Did Wonder Woman come out this week? DC's site says yes, but it wasn't at my LCS, and I know how the DC site is frequently full of crap. But it never hurts to double-check.
Anyway, Booster Gold!
Cover: Is incredibly terrifying. Especially with the added speech bubble.
Pg. 1: I get the feeling that Future Beetle has no business reminding me of Uncle Sam. I mean, he's just waaaaay too convenient. He's got to be up to something.
Pg. 2: See, Rip agrees with me! Although I wouldn't say that Skeets needs Booster right now more than ever. Skeets has been neglected before plenty. Booster kept him in a box for years for crying out loud! (Skeets kept himself amused by playing with the Internet. Oh, Skeets.) And I'd say that Skeets needed Booster a lot more when, saaaay, he got eaten by a certain Venusian mindworm during 52?
Also, I love the body language of the Beetles in the 1st panel. Namely, that Dan and Future Beetle are both standing all ramrod straight and Jaime isn't. It's a nice detail.
Pg. 3: Future Beetle speaks incredibly... academically. Yes. He uses many big words when a few small ones will do.
Jaime's dialogue hints that the Beetle Brigade came to pick up Booster at his suggestion. I find this interesting.
So, Skeets, who is the other guy? I choose to believe he's referring to when the Joker beat Booster senseless using Skeets as a prop. Because that makes the other guy Booster and that's hilarious.
Skeets is woobieful.
"What are you going to do to stop me?" <3 <3 <3
Pg. 4: olol Beatles.
"I'm going to bring my friend back or I'm going to die trying." Oh, Booster.
Pg. 5: The wormholes shown are Jason Todd and Red Robin, which I hear tell is where Countdown is headed; Ralph Dibny, Batman, and Sherlock Holmes, which is, I believe, the 50th anniversary issue of Detective Comics (I vaguely recall seeing an ad for it in Booster's original series); and the Jack Knight Starman with a guy whose name I can't remember, but I saw him in JLA: The Nail and I think he's a Kirby character, but I'm not sure....
Thought: There's clearly no room for privacy in that time sphere, and Booster's changed costumes. I mean, Booster wouldn't have a problem with that, of course, but still. Awkward!
Also his wounds have disappeared and changing clothes doesn't work that way!
"These colors are giving me a serious headache." Hee. Oh, Jaime. <3
Ted is something of a study in contradictions. Part of the reason I like him.
Booster 'n' history lessons and the like will never fail to vaguely amuse me.
Pg. 6-7: Kehe, Action Heroes is a nickname for Charlton heroes, although I'm not entirely sure where the nickname itself originated, come to think of it.
I want to say that Ted fought the Madmen in his first appearance, but I'm not at all sure that's right. Pretty sure they were in the Ditko Charlton days, though. Which, uhhh, they'd pretty much have to be, I guess, with the hourglass-goggles and being before CoIE.
CoIE being the "In any Crisis." panel, of course. [Aside: I really should read CoIE one of these days....]
The backwards-S layout is even more awkward here than it was in the 1st issue with Booster's 5-second life story. And, of course, while Booster's went a little something like, "I'm a failure, I suck, Ted's great, I still suck, but I'm trying to get better. For Ted.", Ted's is more like, "Ted's great, Ted's great, Ted's great, Ted's dead." Oh, Booster. Therapy.
The switch from Charlton to DC not only goes from the hourglass goggles to the round goggles (which make more sense), but it also changes the head bit of the beetle design on his chest. And also improves it, imo.
The Scarab temp-rezzing Dan and trying to kill Ted with him is still in continuity, is it? I would muchly like to see that explored at some point, be it here or in Blue Beetle.
Does ripping off the layout of the cover to A New Beginning ever get old? Honest question. It's not a straight lift here, with Max replacing Dr. Light and Oberon, Batman moving over to occupy Black Canary's and J'onn's spot, and Booster in Batman's vacated spot. Also there was considerably less smiling on the original.
Ted, mind you, did not fare particularly well against Despero or Doomsday, but he tried, poor boy. (Also, lawls, Booster's long hair. And Bloodwynd, being J'onn in disguise, really shouldn't be so close to that fire there....)
So, if Canary and Ted are right behind Babs there, then who is she talking to?
