Beware Story City: a Review of Fables: Werewolves of the Heartland

 

Review:

Bigby Wolf gets a solo story in this original graphic novel by the creator of the award-winning Fables universe. Bigby, whose appearance, demeanor, powers and ferocity are reminiscent of Wolverine from Marvel's X-Men, gets to show off all of those traits in this violent book, well rated for Mature readers.

From his opening narration, Bigby sets the scene and fits this tale into the larger Fables universe and timeline. His road trip is part of a quest to find a new place for the Fables to call home after the battles with the Adversary and the Dark Man. Since Bluebeard had some connection to a place called Story City, he concluded it was worth checking out.

What he finds is a town filled with a couple thousand werewolves. Young children. Happy parents. Young adults. About the only middle-aged folks are connected to his distant past: a former World War 2 partner, Arthur Harp, and his wife Dr Sieglinde von Abensberg und Traun. 

But how could they have aged so little in sixty years? And what is the connection to a town full of werewolves?

Cue the flashback narrative, showing how an explosion splattered them with Bigby's own blood, giving them a lesser form of his own wolf powers.

Not everyone is happy, though, with the town's status quo. With several factions sniffing for more power and influence, it was already an unstable place. Mix in Bigby, whom many revere as the God of the Wolves, and the match is lit.

While the first half of the book is heavy on narration and conversation, all wolf-hell breaks loose in the second half. The result is a gory battle royale, with blood and guts, deep bites and severed limbs aplenty. Mix in loads of human and werewolf nudity, full frontal both male and female, plus some sex and seduction and this book earns that "suggested for Mature readers" caution.

Ultimately, though, the two halves - the talking-heavy start then the violence and destruction - fail to mesh. The tension inherent in the town fails to transfer onto the pages and the final conflict is a disappointing fizzle. The ultimate showdown is so one-sided, as the town of lesser werewolves never really had a "ghost of a chance" in Bigby's own words. It's loud, ferocious and bloody but ultimately forced and foregone.

A nice touch is author and Fables creator Willingham's tale of encountering the real-life Story City, Iowa. It does fill in some seemingly random bits - it turns out that the Skunk River is real, as well as the town's historical carousel. His anecdote made this reviewer smile; unfortunately, not much else in this book did.

Description:

A #1 New York Times Best Seller!

At long last! The long-awaited original FABLES: WEREWOLVES OF THE HEARTLAND graphic novel is here!   

Bigby Wolf embarks on a quest through the American Heartland to find a new location for Fabletown, a secret society of exiled fairy tale characters living among the "mundys." In his wanderings, Bigby stumbles across Story City, a small town that seems to be occupied solely by werewolves. Oddly enough, they seem to already know and revere Bigby, but at the same time they've captured and caged him.  

FABLES: WEREWOLVES OF THE HEARTLAND tells an epic tale that began well before Bigby Wolf set foot in the bucolic plains of the Midwest. It began long ago when he served in World War II and became mired in a Nazi experiment that would change nations. It's soon evident that murder in Story City is the least of their sins, and unraveling the town's many mysteries may cost Bigby, the seventh son of the North Wind, much more than his own life.  

Collects: NA - Standalone graphic novel

Authors:  Bill Willingham
Artists:  Jim Fern (Illustrator), Craig Hamilton
Published By:  Vertigo
Published When:  Oct. 8, 2013
Parental Rating: Mature
ISBN:  978-1401224806
Pages:  152 pages

Virtuous but Lethal: a review of Poison Ivy volume 1: The Virtuous Cycle

 

Review:

Writer G. Willow Wilson, in this collection of the first six issues of the Poison Ivy ongoing series (2022), leans into several of Poison Ivy's most defining character traits.

Plant-based powers? Check - although with significant limits, as something is slowly poisoning her and she cannot stop it.

Homicidal maniac? Check! At least ten people are killed in these six chapters. Some definitely deserve it more than others, like the abusive boss or the attempted rapists, versus others who just got in her way en route to fulfill her commitment to wipe out all of humanity.

Questionable sanity? Check. Especially fun is the sequence of Batman hallucinations.

Love for Harley Quinn? Check, although restricted to bittersweet flashbacks and touching letters Ivy writes as she travels across the country. This touch of humanity in our plant-powers homicidal maniac of questionable sanity also spills over int a heart for others she meets and helps, even as she prepares to wipe us all out.

Wilson, whose biggest claim to fame was the ground-breaking and Hugo Award-winning series Ms Marvel, splices all these pieces together so tightly that, by the end of the volume, it feels like a limited series, not an ongoing one. After the climactic battle with Jason Woodrue aka the Floronic Man aka the Green Man (he has lots of different names in this book), it feels very much like the story is done, with nowhere to go from here.

