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Boosterrific.com: The Complete, Annotated Adventures of Booster Gold
Boosterrific.com: The Complete, Annotated Adventures of Booster Gold

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Booster Gold

“Glory Days!”

Volume 2, Issue 38, January 2011
Released November 10, 2010

Cover Price: $2.99
Guide Price: $3.00 (as of 2011)
Estimated Issue Sales: 17,276

Boosterrific.com Rating
  • Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
Fan Rating
  • Currently 3.3/5 Stars.

Booster Gold, Vol. 2, #38. Image © DC Comics

 

ARTISTS

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CHARACTERS & SETTINGS

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ISSUE DETAILS

Cover Description: Booster Gold charges forward, firing an M1A1 Thompson submachine gun alongside WWII-era soldiers.

Brief Synopsis: Searching for Rani, Booster Gold joins General Glory against the Nazis in World War II.

Booster Gold's role in this story:
Featured (Booster Gold plays a prominent role)

Costume Worn: MARK I.v2 power-suit

This story has been reprinted in:
Booster Gold: Past Imperfect (2011)

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ANNOTATIONS

Page 1, panel 6
In the first page of this issue, Booster Gold has traveled into deep space, recovered the Kinda/Sorta/But-Not-Quite Book of Destiny, and returned it to Blue Beetle in New York in 1988. If he had done this four issues ago, he would have saved both himself and his readers a lot of grief.

Page 2, panel 1
Booster returns to the present to find Michelle, Skeets, and Rip Hunter searching for Rani, who has stolen a Time Sphere. Time Sphere thefts are becoming more and more common (Booster Gold, Daniel Carter, Bruce Wayne, Rani). Rip Hunter really might want to look into redesigning it, or at least investing in purchasing The Club anti-theft device.

Page 3, panel 3
Rani has traveled to Italy in September 1943. American and British troops invaded mainland Italy on September 3, 1943. The Italian government surrendered to the Allies on September 8, 1943, and German troops soon took over many of Italy's defensive positions. Italy would remain a battleground until the German forces surrendered on May 2, 1945.

Page 3, panel 4
Booster once said that he and Michelle were never particularly close. It's easy to see why when all they ever do is fight. This behavior isn't necessarily unrealistic between siblings, but Michelle's character has never been developed past this stereotypical portrayal. She has unfortunately been relegated to the role of "motivational plot device" all too often.

Page 6, panel 1
It may seem that General Glory (a pastiche of Marvel Comics' Captain America) is so irrelevant to history that Skeets doesn't even know who he is. However, Glory was actually a top-secret living weapon whose cover as a comic book character was so effective that until he joined the Justice League, few people alive believed he was anything other than a fictional character. General Glory's story is told in depth in the 5-part "Glory Bound" story in Justice League America #46 through 50.

Page 6, panel 3
In Glory's first appearances, it was Martian Manhunter who criticized Glory for endangering the life of a child. Skeets is in good company. Meanwhile, the tank that is approaching Booster Gold looks to be a German Panzer III, which were fazed out in 1943 in favor of the Panzer IV.

Page 7, panel 4
Dennis Day was the young, singing sidekick of comedian Jack Benny on the very long running The Jack Benny Program on radio and television throughout the middle of the 20th century.

Page 8, panel 1
The fictional Central Bureau of Intelligence (C.B.I.) is a fictional United States government agency in the DC Universe. In General Glory's case, it appears to be a stand-in for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the World War II intelligence organization that would later be incorporated into the modern Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Page 9, panel 6
Nishtikeit is a Yiddish word meaning "a nobody." Yiddish was a common language among the Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

Page 11, panel 2
Well, at least we made it to page 11 before the first dick joke of the issue, from Skeets, no less.

Page 12, panel 1
General Glory is singing the "Marines' Hymn," the official song of the United States Marine Corps since the 19th century.

