There’s been a very vocal groundswell of early misgivings from the contemporary fanboy/fangirl unibase on social media and message boards since the news broke expressing deep concerns about the latest Blue Beetle character potentially being “white washed” and stripped of its ethnic sazón. For today’s generation it’s hard to imagine that the universe of this imprint once pivoted on an all-Anglo construct of a by-gone era that preceded World War II — because in many ways it has indeed become their own via natural attrition — as change is always inevitable no matter how nostalgic the past. (Don’t kid yourself: those phalanx of laundry hanging from clotheslines across tenement building windows was never as sexy as your mind’s eye now remembers it in retrospect)

According to the trades, Soto’s movie will remain true to the third iteration of the series with Jaime Reyes as the film’s central figure whose “powers come from a mysterious scarab.” Soto will also be working from a script penned by Mexican-American screenwriter Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer (Miss Bala / Contrapelo). Both these developments should go a long way toward allaying the anxiety of diehard fans of the comic book.

Hopefully, Soto’s film will remain as hard-hitting as the third generation of the publication which has mirrored the real world issues of immigration, racism and inhumane policies that have led to the separation of immigrant families and caging of children in so-called “detention centers” (is that what we’re calling them now?) under deplorable conditions.

If we’re lucky, perhaps we’ll even get to see the Blue Beetle crack a racist Fascist in the mug—POW! SMACK! KARMA! It’s not too much to ask of our superheroes, after all.