And indeed, it was originally envisioned that way, announced in March 2022 as a six-issue limited series. By the mid-point, DC decided to extend it to a further 6 issues, then by around issue #8 they committed to running it as an ongoing one. And as of this review, it has reached #34.

Wilson gives us a tale with themes of love and loss, nature and destruction, all overlaid throughout with dark horror motifs. In a jarring new take on the ravishing beauty with which Poison Ivy has traditionally been portrayed, Wilson also weaves in elements of body-horror at the increasing growths on that usually so striking body. Artist Marcio Takara illustrates her wearing more clothing and coverings than usual - baggy pants and yard-work clothing instead of the more typical leaf-based fabrics barely covering anything at all.

Takara also gives us artistic and horror-inspired Green Man and psychotic hallucinations, filled with monster tropes and nods. Even something as innocuous as mushrooms become, in Wilson's and Takara's hands, a horrifying and disgusting murder weapon.

While complete whole that feels unsuited to start an ongoing series, this tale is far from neat and tidy. Its carefully cultivated darkness is a powerful new direction for the beautiful and deadly Poison Ivy.

Description:

Humanity had its chance. Now it’s time for Poison Ivy. The fan-favorite Batman villain steps into the solo spotlight, in a thrilling and tragic adventure written by Ms. Marvel co-creator G. Willow Wilson!

Winner, Outstanding Comic Book - GLAAD Media Awards 2023

Pamela Isley has been a lot of things in her life. A living god, a super-villain, an activist, a scientist, and dead. In a new body that she didn’t ask for and with a renewed sense of purpose, Ivy leaves Gotham and sets out to complete her greatest work—a gift to the world that will heal the damage dealt to it...by ending humanity.

On her journey to doom humankind, a heartbroken and betrayed Poison Ivy encounters obstacles (plant assassins!) and dodges the law along the way, in a body horror-infused character-defining epic from the visionary creative team of writer G. Willow Wilson and artist Marcio Takara.

Collects: Poison Ivy #1-6

Authors:  G. Willow Wilson
Artists:  Marcio Takara, Brian Level, Emma Rios
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  May 14, 2024
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1779525031
Pages:  160 pages

Roses for Riverdale - a Review of Harley and Ivy Meet Betty and Veronica (HC)

 

Review:

Who knew Gotham and Riverdale were so close together? Our characters pop back and forth between the locations so much and so easily throughout this fun six-part limited series cross-over that, if not exactly a suburban commute, it's certainly day-trippable.

I picked up this gorgeous hardcover collected edition, a beautiful book with glossy finishes and packed with fun extras. The variant cover gallery shows the sheer delight artists like Jae Lee, Gene Ha and Dan Parent took in pairing these four ladies. And the draft sketches give great peeks into their artistic and creative processes.

This is fundamentally a concept piece - overlapping two very different worlds - and to some extent the story scarcely matters. For what it's worth: Veronica's father, Mr. Lodge the wealthy businessman, wants to turn the local swamp into a university and mall as his next grand business venture. On hearing the news, Poison Ivy determines to preserve the area's biodiversity and endangered species. So she and Harley Quinn travel to Riverdale to persuade him to change his mind. When he inevitably turns them down, Gotham's anti-hero duo decides to infiltrate the local high school scene and kidnap Veronica.

But at a teenager party, they wind up magically body-swapped, Freaky Friday style, with Betty and Veronica. Hilarious hijinks ensue as they encounter loads of other characters from both universes. Riverdalians like Reggie Mantle, Moose, Midge and Principal Weatherbee on one hand; Gothamites like Zatanna, Joker, Catwoman and even Alfred on the other.

It's an odd, occasionally indulgent romp of a collision between Gotham and Riverdale. And it works, for the most part. By pulling from the lighter, goofier side of the Harley and Ivy spectrum and pairing it with the more YA end of Archie and friends, writers Paul Dini and Marc Andreyko find enough overlap to sell this crossover. The result is much more successful and entertaining than the awful DC Meets Hanna Barbera crossovers, which fell flat in part because of the vast differences between those universes.

Artists Laura Braga and Adriana Melo match the fun tone with their bright, open images and the glossy treatment of this collection really lets them shine. And I loved the attention to detail of the fashions - de rigueur in the land of Betty and Veronica comics, in which the teens have a seemingly endless closet. But superheroes tend to wear the same thing over and over. But even Ivy and Harley get into the changes, and I count at least five different outfits on them as well.

