Review:
With 17 issues in one book, collecting #15-31 of the 2007 Booster Gold ongoing series plus Booster's appearance in The Brave and the Bold #23, this is a hefty TPB, weighing in at 750 grams. Maybe for that reason, DC Comics omitted any of the special features such collections usually include. No variant cover gallery, no draft storyboards and no interviews.
That omission is the only real complaint about this otherwise fine volume. The stories within are loads of fun, showing that the Booster Gold series of the era was one of DC's strongest titles in terms of sheer exuberance, cleverness and month to month enjoyability.
Dan Jurgens created Booster Gold in the post-Crisis mid to late 1980s. He wrote and pencilled all of the original run's issues. Here, twenty years later, he had started as penciller on the new series and character reboot. He takes over the writing duties with issue #15.
The reboot saw Booster Gold, fugitive from the future turned self-promoting, brand-savvy hero, has morphed in the hands of Geoff Johns and others, into a Time Master in training. So it is fascinating to see Jurgens reassume full creative control of Booster Gold.
Right off the bat, he tweaks and redirects a somewhat clunky two-parter by another writer into a multi-part tumble through time over an Egyptian knife (Reality Lost) with connection to Blue Beetle's scarab. This arc includes loads of nods to DC history and leads to a team-up with... himself? Isn't that a temporal paradox and Time Master no-no?
Lest we think that Jurgens will be a clumsy author with things relating to time travel, his stories in this volume how his keen awareness of such paradoxes and traps, and a staunch refusal to be bound by them. Multiple times, Jurgens bends the supposed rules about time travel tales. But, as he does so well, he has Booster Gold wrestling with these very rules and paradoxes himself. Can the past be changed? Where are the seams and folds in the time stream that can become entry points for bad actors? What does it mean to be a hero when faced with the certain death of seven million people? These and more questions ripple throughout these stories.
Separating each of the major story arcs (Reality Lost, mentioned above, followed by Day of Death, a delightful dip into early Wolfman-Perez New Teen Titans lore, then finally The Tomorrow Memory based around Cyborg Superman's destruction of Coast City) are delightful little Epilogue and one-off tales. Things like a sweet Christmas gift for Dick Grayson, at the time the new Batman struggling with the weight of the famed cowl. Or attempts to mend a broken relationship with his own sister and the realization of how hard and lonely his chosen life is.
With strong storytelling, amazing visuals straight from Jurgens' own full-page-splash wheelhouse, delightful connections and nods to past DC history and events, this is a collection of strong stories, must-reads for fans of the character of course, but also intriguing and emotional dips into near-alternative universes and beloved characters. They are not all home runs, but if the weakest is a Keith Giffen nod to 1970s sitcoms set in the 1950s (think Happy Days or Laverne and Shirley) then this is well worth the effort to pick up.
Description:
Booster Gold, as told by his co-creator Dan Jurgens! Re-live Booster’s struggle through major DC Universe events like Blackest Night and see some of his greatest team-ups as he struggles to right the wrongs of the timeline that he himself keeps messing up!
Though Booster yearns for the simple life, destiny has thrust the responsibility of time itself in his hands. As the time stream goes awry and the past unravels, he must put history back in its place before existence vanishes entirely!
Collects: Booster Gold #15-31 and The Brave and the Bold #23
Authors: Dan Jurgens, Keith Giffen
Artists: Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund
Published By: DC Comics
Published When: April 8, 2025
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN: 978-1799501039
Pages: 440 pages
No comments:
Post a Comment