It amuses me that Jurgens can't seem to decide which direction Ted's antennae go. Not that anybody can, of course.
Pg. 8: Man, I know on an intellectual level that Dan's an archaeologist and I believe he even had a doctorate (I seem to recall reading Ted referring to him as "Doc Garrett", though I can't say where I saw it), but when I think "Dan" I think "punching", not "quoting Emerson."
...I'm not sure Booster's actually done so much of the being sincere and thinking aloud thing with Ted. I mean, probably moreso than he's done with others, but honesty is not one of Booster's particular strengths. He's been described as talking a great deal, but saying very little, which I think is incredibly accurate. I mean, he tells Guy in issue 2 that he never told Ted about his dad, remember?
Scarab Speak Translation: "I only did it to impress a girl." I like to imagine it's said in a mocking tone.
Pg. 9: I've no comment on this page but <3
Pg. 10: The Conglomerate! Once upon a time, Booster was in the JLI. And then he got fed up with nobody giving him any respect, so he quit, and formed his own team. The Conglomerate. I <3 the Conglomerate. Booster as a competent leader yesplz. Also, reminds me that I have yet to review JLQ #1. Aheh. >.>
While Danny is indeed more of a strawberry blond in this issue and Booster's been pretty consistently sandy throughout the series, Danny's hair has previously shared its palette with Booster. The question is whether or not the difference will continue to exist....
Danny being two inches shorter than Booster makes him anywhere from 6 feet to 6 feet 3 inches, I think. Booster is tall. Two inches seems like a pretty precise measurement to be able to tell, though....
It amuses me that she didn't see fit to mention that Danny and Booster have completely different haircuts.
Hahahaha, Golden Age Booster, hahahahaha.
Putting on acts, eh? Oh, Rose, you Carter(-to-be).
The eye Rose is removing a contact from in the 2nd-to-last panel is not the one that is contact-less in the last panel. Goddammit, Hi-Fi.
I wonder if anybody besides me remembers that Danny is also a contact-wearer.
"Now what do we do?" The answer?
Pg. 11:
Danny and Rose have switched positions on the couch. This bothers me.
So much love for Rip here. Apparently the answer to "What are you going to do to stop me?" is "Recruit your ancestors!" This will probably not end well. But it had damn well better be ancestors. Can't imagine why else Rip would bring both costumes otherwise. And Rose should totally be Supernova IV. Because it would make for the fastest moving legacy ever. How many Starmen have there been so far? I need to know what number we have to beat. :P
Carter family's heroic legacy? Really? I always figured that Carters were, by nature, more likely to fall on the other side of the law. Considering that the Carters-by-birth we know are Booster, who's a wanted man several times over in his home time period, and if the cops ever catch him, he gets to get executed sans trial, very lovely (unless that's been retconned, but I certainly hope not.); Michelle, who busted a guy off of death row (note the aforementioned "executed sans trial") and stole the Goldstar costume, even though Booster probably would've given it to her if she asked, he being a giant push-over like that; Jonar, who is, of course, a supervillian, to say nothing of the back-stabbing that Booster mentioned or his gambling problems; and Danny, who, admittedly, doesn't seem to be all that bad of a guy (at least comparatively), but, well, somebody's who reaction to getting an extremely powerful supersuit is "play Madden without bathroom breaks" is probably not entirely there to begin with. So I'm not sure where Rip's getting this "heroic legacy" stuff from. I mean, Booster's a straight-up hero, but Danny and Shel have so far just gotten in on technicalities, and Jonar's straight-up evil.
Pg. 12: I'd try to figure out if 16 months is accurate to what we've been given before, but I've honestly just given up on making sense out of the timestamps in this book.
"I wasn't exactly in the best place" is some pretty drastic understatement. At the time of Countdown to Infinite Crisis, Booster was apparently flat broke and homeless.
The files are pretty directly cribbed from C2IC, it seems. Straight down to that "intransigent" error in Booster's file that drives me nutters. (And that Shel's middle initial is A. It's just so random.)
It's so odd to see this scene without Ted's narration boxes. Mostly because it amuses me that Ted refers to Michelle as Booster's "murdered sister", because that makes it pretty clear that Booster never actually told Ted the circumstances of her death. Michelle wasn't murdered at all. It was, at best, a tragic accident, and, at worst, totally Booster's 'n' Skeets's fault. But I wouldn't call it a murder.