This is a delightful meeting of two beloved comics universes and their much-adored leading ladies. With a beautiful package and loads of attention to the little details, it's a success!

Description:

The bad girls of Gotham meet the good girls of Riverdale!

Hiram Lodge (Veronica's father) wants to invest in the future by building a university with free tuition for Riverdale's residents. His site is a protected swamp on the outskirts of town, and once news of the plan reaches Gotham City, a certain eco-warrior (a.k.a. Poison Ivy) is determined to prevent the dream from becoming reality.

However, once Poison Ivy and her bestie Harley Quinn arrive, they get mixed up in the sort of hijinks that can only happen in Riverdale. At a superhero-themed costume party, the night's entertainment--Zatanna-- manages to place the personas of the Gotham City Sirens into the bodies of the town's notorious frenemies: Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge. While Ivy (in Ronnie's body) seeks to derail Lodge's agenda from within, more than a few nefarious forces--from Jason and Cheryl Blossom to the Clown Prince of Crime himself--have their own foul plans.

This groundbreaking miniseries teams up two of fandom's best-known duos, bringing the ladies of Gotham and Riverdale together for the first time! This madcap mayhem comes courtesy of Paul Dini (Harley Quinn) and Marc Andreyko (Wonder Woman '77), with art by Laura Braga (DC Comics: Bombshells)!

Collects: Harley and Ivy Meet Betty and Veronica #1-6

Authors: Paul Dini, Marc Andreyko
Artists:  Laura Braga, Adriana Melo
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  Sept. 4, 2018
Parental Rating: PG
ISBN:  978-1401280338
Pages:  160 pages

Angst, Ennui and Affection - a Review of Harley Quinn: the Animated Series: the Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour

 

Review:

Twenty-five years after Harley Quinn's grand debut (in a 1992 episode of Batman: The Animated Series), eighteen years after successfully jumping media from TV series to comic books en route to becoming one of the most famous and popular anti-heroes of DC and with her own title, in 2017 Harley Quinn jumped back into animated TV series with her very own show.

Season Two's finale saw her interrupt the wedding of Poison Ivy and Kite Man. In a cross-blending promotion, DC spun off a 6-issue limited series comic run, bridging seasons two and three. Writer Tee Franklin takes our leading ladies on a Thelma-and-Louise-style romp of a road trip, but with more sex and way more violence.

Commissioner Gordon pursues them in an OCD-fueled blind rage, oblivious to the collateral damage to innocent people or his own life and sanity. Battles versus Hush, Clayface, Vixen and other members of the Justice League follow in rapid succession. Cameos by Catwoman, Nightwing and Batman add to the name recognition. Intimate scenes popping up in bedrooms, bathrooms, moving vehicles. It all adds up to a wild ride with plenty of noisy chaos.

But the furor and humour are tempered throughout by Ivy's endless introspection, confusion, perhaps even clinical depression. You'd think Harley, with her PhD in Psychology, would have more to offer than a lover's patience and commitment, as important as those things are in their relationship.

Franklin writes what she knows, weaving in many reflections of her own experience as a Black, queer, disabled, and reportedly autistic comic writer. All of those elements play a role in this jam-packed series. But importantly, those traits are never the focus, they are just the realities with which the supporting characters must deal. It adds up to a great display of diverse representation, possibly a portfolio for participating in DC's annual pride publications.

The visuals are recognizably reflecting the styles of the animated series, albeit with some small stylistic differences. Ivy's face is stretched even longer; Harley's is even rounder, and so on. But the strong similarities point to the deep reliance throughout the series on ties and connections to the TV show. The volume of references, in-jokes and events is off-putting to readers not familiar with the source material.

The result is a book that confuses on one level and fails in its marketing task on another; it may be awesome for existing viewers of the show but is unlikely to draw in new ones. It is a missed opportunity and, as a result, the story itself misses the mark. The moments of loud, kinetic chaos and of affection between our leads could have been so much more fun, but they wind up buried under the disjointed leaps, in-jokes and oppressive ennui.

Description:

Hey, do you wanna see Harley and Ivy go on a road trip and make out??? Picking up directly from the cliffhanger ending of Harley Quinn: The Animated Series, Harley and Ivy are on the run in a Thelma-and-Louise journey, it's all here!

Harley and Ivy on the road trip of the century! Following the wedding disaster of the decade, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy end up on the run from Commissioner Gordon and the GCPD! But as fun as all that sounds, Ivy still worries over leaving Kite Man at the altar... Luckily, Harley's got the perfect scheme to shake her out of her wedding-day blues!

