Blue Beetle Hinted at in Lex Luthor Profile as BATMAN V SUPERMAN Viral Campaign Begins

Just yesterday, we heard from Jesse Eisenberg that his upcoming version of Lex Luthor "feels like a real scary person," but as expected, the character's manipulative personality allows his true nature to remain hidden in the press. Fortune has run a profile piece on Lex Luthor Jr. to kick off the viral marketing campaign for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and it's full of a bunch of cool little references for comic book fans.

The piece touches on Luthor's family history, mentioning that German immigrant Lex Luthor Sr. died unexpectedly in 2000 after turning LexCorp into an empire based on oil and machinery.

“Well, Dad was a complicated guy,” his down-to-Earth son notes as we pass a tasteful display of his world-famous collection of meteorite crystals. “He came from a country where the government, in the guise of protector, had absolute control over the citizens. That drove him. I get it. Heck, I’d hate to see that sort of thing happen over here.”

The 31-year-old Lex transformed the company into a tech giant, second in size only to Wayne Enterprises. But while Wayne has avoided military contracts, Luthor takes the opposite approach:

“It’s a necessity,” Luthor insists. “We live in the most dangerous point of time in all of human history. Statistically speaking, it’s a near certainty that another world-changing crisis is hurtling toward us like a speeding bullet. We have to be ready to defend ourselves. No civilization was ever conquered by having a strong military.”

While we obviously know Bruce Wayne/Batman is going to appear in the movie, there's a hint at another character that could theoretically pop up as well: Blue Beetle.

In the face of Luthor’s self-effacing, easy charm, it’s tempting to see him as “just one of the guys” and not for what he truly is: a giver. Only when pressed does he admit that LexCorp is in the top three charitable corporations in America, just after Kord Industries and Wayne Enterprises. “It’s not a competition,” laughs Luthor. “Besides, I can’t hold a candle to those guys in the debauched billionaire playboy department!”

Kord Industries alludes to Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle. So canonically speaking, Blue Beetle exists in the same cinematic universe as Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. We've suspected that to be the case for a long time, and word just came out that Warner Bros. is developing a buddy comedy with Blue Beetle and Booster Gold that will take place in the DC Cinematic Universe, so it makes sense that they're dropping little references to those characters here and there. Will we see Kord make a physical appearance in BVS? Not likely, considering how much else they have to pack into that story already, and hopefully the cinematic Blue Beetle will be the Mexican-American teenager Jaime Reyes (the third Blue Beetle), who takes over the mantle from Kord in the comics.

There are a few other notable lines from that "interview" that you can read in the full piece. You can also follow Lex Luthor on Twitter right here, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice hits theaters on March 25th, 2016.