kord family is involved at all is somewhat surprising, since you don’t really need Ted Kord’s Blue Beetle to tell a story about the new Blue Beetle, whose secret identity is a teenage named Jaime Reyes. Unlike the old Beetle, who was basically Batman but without the dour disposition and with a different theme (beetles instead of bats, you see), the newer Blue Beetle gets his powers from an alien artifact that looks like a beetle and latches onto his back, allowing him to activate a somewhat beetle-like suit of armor with various transforming weapons attached.

Blue Beetle, directed by Angle Manuel Soto, will be in theaters (not HBO Max!) on August 18, 2023. (Also, yes, Sharon Stone was in the Catwoman movie, which was technically based on a DC comic. We couldn’t find a place to naturally bring that up.)