This incredible volume is packed to the brim containing Harley Quinn: The Animated Series: The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour #1-6!

Collects: Harley Quinn: The Animated Series: The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour #1-6

Authors:  Tee Franklin
Artists:  Max Sarin
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  Aug. 29, 2023
Parental Rating: Mature
ISBN:  978-1779520401
Pages:  144 pages

A Darkening Green: Review of Batman Arkham Poison Ivy

 

Review:

I love the Batman Arkham series of TPBs! Each book is a fascinating trip through the history and key moments of one specific member of Batman's gallery of classic villains. Sixteen books and counting have been published in the series so far.

This one follows Poison Ivy's growth and evolution, and it is a delight to see how the character grew and changed in the hands of different teams over her history.

Some things never change - her powers are based in the world's flora, she is always passionate for nature, she has a pervasive willingness to destroy manmade things and kill people in defense of nature.

But she has also been through many changes over the years. Her origin tale has been reimagined, her sanity has come and gone. And as these collected stories show, she has been portrayed in increasingly dark ways, becoming more cold, more deadly over the years.

Right from her first appearance, in Batman #181 (1966), she has been willing to use her beauty and her powers to seduce and control others. She sowed division between Batman and Robin while also seeking to knock other dastardly damsels from their perches (specifically Dragonfly, Silken Spider and Tiger Moth, who reappear in occasional later reboots).

A decade later, in a two-part tale versus Wonder Woman in World's Finest Comics, writer Jerry Conway picks up her power of control and manipulation as she imprisons a former lover in a tree and forces him to do her bidding, and he amps up her willingness to poison and kill.

Conway revisited Poison Ivy with a 1981 Batman tale (#339) of seduction, manipulation and mind-control. Can Batman overcome both her lethal vines and her powerful and intoxicating kiss?

In Secret Origins #36 (1988), Neil Gaiman of Sandman fame gave us a darker take on her origin story; he made more explicit the sexual overtones of the villain. He also worked in several clever nods to earlier stories. Alas, Mark Buckingham (later of Fables) gave the story such scratchy and unimaginative art that it ultimately failed to live up to the tale itself and the renewed origin.

The pattern of increasing darkness was now established, and Poison Ivy becomes an increasingly ruthless killer and terrorist. The two-part "Hot House" by John Francis Moore (Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #42, 43) leaned strongly into her mental imbalance and dangers that result. When Moore revisited Ivy in 1997's Batman: Poison Ivy #1, she snapped over the destruction of her island of tranquility, setting out on a bloody path of violent retribution.

By the time 2008 brought us Joker's Asylum: Poison Ivy #1 and 2010's Gotham City Sirens #8, her revenge-fueled willingness to hunt down, torture and kill her enemies in often gruesome ways was well established.

These and other stories in this volume portray this powerfully compelling character and her fascinating evolution. The writing is at times uneven, the art occasionally a disservice, but Poison Ivy herself is always striking, sexy and usually barely covered by a handful of ivy leaves.

Description:

GOTHAM'S DEADLIEST BEAUTY

Poison Ivy was once Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley, a young woman with a unique fascination with botany and toxicology. But then she was seduced and later experimented on by her mentor, Professor Jason Woodrue, also known as the super-villain Floronic Man.

Now a constant thorn in Batman's side, Poison Ivy uses the toxins in her bloodstream to make her touch fatal to whomever she chooses, giving her the ability to create pheromones that make men her slaves while she stops at nothing to ensure plant life will retake Earth.

BATMAN ARKHAM: POISON IVY collects some of the villain's greatest stories by some of the industry's greatest creators, including Robert Kanigher (THE FLASH), Gerry Conway (JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA), Neil Gaiman (THE SANDMAN), Guillem March (CATWOMAN), P. Craig Russell (WONDER WOMAN), Mark Buckingham (FABLES) and many more!

Collects: Batman #181, #339, Batman: Legends Of The Dark Knight #42-43, Batman: Poison Ivy #1, Batman: Shadow Of The Bat Annual #3, Batman Villain Secret Files #1, Detective Comics #231, Gotham City Sirens #8, Joker's Asylum: Poison Ivy #1, Secret Origins #36, The Batman Chronicles #10, World's Finest Comics #251-252

Authors:  Various
Artists:  Various
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  Sept. 13, 2016
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1401264451
Pages:  312 pages

Hybrid Murder Mystery: Review of Poison Ivy - Cycles of Life and Death

 

Review:

The exotic and real-world Sheep-Eater plant in Chile takes a longtime to bloom, flowering only once every decade or so. It is both beautiful, with its tall yellow flowers, and deadly, with its reputation of capturing and killing sheep and birds.

