Garrett and Kord investigated Jarvis's hidden hideout on Pago Island where they were promptly captured by the robotic army of Jarvis. Garrett was forced to transform himself into the Blue Beetle to destroy the robots. Jarvis detonated his robots rather than letting himself be captured and was killed in the ensuing cave in. The cave in also mortally injured the Blue Beetle, who asked Ted to carry on the fight. However, before he could pass on the Scarab Garret was buried under hundreds of tons of rock, trapping his remains and the Scarab far from the reach of Ted Kord.

Ted Kord had over the years built KORD Inc. into an organization to rival STAR Labs and decided to use its industrial resources to create a second generation Blue Beetle. Using old experiments carried out by his father (who had left to travel the world after the death of Ted's mother) he constructed the amazing Bug - a vehicle that could operate in either air or water and could be remotely controlled using devices in his gloves. Training himself to excellent physical fitness he found himself a gifted acrobat and gymnast.

Minor archaeologist Conrad Carapax investigated the ruins of Pago Island and unearthed a highly advanced battle android left over by Jarvis Kord. When he tried to activate it he found his consciousness transferred into it. He ended up battling the second Blue Beetle on the island. The tremors set off by the battle awakened the original Blue Beetle who had actually been in a deep sleep beneath the island protected by the Scarab. It turned out that the Scarab was actually an alien that the possessing the resurrected Garrett. The two Beetle's fought each other, with Garrett eventually managing to break the control before he died. The Scarab was destroyed - shattered into a million shards.

With the constant responsibilities of the Blue Beetle, Ted found that he had begun to neglect board meetings and paperwork at KORD Inc. prompting his father to return from his trip and regain control over the company. The power struggle between father and son was rendered a moot point when the main site was destroyed in a revenge between Carapax and the Blue Beetle. Refusing to build the company up a second time Ted left it in the hands of his father. He then left Chicago and his corporate responsibilities to devote himself to the Blue Beetle and the JLI full time.

As part of the Justice League, Beetle first teamed up with the Michael Jon Carter, alias Booster Gold, when they defeated the android Ace, who was part of a reformed Royal Flush Gang. Often acting as group jester, the Beetle developed a much more relaxed attitude to life without the corporate responsibilities. He was approached by the government backed hero Captain Atom who tried to win his friendship by revealing that Atom had actually worked with the original Blue Beetle. However, discrepancies in the story combined with suspicions by Mister Miracle meant that Beetle was one of those responsible for revealing the true origins of Captain Atom and exposing him as a government plant within the team. Over the years, Atom has proved his worth to Beetle and the two maintain a strained friendship (often disrupted by Atom's more militaristic and headstrong approach).

Beetle and Booster were part of the League's covert strike force led by the Batman into Bialya when the two friends were kidnapped by the Queen's forces and implanted with post hypnotic suggestions. Once back in the United States the Queen Bee activated the suggestion in Beetle with a telephone call causing him to maniacally attack Maxwell Lord with a knife seriously injuring Oberon in the process. In the end it was the passing Huntress that managed to take Beetle down. The brainwashing was first tackled by Amanda Waller but it soon proved that more powerful means were needed and Nabu (the Lord of Order who powered the original Doctor Fate and at the time was living in the dead body of Kent Nelson) swapped minds with Beetle temporally to remove the hypnotic blocks.

During their time together in the League Booster and Beetle (who had both lost companies to others) tried a number of money making stunts including an extended period as super repo-men but their greatest moment came when they created Club JLI. A casino and tourist resort on the League's land holding of the island nation of Kooey Kooey Kooey. Unbeknown to Maxwell Lord, the two used League resources to finance the operation that was bankrupted by Major Disaster and Big Sur. In the aftermath, rather than expel the two from the team, Max decided to relegate them to menial work, doing the cleaning and chores for the entire team. It was this pressure that forced Booster to quit and to form the Conglomerate.

Without his old sparing partner Beetle fell into a state of neglect, only operating with the League and kicking back the sofa once too often. His fitness suffered and he forced himself to take a crash fitness course under the tutelage of the original General Glory. Teased by Guy Gardner, the two ended up settling their differences in the boxing ring under the direction of the General. However when Beetle gained the upper hand, Guy cheated and seriously injured Beetle, who was forced to watch injured as the rest of the league fell apart after the attempted assignation of Maxwell Lord. Even when healed, Beetle was kicked out of the League by its new CEO and was also rejected for membership of the Conglomerate due to his lack of fitness. Determined Beetle saw a dietician and began a rigorous regime of healthy eating and exercise (namely over the top patrols and super heroics) he was motivated by a battle of wills with Power Girl over who could reach their target weight first.

After the League was reformed, Beetle found time self once more in the forefront of the League, receiving a new Bug from Maxwell Lord and having access of the technical facilities of the new League Headquarters. Beetle had his suspicions about the new member Bloodwynd, but before he could act on these he was beaten into a coma by Doomsday. While in the coma he and the Atom's dreamscapes were assaulted by Dr. Destiny, who created a parallel dark-JLA in the dreamscape, the entire team managed to defeat them, in the process exposing Bloodwynd as the Martian Manhunter, as Beetle had suspected.

Over the coming months Beetle rebuilt armor for both Booster and Warrior, but he found himself increasingly frustrated with the way the League was operating. When the League was in disarray after the Judgment Day incident, it was Beetle who decided to tell the world on his own about the death of Ice II, realizing that her sacrifice must be shown to the world. In the process he broke an informal agreement over taking to the press the League had at that time. In the aftermath he accepted Captain Atom's offer to join a Justice League splinter group, Extreme Justice. The more pro-active team based in an old covert military base was created by Atom to combat threats that the normal Justice League with their procedures and rules were powerless to do anything about.

As part of the "Extreme Justice" team Beetle discovered that his father had been selling KORD Inc. designs to the highest bidder including designs for his original Bug that he had left at the company. This caused a further split between father and son. Currently Beetle works for the Las Vegas electronic entertainment company owned by Booster Gold and acts as one of the few remaining members of the Mount Thunder team.

Notes:

• In his dying words, Garrett made Ted promise to carry on the legacy of the Blue Beetle. Ted was up to the task, but carried on the tradition on his own terms. He got a new costume, and refused to use the Blue Beetle Scarab, which had given Garrett powers like super strength, x-ray vision, flight, bullet-proof protection, and the ability to fire lightning from his fingers.

• Ted Kord trained himself physically and designed a series of gadgets to aid him, including a strobe and compressed air gun, frictionless foam, and gloves that control the Bug, his most important ally. The Bug is a flying vessel large enough to fit several people, and has often aided him in his solo and team adventures.

• When the Queen Bee planted hypnotic suggestions in Beetle which, when triggered, made him viciously attack Maxwell Lord. When Batman tried to stop him, Blue Beetle proved that he could hold his own against the world's greatest martial artist. The blocks put him into his first coma, but were finally removed by Nabu, the Lord of Order.

• Beetle and Booster's friendship was tested when Ted began neglecting Booster in favor of partying with Firestorm, but Booster eventually was healed and Firestorm had severe alcohol problems. Ted also overcame his distrust of Captain Atom on this team and actually became a close friend of Cameron Scott.