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Boosterrific.com: The Complete, Annotated Adventures of Booster Gold
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Showing posts 6 - 10 of 14 matching: maxwell lord

Friday, December 14, 2018

The Booster Gold Revenge Squad

Continuing Monday's discussion of who I would put in Booster Gold's rogues gallery: Booster Gold is unique among DC's heroes because his "secret" identity is also heroic. Booster hides his job as multiverse-spanning Time Master behind his public persona of glory-hogging Justice Leaguer. That means that he needs two sets of rogues, one to oppose each role.

When considering who I would include in either set of Booster's foes, I focused on characters who thematically matched Booster's personality, history, skills, and ideals. I generally gave extra weight to characters Booster has some experience with in the past, but I didn't let that get in the way of two who have never appeared in the same comic as our hero but make great foils to contrast Booster's greatest flaws.

Presented in alphabetical order, these are my top six suggestions to comprise the Rogues Gallery of Booster Gold, time-traveling member of the Justice League.

Broderick, Duela Dent, Maxwell Lord, Royal Flush Gang, Sportsmaster, T.O. Morrow
Broderick, Duela Dent, Maxwell Lord, Royal Flush Gang, Sportsmaster, T.O. Morrow

Broderick. Most super villains are obsessed with their heroes, and who has more cause to hate Bootser Gold than a federal agent from the future who pursed criminal Michael Jon "Booster" Carter into the present and got stuck here? Watching Booster rise to fame and fortune while he was locked away from friends and family... that sounds to me like a good reason to hold a grudge.

Duela Dent, aka The Joker's Daughter. In many ways, Duela is the anti-Micheal Jon Carter. Just as Booster models himself after the 20th-century heroes he idolized, she is obsessed with villains and has gone out of her way to associate herself with them in a desperate need for acceptance and validation. I think she would be ideal for an ongoing character study of Booster's more questionable psychological and ethical motivations. (While the New 52 has made Duela darker, I don't see why Rebirth couldn't mover her closer to her multiverse-spanning pre-Flashpoint origins.)

Maxwell Lord. Corporate raider, employer, rival, murderer, manipulator: for so many reasons, Max should be Booster's arch nemesis in any timeline.

Royal Flush Gang. Booster's first Justice League foes are a visual symbol of Booster's greatest mistake: the gamble that nearly ruined his life. They'll always be associated with Booster Gold, and they always should be.

Sportsmaster: Stop me if this sounds familiar: Lawrence "Crusher" Crock was a brilliant athlete who cheated at football and turned to theft. Just as Duela darkly reflects Booster's psychology, Sportsmaster is a cautionary tale about his actual life choices. What do you do when confronted with someone who has made all the same choices as you did but turned out wrong? Sportsmaster could be Booster's own reclamation project.

T.O. Morrow. Best known as the father of the Red Tornado, T.O. Morrow invented a television that allowed him to see into the future and use its technology to lead a life of crime and triumph over the Justice League itself. Not only has Morrow tangentially crossed paths with Booster on many occasions over the years, he is capable of understanding Booster's "past" and using it against him to gain leverage in his criminal enterprises going forward.

Those are my top picks. Who have I missed? Who would you have chosen instead?

We'll discuss my choices for villains to battle Booster Gold in his more important (and far less public) role as a Time Master next week.

Comments (3) | Add a Comment | Tags: broderick duela dent maxwell lord royal flush gang sportsmaster t.o. morrow villains

Monday, September 4, 2017

Gladys Is Real to Me

Labor Day is intended to celebrate the labor movement by giving everyone a day off from work. Some of us do a better job of not working than others. Take this example by Booster Gold:

© DC Comics
Formerly Known as the Justice League #1 (2003)

Whatever you're doing to celebrate Labor Day today, work twice as hard at it for me!

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: beefcake formerly known as the justice league holidays labor day maxwell lord

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Kilg%re Rising

Boosterrific.com tracks a lot of things about Booster Gold. Most of the things it tracks (if not all the things it tracks) are trivial. Some of them aren't even directly about Booster Gold but how his fans interact with him.

Among the many things Boosterrific.com keeps its eye on is the list of characters in the DCU who have crossed paths with our hero. The site tracks how many "clicks" those character links get in a 30-day span. You can see the most popular in the "SITE INFORMATION & STATISTICS" box on the home page. Since I started tracking this in 2012, one unusual name in particular has almost always been at or near the top of this list. Kilg%re.

For those of you who don't know, Kilg%re is a minor Flash villain (debuting in 1987's Flash #3), an alien artificial intelligence determined to make the Earth safe for machine kind by exterminating humanity. Kilg%re was retroactively integrated into the biography of Maxwell Lord in Justice League International #12 in 1988.

Kilg%re has only a tangential relationship with Booster Gold. So why does he keep topping my click-through list? Is it because people see the name "Kilg%re" and wonder who that could be? Is there a huge Kilg%re fan group following Kilg%re's adventures online? Is it because Kilg%re has infiltrated the Internet and keeps Googling itself? I have no idea.

Every once in a while, I clear my history table, yet Kilg%re always finds his way back. Forget Lex Luthor, Joker, and Darkseid. For my money, Kilg%re is the one villain that just won't stay down.

Comments (5) | Add a Comment | Tags: kilg%re maxwell lord website update

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Maxwell Lord in Supergirl

This week's Supergirl episode included the introduction of a new character, an entrepreneur named Maxwell Lord. I wonder who that could be?

No, seriously. What is Maxwell Lord doing playing low rent Lex Luther to Supergirl? Maxwell Lord belongs to Booster Gold!

Lord first introduced Booster to the Justice League. Lord killed Booster's best friend. Lord came back from the dead and spent another year taunting Booster Gold. That's some history!

What kind of relationship do Lord and Supergirl have? She's was never a member of the Justice League International. Have they ever even appeared together in the same comic?

I like CBS's Supergirl. I like the character of Maxwell Lord. I'm just bitter that Max gets a recurring role on television, and he didn't bring Booster Gold along with him.

Comments (4) | Add a Comment | Tags: maxwell lord rant supergirl television

Monday, July 27, 2015

This Day in History: A Bitter Pill

Believe or not, Ted Kord has been "dead" for a full decade. Ten years ago today, the Ted's former Justice League International teammates were still searching for his killer in the pages of The OMAC Project #4.

© DC Comics

In the decade since, Wonder Woman killed Ted's assassin, Maxwell Lord, who managed to rise from the grave following Blackest Night to ruin Booster Gold's life (again!) in Justice League: Generation Lost. Because as we all know, in comics death is only temporary. Unless your name is Ted Kord.

On a side note: I wonder if Kord isn't more famous to comic readers today as "the dead Blue Beetle." Certainly, the readers that Geoff Johns brought to Booster Gold during his run — seven years ago! — likely only think of Ted in the past tense.

Sooner or later, those of us who think of Ted as Booster's best friend might need to learn to make peace with the past. A decade is a long time to mourn.

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: blue beetle justice league international maxwell lord omac


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