Poison Ivy, the beautiful and deadly Batman villain-turned-antihero, likewise took a long time to bloom. First appearing in all her evil beauty in Batman #181 (1966), she became a regular in Harley Quinn's orbit and in titles like Gotham City Sirens. But her first solo series had to wait until 2016, in the six-issue limited series collected here.

As Doctor Pam Isley, she works at the Gotham Botanical Gardens, researching hybrid blending of human and plant DNA. As Poison Ivy, she applies the research to grow two plant-human hybrid children of her own. But someone at the Botanical Gardens has their own agenda for how to apply her research.

Amy Chu cultivates a slow-moving murder mystery, with each new plot bud slowly opening up. The fastest growing elements in the tale are her two children, her 'sporelings' Rose and Hazel, who age through years of human development in a matter of weeks. The story is a beautiful, quiet tale with bursts of violence.

Clay Mann does the majority of the pencils, handling four of the six chapters, with Seth Mann doing the same on inks. They give us verdant visuals bursting with life. Ivy is stunning, tall and sexy, uninhibited and comfortable in her own skin even as she struggles with her humanity and how to relate to others.

The softness and sexiness of the two Manns' art gives way to an edgier final chapter by a team of five artists. The art of this final confrontation is filled with thorny and spiky hard edges, befitting the clash of wills and powers portrayed.

Ivy is hardly alone in this lush tale. We get a couple Harley Quinn cameos and a more sustained role for Catwoman. And the final battle brings Swamp Thing into the arrangement. 

It all adds up to a portrait of our hero as one who is intelligent, passionate about nature, but who also feels so lonely in her unique blend of human and plant. Her first solo adventure is well worth the wait and the read.

Description:

POISON IVY BLOSSOMS INTO HER FIRST SOLO ADVENTURE!

There’s animal. There’s vegetable. And there’s somewhere in between.

That’s where Dr. Pamela Isley, a.k.a. Poison Ivy, finds herself. Instead of battling the Dark Knight, she is now a researcher at the Gotham Botanical Gardens, studying the possibility of creating plant-human hybrids.

But when her fellow scientists start turning up dead, she’s both the natural leading suspect…and the only person (or plant) who can crack the case.

To solve the mystery, Poison Ivy must team up—or throw down—with her oldest friends and closest frenemies, from Harley Quinn to Catwoman to the Swamp Thing. Can she keep things under control, or will she be responsible for a deadly new harvest?

Find out in POISON IVY: CYCLE OF LIFE AND DEATH. Sprouting from the brains of the up-and-coming creative team of writer Amy Chu and artist Clay Mann, it’s a mean, green murder mystery starring one of Batman’s greatest rogues!

Collects: POISON IVY: CYCLE OF LIFE AND DEATH #1-6

Authors:  Amy Chu
Artists:  Clay Mann, Seth Mann
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  Sept. 13, 2016
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1401264512
Pages:  144 pages

Emotionally Undead - a Review of Blackest Night

 

Review:

The core story from the 2009 DC Comics mega-crossover event Blackest Night is collected into this handsome hardcover book. With loads of special features - variant cover gallery, director's commentary, loads of sketches, even a silver black-ring logo hiding under the dust jacket - it is an impressive collection.

If only the story inside lived up to the packaging.

Written by highly regarded author Geoff Johns and pencilled by Ivan Reis, Blackest Night follows a series of seismic storylines in the Green Lantern books of the day. It draws together the seven Corps with their rings of different colours and fueled by different emotions and even mines historical Green Lantern lore as far back as Alan Moore's writing of a 1986 Green Lantern Corps tale.

Nekron, the personification of death itself, has found a way to use Black Hand in a scheme to extinguish the light of life and all emotion from the universe. But first he must corrupt and capture or kill the Guardians. 

While that storyline unfolds mostly in the background, our attention is focused on the experiences of several heroes, many of whom find key deceased heroes or villains resurrected by the power of a black ring. Their emotional connection to these lost loved ones - from Ralph and Sue Dibney to Aquaman, from the JSA and Freedom Fighters to even Batman - only serves to make these reanimated corpses even more powerful.

When even the combined might of all seven corps fails to stop Nekron, they discover they can magically divide and delegate their rings for a limited time, a deus ex machina that gives the reader the opportunity to see how Lex Luthor, Mera or even Scarecrow would wield a power ring attuned to their own strongest emotion.

