Comic Book Review: The All-New Booster Gold #4

Booster Gold is a bit of a favorite with the Revolution. Rokk has enjoyed the previous issues to date. Lets see what I, Tenzil, think of this one. Can Johns, Katz, Jurgens and Rapmund keep the streak alive?

Creative Team
Writer: Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz
Penciler: Dan Jurgens
Inker: Norm Rapmund

Art Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10
Story Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: After a run-in with the Barry Allen Flash and Wally West Kid Flash (Booster and Rip’s time pod literally runs into the Flashes on their time travelling treadmill) they track Supernova to Central City, home of the Flashes. When they arrive they confront both Supernova and “Rex Hunter”. Rip explains that he is Jason Goldstein, a Time Hunter wanna-be. Just as the conflict starts, both Flash and Kid Flash disappear, as the villain’s presence in this time and place is to stop the Flashes from existing, via a conveniently placed lightning rod.

During the fight, Booster finds out that the person that stole the Supernova suit and is currently wearing it is none other than his own father (since the wearer had to be keyed to his biology). Booster manages, with Skeets help, to fight off Supernova and his robot helper, Maxamillion, and break the lightning rod, allowing events to occur as they should. Supernova is hit with some of that lightning, however, and sent off to some other, unknown time. Rip subdues and captures “Rex Hunter”, but opines that there is someone else behind them both.

Daniel Carter, Boosters modern day relative, is trying to throw Rose, a blogger interested in Booster Gold, off of the trail. When she sees one of Booster’s spare suits in his closet, he claims to be Booster Gold.

An unknown force appears in the past, and tells the Blue Beetle Dan Garrett that he is not needed in his present, but in the future. The figure could be the uniform of the current Blue Beetle, but is obscured enough by glowing colors that identification is not possible.

Booster states that now that he has done his favor for Rex Hunter that it is time to go save the Ted Kord Blue Beetle from his fate at the hands of Max Lord. Rip counters, saying that there is one more anomaly that was caused by Supernova and Rex Hunter that needs to be fixed. Black Canary shouldn’t be the leader of the Justice League. Barbara Gordon should. They have to go back and undo the crippling of Batgirl by the Joker.

Comments
The Good: Booster Gold is rollicking fun, adventure and comedy, but with enough drama to further the depth of a story that makes it more than random fight scenes. The traipsing through the DC Universe is fun in the same way that Quantum Leap, or Forrest Gump is, but if you don’t get all of the inside jokes, or don’t feel the nostalgia, the story stands up on its own. The art is clear, dramatic, colorful and bold, and the writing is emotional, funny, and clever, weaving lots of threads into a cohesive whole without being too contrived.

The Bad: My initial reaction to the reveal of the villians is that, for a mystery spanning four issues of a comic, the payoff of the identity of the villians was a little on the “eh” side. Realizing that these two are still the pawns, and that the story is building to a bigger payoff, these two can’t be the true mastermind. Still, we are getting a lot of setup and this did not feel like as much of a resolution as it should have.

Overall: I’ve read all four issues to date, and have enjoyed them all. If, as a comic reader, you don’t take the genre too seriously and can enjoy a light hearted comic with a sense of adventure and a hero who isn’t the coolest guy around, but can roll with the punches, Booster Gold will be worth reading and buying. Its a welcome bit of variety when compared to the tone and content of other comics in the DCU.