Pg. 13: Y'know, I was worried that this would end up changing C2IC a bit, and I don't mean because of the time-travel. But, no, all the dialogue on this page is lifted straight from C2IC, straight down to the italics. I <3 it. I mean, there's some skipping of stuff, but it's understandable, given space limitations and such.
"We never liked Max. Not really." is a total lie, though. They might not have always gotten along perfectly with Max, but they certainly seemed to like him well enough.
"But we were never bad guys." Booster, sweetie, do I need to remind you of your impressive criminal record? I mean, OK, Booster's not a straight-up bad guy or anything, but he does fall kinda low on the moral ladder....
Pg. 14: And nobody knows the danger of ego like Booster Gold.
Sooooooooo much woobie. <3
Dan's smirk here? Best.
Pg. 15: Nice ass, Ted.[/shallow]
Man, I really hope that something gets done with hospitalized Booster.... Mostly because I greatly <3 hospitalized Booster.
I love that Ted is visibly shorter than Booster and Dan here. Yes.
"Brother Eye fried that bozo Booster" is close to a line from C2IC, but not identical. (Max calls Brother I "Brother One" in C2IC, there's a bit in the middle, and "that bozo Booster" gets "flash-fried" instead of regular fried.)
Pg. 16: Scarab Speak Translation: "They tried to kill Blue Beetle. Let's break their skulls." Which is interesting, since the Scarab and Ted never seemed to be on any sort of good terms. Probably just the principle of the matter, though.
Max has not technically said yet that he made the League ineffectual on purpose. Whoopsie!
I'd also like to point out that the JLI was plenty effective when they had people to fight, it just didn't happen very often. But the joke amuses me anyway.
And Ted and Booster are fighting people together and bantering and, darnnit, that just makes me happy.
Pg. 17: Man, Dan and Sasha really are totally flirting here.
Future Beetle has zappy powers. Good for him.
Jaime, your timing for questions is terrible.
Max's OMAC activation code is same as in C2IC, except that instead of "Blue Beetle recipient" it's "intruder recipients", which is nice.
The dude who turned into an OMAC in C2IC was blond, though.
Pg. 18: Dan to the rescue!
The OMAC successfully broke Ted's arm in C2IC, of course.
Pg. 19: Max is supposed to already have given his "you or Batman, but I was betting on you" spiel, but I guess he could be repeating himself here for effect.
I'm not sure that Max's powers can be used to shut somebody's brain down, but OK.
I am sad that "Join or die time, is that it?" got cut.
I find it odd how far Booster's bleeding progressed in these panels, while Max's nosebleed did not progress at all.
Pg. 20: If any of you ever doubted Booster's willingness to literally take a bullet for Ted, do me a favor and go smack yourself, because seriously.
And then Ted flips out and beats the crap out of Max. Mmm-mmm, catharsis.
Pg. 21: But Booster's OK! \o/ Which is kind of weird, because you'd think that having somebody shutting your brain down would cause some sort of permanent damage....
I find it odd that it took all 3 Beetles to shut down the OMAC, considering that Jaime had a pretty good advantage over them by his lonesome in IC.
Scarab Speak Translation: "There's more security detail on the way. A lot more."
OK, Future Beetle is way wrong here. Max's files don't get sent to Batman, Alex Luthor deletes them. (Max blames Ted and later Batman, but it's irrelevant.) Batman finds out about the OMAC Project when Sasha sends Ted's brain-meat-covered goggles to him, which is obviously not going to happen now. And Max isn't going to just forget what happened, of course. Future Beetle, you have screwed things up.
Pg. 22: Booster's so giddy. It's adorable.
I think that Future Beetle knows too much. :/ But his smile reads as sincere to me, and that's throwing me off. (Possibly because he's not actually smiling much, even.) It's weird.
I really want to see that explanation on-screen, man. The past X # of years of Booster's life since Ted died, as told by Booster himself? Yes, please. Ted would be totally freaked by Booster's extreme hero-worship of him, assuming Booster actually let that bit into the summary. But, as previously noted, Booster does lie by omission pretty much all the time.
Tune in next month for Booster Gold #0, in which I pick apart Booster's origin! It will be great!