In the end, Johns rewrites some foundational Green Lantern and DC Comics mythology - such as the Guardians working to hide the fact that life began on Earth, not Oa - and undoes recent DC history of killing off characters by resurrecting some key ones. Although no attempt is made to explain why some but not others are so treated - Maxwell Lord rises to life again, not merely as a Black Ring zombie but fully alive again, although Ted Kord / Blue Beetle whom he killed, is not. (Look for more adventures of the alive-again Maxwell Lord in the follow-up Brightest Day / Justice League Generation Lost story)

While Johns gives us a tale worthy of the classic mega-crossovers, with globe-shaking events and universe-level threats, loads of cameos and changes to the larger comics landscape, it all ultimately falls flat. Combining all the colours of light is supposed to give white light, but here the overall impression is just muddy brown. Reader emotional connections to the characters and situations fail to materialize and it all just blurs together.

Ivan Reis and his rotation of inkers do well at rendering the walking dead and flying dead, portraying them as desiccated and half-decomposed undead monsters, loads of sharp teeth, missing bits of flesh, tentacles and tongues. It is not pretty to look at, but it does the job of evoking horror at the state of the combatants.

They also give us loads of full-page and two-page spreads, packing in as many characters and shafts of coloured light as possible. Just about every time the seven corps work as one, it gets a double-page spread.

In all, it is a reasonable addition to the historical crossover events, although the art is grotesque and unpleasant and the story fails, ironically, to find its emotional core in the midst of all those emotion-powered Lantern Corps.

Description:

Comics' hottest writer Geoff Johns (GREEN LANTERN: SINESTRO CORPS WAR, THE FLASH, ACTION COMICS, JSA) and superstar artist Ivan Reis raise the dead in this hardcover collection of the most anticipated comics event of the year!

Throughout the decades, death has plagued the DC Universe and taken the lives of heroes and villains alike. But to what end? As the War between the different colored Lantern Corps rages on, the prophecy of the Blackest Night descends and it's up to Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps to lead DC's greatest champions in a battle to save the Universe from an army of undead Black Lanterns made up of fallen Green Lanterns and DC's deceased heroes and villains.

This collection of the best-selling epic is the culmination of the events that Geoff Johns has been leading to since he relaunched the Green Lantern franchise in 2006!

Collects: BLACKEST NIGHT #0-8

Authors:  Geoff Johns
Artists:  Ivan Reis
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  July 13, 2010
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1401226930
Pages:  264 pages

Jurgens at the Wheel: a review of Booster Gold: the Complete 2007 Series Book 2

 

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

Of People and Puppies: a review of Booster Gold volume 5 The Tomorrow Memory

 

Review:

By this point in Booster history, Dan Jurgens, creator of Booster Gold, has hit his full creative stride and brought the character to his highest pinnacle of fame and visibility.

This TPB collects issues #26-31 of the ongoing Booster Gold (2007) series, surpassing the length of his original late-80s series which was cancelled after issue #25. Then by the end of the issues collected here, Booster would debut as team leader in the new Justice League: Generation Lost series, with a third (Time Masters: Vanishing Point) set to begin just a couple months later. That made three concurrent Booster Gold series - truly his glory days!

This flagship series continues to give us ever more compelling stories. The first two collected chapters tie into the DC Universe crossover event Blackest Night. In Booster's case he must face off against the reanimated and black ring-powered Ted Kord, aka the Blue Beetle. But his former best bud is not here for a party and a bwa-ha-ha good time, he is here to kill and maim. It leads to an emotional head-trip for our hero as he must struggle against confusion and revulsion at seeing his long-lost friend in this walking-dead state.

The visuals and concepts are occasionally gruesome. But Jurgens uses a clever framing device to great effect, with Booster Gold's self-flagellation at failing to properly eulogize Ted at Blue Beetle's funeral.

The final four chapters are the title tale The Tomorrow Memory. Booster's sister Michelle is back! She had disappeared, you may recall, to a where and when unknown upon discovering at Vanishing Point that she should have been dead already. It turns out that she jumped into the past and has wound up in Coast City just before it is destroyed by Cyborg Superman and Mongul. In the meantime, she has found a boyfriend. But she remembers enough of her history lessons to realize what is coming. If only she could convince others of the danger!

Booster is overjoyed, of course, to find her again; but he also knows what is about to happen to the seven million people and is faced with the impossibly weighty questions of what it means to be a hero versus the mission to protect the time stream.

In the end (spoiler alert) the boyfriend dies, Michelle is saved from certain death again, and a mystery man with a close tie to Rip and Booster helps out at the last minute.

