Blue and Gold
“Splittin' Image”
Volume 1, Issue 4, January 2022
Released November 16, 2021
Cover Price: $3.99
Writer: Dan Jurgens
Artists: Kevin Maguire, Ryan Sook
Penciller: Dan Jurgens
Inker: Norm Rapmund
Colorist: Ryan Sook
Letterer: Rob Leigh
Editors: Mike Cotton, Brittany Holzherr
Cover Artist: Ryan Sook
Heroes: Blue Beetle II, Booster Gold, Green Lantern IV
Villain: Blackguard
Setting: New York, NY, USA, 20th-century
Cover Description: Blackguard tears up a poster for Blue and Gold Restoration.
Brief Synopsis: Booster Gold and Blue Beetle disagree about the details of one of their earliest adventures.
Booster Gold's role in this story:
Featured (Booster Gold plays a prominent role)
Costume Worn: MARK I power-suit
Story Notes: It is probably not a coincidence that this issue prominently features Blackguard just a few months after the character appeared in The Suicide Squad movie.
This story has been reprinted in:
Blue and Gold (2022)
Page 4, panel 1
Blue Beetle tells the story of a previously unrevealed adventure that took place shortly after the events of Justice League #4. The artist of these panels, Kevin Maguire, was the artist on the Justice League comics in the late 1980s.
Page 4, panel 3
The famous "one punch" fight between Batman and Guy Gardner (witnessed by both Beetle and Booster) occurred in Justice League #5.
Page 5, panel 1
When we first met Blackguard in Booster Gold #1, he had just stolen technology from S.T.A.R. Labs. Some things never change.
Page 5, panel 4
This is the chronological first meeting between Blue Beetle and Blackguard. (The first published meeting between the two is in JLA Classifed #4, 2005, which is also where we will first learn that Blackguard's real name is Richard "Dick" Hertz.)
Page 8, panel 1
Booster Gold has a different memory of the battle against Blackguard, which he explicitly places one day after the events of Justice League #4. While it's not immediately clear whose version is more accurate, it is safe to say that the Blue Beetle's Bug airship was not covered in bandages or powered by steam.
Page 8, panel 2
PESL SIGHTING: Norm Rapmund is inker of Booster Gold's version of events (pencils by Dan Jurgens). He is also the inker of Jurgens' pencils for most issues of Booster Gold Volume 2 where he often included "PESL" easter eggs like the one seen on the storefront here.
Page 12, panel 1
Electric buses were not common sights in American when Justice League #4 was released in 1987. Is this bus ahead of its time or an an artifact of Beetle's faulty memory?
Page 19, panel 2
A third version of this misadventure (presumably the "truest" history) is presented by the third hero on the scene, Guy Gardner. Gardner's version of events is not without his bias...
Page 20, panel 2
...but neither Beetle nor Booster contradict it. (It probably helps that Gardner's version of events is visualized by his Oan Power Ring.)
Boosterrific Review: Old friends, new enemies, humorous situations: this is exactly the kind of comic that I want this series to be.
Boosterrific Rating: Boosterrific!
Average Fan Rating: (1 vote)
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