I always thought that Ted Kord had been sadly misused and disposed of by DC, so the comic had to work extra hard to win me over. And succeeded.

One thing that grabs me is just how likable the characters are. Do you know how rare it is for me to be able to stand characters in mainstream comics? To have characters that aren't grim batman or X-men clones? Relatively few writers realize that in order to make readers care about the story, one can't just have bad things happen, the reader has to care about the characters. The writers of Blue Beetle, at leat, seem to get that.