The Epilogue that closes this book is a beautiful and moving cap to a fine collection. All of the frustrations and confusions and paradoxes have built up and Booster craves the emotional release of thumping some bad guys. But when an innocent bystander is hurt by his actions, he withdraws to watch - without intervening - an earth-shaping disaster. Rip Hunter comes along to help his partner, offering a small but positive change they can make. Then he watches with pride as Booster goes on to make a much bigger positive change in his broken relationship with his sister. It is a beautiful story with action, character development and touches of family, love, loneliness and duty.

The art throughout the collection is covered by some of Jurgens' trademarks. With classic heroic poses and full-page splashes, lots of good old-fashioned superhero fun but with remarkable emotional range.

Description:

After fighting Black Lantern and former Blue Beetle Ted Kord, Booster Gold finds himself lost in time, struggling to save his sister Goldstar from imminent death. However, when Booster Gold rescues his sister from the timestream - he soon realizes that the sister he saved is not the same girl he remembers.

Collects: Booster Gold #26-31

Authors:  Dan Jurgens
Artists:  Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  Dec 7, 2010
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1401229184
Pages:  160 pages

Saving Grayson: a Review of Booster Gold volume 4: Day of Death

 

Review:

Time-travelling hero and Time-Master-in-training Booster Gold has visited loads of key moments in history, in both our IRL timeline and in that of the DC universe. When visiting great moments from comics past, artist and Booster Gold creator Dan Jurgens always takes admirable care to recreate and lovingly reinterpret those moments with a respectful nod to the vision of the original artist.

Top-of-mind examples earlier in the Booster Gold series include the classic Alan Moore graphic novel The Killing Joke's shooting of Barbara Gordon, and Maxwell Lord's killing of Ted Kord aka Blue Beetle.

Now, in this volume, Booster intervenes in the early days of the New Teen Titans, the phenomenal 1980s reboot by Marv Wolfman and George Perez. Booster's mission seems simple enough on the surface - his goal is to save young Dick Grayson from the Black Beetle's attempt to alter the future by killing him in his Robin days. He has found a ripple in the timestream, tracing to a moment of grace by Raven in New Teen Titans #2.

With his visuals lovingly echoing Perez's original work, Jurgens injects both Booster and Black Beetle into the battle that became such a formative moment in the great rivalry between the New Teen Titans and Deathstroke. The result are fantastic visuals and a terrific tribute. The mansion is recognizable, the panels share the same feel as the originals, down to the teens-having-fun poolside scene. If anything, Starfire's bikini is even skimpier here than in the original.

This time, Jurgens is also writing the tale, and it goes a couple layers deeper than the standard save-the-timestream story. Black Beetle, who is emerging as Booster's main foil, is both serving a muysetrious benefactor, and using that mystery man for his own pruposes. 

Together, they are looking for opportunities to tweak historical DC universe events that will lead to the elimination of both the Teen Titans and ultimately the Justice League. With those heroes out of the way, Trigon then conquers the world and Booster must team with early-era Raven to defeat her own father. Along the way they encounter a remnant of other heroes - Green Arrow, Zatanna among them. Black Beetle has his own agenda, however, and takes advangage of Booster's somewhat predictable and gullible reactions to get hold of a Red Scarab.

The script is a little uneven in this volume. Most solid are the chapters in the bat cave or batling alongside the Teen Titans in a recreation of the past events. The mystery man pulling the strings and developments in Black Beetle too. Sequences with Trigon and the remnant of humanity drag a bit in pacing and feel forced. And a big plot hole is the gap around how exactly Booster Gold defeated Deathstroke.

But Jurgens ultimately sticks the landing and his handling of the Epilogue deftly avoids the traps of saccharine sentimentality to give us a touching glimpse of the humanity at Booster's core. I also love the many little touches like the casual hospitality of Alfred bringing lemonade to the hard-working heroes in the bat cave.

Two other standalone tales are included in this collection. Booster's confrontation with Magog is reprinted from The Brave and the Bold #23 and brings out the strong, forceful side of Booster as he refuses to back down. His threats to stop Magog next time tie in well with the later Justice League Generation Lost series, reviewed earlier.

Keith Giffen also gives us a standalone tale, cleverly titled 1952 pickup. Booster travels back in time to 1952 where he winds up involved in a Russian and Task Force X plot. This is candy, a fun enough standalone tale that ultimately does little more than look and taste good but feels out of line with the arc of these characters. Although the nod to TV shows from the 70s and 80s that were set in the era let us end on a Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley scene.