Page 14, panel 2
By the time he joins the Justice League nearly half a century later, at least one Ernie -- Ernest E. Earnest, presumably the first -- will actually survive and eventually earn the rank of Major in the United States Army. Given that Major Earnest was 60-years-old in 1991, this would make the current crop of Ernies about 12-years-old in 1943.

Image Copyright DC Comics

Page 14, panel 5
The German soldiers are firing German MP40 submachine guns. HISTORICAL SUCCESS: Note that artist Chris Batista depicted the Germans using proper firing technique: German soldiers were trained to hold the weapon properly by gripping the magazine receiver above the magazine instead of the magazine itself to prevent damaging the magazine alignment. That's attention to detail!

Page 16, panel 4
SPOILER WARNING!: Reveal

Page 17, panel 5
Earlier in this issue, Michelle's eyes were appropriately colored blue. Now they are brown. Is this a coloring error, or did Booster's destruction of the tank on page seven change history as Skeets feared?

Page 20, panel 1
General Glory is now singing "God Bless America," written by Irving Berlin during World War I and popularized by singer Kate Smith in 1938 as a protest against Hitler. HISTORICAL FAILURE: Note that Glory appears to be wearing boots with a Panama sole, a style not developed until 1944.

Page 20, panel 2
After listening to two patriotic songs from General Glory, Booster Gold is now subjected to Dr. Nishtikeit's rendition of "Deutschlandlied," a 19th-century German song was adopted as the German national anthem in 1922.

Page 21, panel 2
The German "Schwachinnig!" literally translates to "Fool!"

Page 22, panel 6
Buck Privates is a 1941 movie starring Abbot and Costello, a very successful comedy duo of the 20th century who are often compared to Blue Beetle and Booster Gold.

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REVIEWS

Boosterrific Review: Why is this issue so much better than the issue before it? There's still plenty of slapstick humor. There's still adventuring in the past where history can't be changed. There's still an abundance of references to Booster's time in the Justice League International. But perhaps because this is a stand-alone adventure with plenty of interaction with his regular supporting cast, this issue feels much fresher and far more satisfying than recent issues.

Boosterrific Rating:

  • Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
Worth Its Weight In Gold.

Average Fan Rating:

  • Currently 3.3/5 Stars.
(3 votes)

  • Currently 3.0/5 Stars.
KMD (Nov. 17, 2010, 11:12:46)
Solid but unspectacular--but certainly a step up from the last few issues. The Rani angle continues to be strange and does not seem to be going anywhere. I agree with our gracious host that Michelle is not doing well. Since they brought her into the series, nobody has any idea of what to do with her. She is a square peg and does not fit anywhere.

  • Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
Erin (Nov. 13, 2010, 15:20:19)
Much better than the last few issues. Not just because the cast is used or it being a stand alone although it certainly helps. A lot of the repetitive humor has been dropped making this feel like a fresher read. Yes it does feel like an issue of JLI but Booster remains smart and resourceful. Two notes of interest are the ongoing plotline of Booster being a father figure and the clues that he's far more mechanically skilled than previously written. It'll be interesting to see how far they go with these ideas as neither are really fleshed out. This issue isn't without it's flaws. For one thing I'm still not sure why Giffin/DeMatteis want to firmly state how old a character is by tying them to a time period especially when comics in general try to keep certain characters age down. But the main problem for me was the characterizations of Skeets and Michelle, neither of which feel like their old selves. The latter of which really taking a lot of enjoyment from the issue. While this book was fun it also raises the question of how urgent Boosters' mission to stop Max is when he feels like he has time to relax in between finding Rani, his solo search for proof and his present time hunt of Maxwell Lord.

  • Currently 3.0/5 Stars.
Harry (Nov. 13, 2010, 10:11:07)
I enjoyed this story. It was a fun one-and-done. (I would have enjoyed last issue better if the first two pages in this issues had been included). I don't like Michelle's harsh characterization; she has been particularly unlikable of late. I don't get the push that Booster has to be Rani's father (ummm... why?). But I laughed at General Glory and Ernie and smiled when seeing Booster succeed by being smart.

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