I am saying the execution is an original combination of many influences. The way the parasite talks to Jaime in alien language, for instance, is totally comic booky and completely unlike any Guyver I've seen.
I could see someone thinking that, but that be assuming it was an original thought. I see more GL/Lensman references than Guyver references.
The way the parasite exists as something that hates Green Lanterns is pretty goddamn unlike Guyver. I think it was created by the weaponeers of Qward, which would be a little Ridery, but I can't remember offhand.
It was created by an alien race called the Reach. They send the scarab as an inflitrator, the scarab turn one of the populace into a hero, paving the way for the Reach to come in and do the whole 'We're awesome" riff, while slowly taking over the planet.
The scarab has a built in hate of GLs because the Guardians of Oa whupped the Reach long ago when they weren't as sly about taking over.
Jamie's scarab was meant to take over his mind completely, but was it broken when Garrett originally got it. The story was far more about a symbiotic friendship built over time than Guyver's darker take.
This is not a character like the Knight, whose design was clearly poached from Kamen Rider Wing.
The original Knight was this guy in blue and yellow, circa 1950.
The later 1999 version was McGuiness' design I believe, and he actually predates Ryuki.
I am presuming that Giffen is even aware of Guyver, since I do know he worked on localizing manga at TokyoPop for a brief period. But otherwise he mostly seems to hate other people's comics, and for all we know the artist who did the original design thought it would be cute to make it tokusatsu-like.
I have read several issues of Blue Beetle III's starting run, and I gathered a much lighter-handed Guyver story. Yeah it may seem broad, but all the same concepts are there. A lone hero stuck with an alien symbiotic suit he can't quite control, an alien menace using that suit for world domination. The only thing really missing is the secret corporation the aliens control.
It's horribly broad. Lynxara calls it correctly that in that Jaime is far more based on the symbiote era of Spider-Man. With some GL thrown in for good measure.
There's no multiple Guyvers, no Zoanoids, the scarab retains control over Jaime at will while the Guyver is pretty much non-sentient. Really the only connection is SUIT MADE BY BAD GUYS! Which is a pretty big
trope.
I don't understand why there's any fixation on ideas being original, because... well, pretty much nothing that slots into a genre can be considered that way. Probably nothing written in human history can really be considered original, save in details of execution. Guyver resembles Superman as much as every other superhero does, when all's said and done. So from that I'd conclude that broad stroke similarities just are not important in any way.
Bingo. These days it's how you mix it all together that matters. Execution is everything.