Description:

Time-traveling hero Booster Gold investigates the death of Batman - only to run afoul of another Batman! And this one doesn't want Booster anywhere near this case. To prevent the murder of the Dark Knight, Booster will have to travel back in time, where he must first stop the mysterious Black Beetle from destroying the New Teen Titans - or will Deathstroke the Terminator get in the way? And if Booster fails, the next target on the Black Beetle's kill list is the entire Justice League of America!

Collects: The Brave and the Bold #23, Booster Gold #20-25

Authors:  by Keith Giffen, Dan Jurgens
Artists:  Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund, Pat Olliffe
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  April 13, 2010
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1401226435
Pages:  160 pages

Bending the Rules: a review of Booster Gold volume 3 - Reality Lost

 

Review:

Time travel tales are famously filled with paradoxes and convoluted complexities. And while the rebooted Booster Gold solo series from 2007 embraces those challenges, the seven issues collected here show the cracks of the writers wrestling with those paradoxes.

The first two chapters, issues #11 and 12 of the series, were written by Chuck Dixon with Dan Jurgens on pencils. The two-parter feels like it was intended to be a largely standalone tale as the series transitioned from the hands of Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz (issues 1-10) to those of Booster's original creator (and series artist) Dan Jurgens beginning with #15.

(An odd Starro tale in #13-14 was the second half of this transition and is collected elsewhere)

Dixon's tale is fun and frivolous, with Booster Gold and Goldstar (Michael' sister Michelle) fixing a timestream issue by impersonating key players. Initially Booster fills in for Killer Moth in a museum heist. When that fails to fix things, he seeks to impersonate the great Batman, with Goldstar playing Batgirl, on the other side of the caper.

Incapacitating those people in order to take their place, being seen by folks such as Alfred all lead to more time travel woes. Booster, in need of a new disguise, dresses as... Elvis Prestley to thwart the crime. It all amounts to a bizarre but entertaining if largely forgettable tale.

When Jurgens lands in the writer's chair with #15, his first story ignores the Starro interlude and revisits Dixon's story. It feels like the character creator reasserting control over the direction of his creation by cleaning up some of the loose threads left behind by other writers. Yet his vision was clearly set earlier. On re-reading the Dixon tale, the astute reader will notice visual clues that will tie in directly to the Jurgens continuation. Things like the Egyptian magical knife, forgotten under a table but in the foreground of the image, screaming "pay attention to me!"

The rest of this collection is centered on that knife. From ancient Egypt and the knife's surprising connection to Blue Beetle's alien scarab, to the end of time at Vanishing Point, the story hits so many times and places, travelling the timestream like a kayak on a current.

Jurgens even circles back on the series' own timeline, as Booster meets his not-that-much younger self from about a year earlier, at least in comics publication dates - who knows how long that is in story time? Rip would be horrified if he had been in any position to comment on the potential for chaos and the paradoxes. One also wonders if this isn't Dan Jurgens reasserting his creative control over not only Chuck Dixon's tale but also those of Johns and Katz?

Jurgens keeps our hero's humour and creativity intact, making these chapters fun to read. He also gives the narrative some good emotional rage, especially in the arc involving Michelle aka Goldstar. She discovers the truth about her death and Rip's intervention and must wrestle with its implications. In fact, the very final panel follows common artistic tropes that suggest her death. Having only recently been reintroduced to Goldstar, is she now gone again from Booster's life?

Also notable is older-Booster's annoyance at how naive his (not that much) younger self was. Has he really grown so much in maturity and experience in the intervening time, however long it was?

Jurgens not only writes two-thirds of the book, he is also the main penciller, with an assist on inks by Norm Rapmund. His visuals are an ongoing testament to his affection for these characters, especially Booster Gold. We get lots of the classic Jurgens full-page pinup poses and his love of having the characters fly directly at the reader. With ongoing amazing colouring work by Hi-Fi, these pages are beautiful to behold, with a fluidity to the flow bound together by a strong overall visual consistency.

With Dan Jurgens in full creative control, I look forward to the next issues. This should be fun!

Description:

Exploding from the pages of 52 - and exploring the timeline of the DC Universe - comes this monthly book featuring the greatest Super Hero history will never know: Booster Gold! Longtime BATMAN writer Chuck Dixon pens a story teaming up Booster and Batman when a time-traveling villain from Batman's past attempts to destroy Gotham City! And in a story written and drawn by original Booster Gold creator Dan Jurgens, Booster discovers that the timestream has been inexplicably altered, unleashing all types of anomalies only he can put back in order! Guest-starring Batgirl and Elongated Man!

Collects: Booster Gold #11, 12, 15-19

Authors:  by Chuck Dixon, Dan Jurgens
Artists:  Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  Aug. 11, 2009
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1401222499
Pages:  144 pages