Booster Gold: Old Skool, But Not Bad
Okay, I break it down like this:
"Countdown" = old skool = teh "eh"
"Booster Gold" = old skool = teh ok
When I say old skool, I mean "circa 1991." Which is not necessarily a bad thing, because the late 80s/early 90s had a bunch of good DC books, books that were more story oriented than art oriented.
Which is not to say Dan Jurgens's art is in any way "bad" -- but it is a very straightforward look that contrasts sharply with the more stylized pencils out there. It's Grummett, Ordway, Tom Smith, Paul Ryan, etc -- and it is also very Valiant Comics as well.
The story is engaging enough, though falls a little into the "need a DC Wiki to follow along" (Chris, I'm borrowing that line from you, hope you don't mind).
Basically, Booster Gold is given a task from "Rip Hunter" to fix all the wormholes left behind when Mr. Mind ate parts of time and "the boy formerly known as Super" punched a hole in history.
The catch is that Booster must never be considered a hero for doing this by the Public At Large, or else Teh Bad Guys will track him down thru time and kill him.
So Booster must be perceived as an Infinite Dumbass throughout the time spectrum.
With so much emphasis given to the Ted Kord Blue Beetle and other late, great versions of your favorite DC characters, I would say that the days of the "reboots" (with the probable exception of The Question/Renee Montoya) are numbered.
Which is teh sucky for teh comix stores in NYC, because they just can't get rid of those new "Firestorm" figures.
Trivia Time!
The solicited cover for Booster Gold #1 features a "Carrie" Robin from Miller's "Dark Knight"... but the printed cover switches out that for an image of The Question.
Eh, no worries.
ReplyDeleteAnd like I said Thursday, I had a lot of fun with it, and don't think you need too much of knowledge of the DCU to get into the flow of it (no more, say, than you need of Marvel's space stuff to enjoy Annihilation). John's has gotten much better at hiding his work to build on the foundations of what's came before over the last year, and he's a better writer for it. All of his post-IC work has pretty much said "here's what you need to know to come along, and if you're hungry for more, go ask your local DC nerd", and I'm really glad to see it.
And there's no way he's going to get his half of the bargin with Rip, as that would unravel pretty much everything that's happened from that point on. But it'll be enough to keep him going, and I'm really looking forward to adventures in the multi-verse.
I will say that seeing Dan Garrett as the Blue Beetle was pretty damn cool.
ReplyDeleteThis was so awesome! Booster Gold is my favorite superhero - at one point I had every comic book he ever appeared in. I stopped collecting Booster Gold stuff when the Giffen/DeMatteis era ended. I hated what they did to the character in Extreme Justice. It didn't seem like Booster anymore. Since 52 though, Booster has been written in much more engaging manner, closer to what Jurgen had intended, without forgetting the good stuff that Giffen and DeMatteis brought to the table.
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