The DC blog has its usual preview, except that with Ig Guara and Ruy Jose credited with some of the art, they appear to have cut the five-page preview off at three so all we see is Jurgens: http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/2011/07/12 ... -doomsday/

Ok, small question. If BG intends to fix this timeline anyway, why does it matter if Doomsday goes rampaging unfettered across the US? In the end, none of it will have happened.

I do like that BG gets a showdown with DD and I hope it is an entertaining knock-down drag-out. I also hope BG remembers it come September.

I think the realistic answer to "why does it matter?" is: "It doesn't."

I'll ask Dan in The Gold Exchange this week.

I anticipate he'll answer with something like: "When dealing with the kind of butterfly effects that Booster routinely sees, it's impossible to guess whose life or whose death will impact your ability to 'fix' the problem. You have to act like a hero and avoid assumptions that could come back to bite you later."

Plus there is always the chance that Booster can't set the timeline straight in which case he would have to live with the fact that he did nothing to stop this rampaging monster from killing potentially thousands of people. It matters a lot to the conscious and make-up of the man and hero he really is, otherwise we probably wouldn't like him as much as we do.

Those motivations are consistent with Dan's characterization of Booster, at least during this stage of his Time Master career. He made an analagous choice when in the past in Coast City. And I am good with that.

However, if BG were to die fighting Doomsday, then this timeline would be likely to remain because he wouldn't be there to fix it. His greater obligation here is to stop Thrawn's messing with the timeline. Perhaps coldly, this world should left to it's fate in service to the greater good. I think Rip would make that choice. I think future Booster would do the same. Is modern Booster heroic or a bit naive?

(For the record, I know that this is all story telling device and booster actions are dictated by the need to have this showdown to tell the story. I am amusing myself with meta-analysis, cause I likes too.)

I agree that Rip would have done things differently, but without his usual safety net and with his recent "additional powers" missing re: time-travel, I think Booster's actions are explainable and understandable. As Dan points out in The Gold Exchange, part of the issue could be as simple as knowing there's a good chance that with no Rip, no base in Arizona, no ability to make another time jump, there's no guarantee that he will be ABLE to fix it this time.

I got the impression that until this is resolved for all intents and purposes Flashpoint currently is the "real" timeline. Booster tried to go back but Skeets told him they have no where else to go back to. And if it is the stable timeline there's nothing to say he can fix it.

But Booster hasn't really gotten out of that impulse to help. It's like Reality Lost when he saves Cyrus because he thinks saving a life is always the right thing to do. Or Tomorrow Memory, he's more accepting of Rips' rules and the reasons for them there but he still goes along with trying to save Coast City because that's how he's worked as a hero for years. Booster hasn't gotten the Time Master mindframe of "this needs to happen" or "this detail isn't important since I'll fix things."

Even Hal and Superman got involved right after their time expert told them in no uncertain terms not to do anything in TMVP. They still did it the second Rip wasn't with them even with Booster repeatedly telling them that it wasn't a good idea. I don't think it's easy to see/know people are going to get killed and not stop to help if you're a hero. Given Rips' own musings on losing people/being unable to change things I get the impression that it's something that doesn't really sink in until the time traveler goes through it enough times.

I am really not very impressed with this storyline. It is not that it itself is horrible, but thinking that this is the finale of BG Vol 2? I would have much rather have used the last few issues to finish up some storylines (Black Beetle...) than this Tie-in...even more so as the resolution seems pretty obvious imho.