If you have been waiting for physical copies of Injustice 2 instead of buying them as they are released digitally each week on Comixology.com (only 99¢ per chapter!), you may be unaware that our hero has recently made a small change to his costume. And it looks pretty darn good.

Injustice 2 Chapter Fifty-Eight, art by Bruno Redondo, Juan Albarran, J. Nanjan

Check out that jacket! And it's got a collar! *swoon*

You'll be able to pick up the hard copy of this and Chapter Fifty Seven when they come to your Local Comic Shop on July 18 as Injustice 2 #30.

Thanks to Jeremy R! Hudson for spreading the fashionable news on Twitter.

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I'd like to stop talking about the recent Batman story "The Gift", really I would. I'd like to file the three issues away in my longboxes and forget it was ever published. But it seems Tom King doesn't want to let me do that.

Please, no.

#BEGIN RANT (Warning: rant may contain spoilers)

I'm not intimately familiar with King's entire body of work, but I find it unlikely he's grown as popular as he is if all of his stories are as carelessly crafted as "The Gift."

The premise is laughably bad, an idea that should have been left on the back of whatever cocktail napkin King first jotted it on. How, exactly, is changing time to prevent the wedding of Batman and Catwoman supposed to be a gift? What kind of person would choose a vague dream over the lives of two loving parents? What kind of person would expect someone else to? Booster Gold was a former member of the Justice League, not a super villain. The excuse of immaturity can only be stretched so far.

The conclusion is no better. It's the worst kind of time travel plot device, where the resolution invalidates everything that came before. The Booster Gold who has been tortured by Bruce Wayne for the previous year can no longer exist. How can any Booster remember an event which never happened? (By the way, what happened to the corpse of the impossible Bruce Wayne? Or Skeets? Or the "other" Booster Gold? Damn this rabbit hole!) The resolution of "The Gift," as nonsensical as it is, makes it clear that its events can only affect one character (at most), and that character wasn't even the guy whose name is on the cover. If King hadn't tweeted otherwise, I would have assumed this story was filler so the wedding could take place in an issue with a nice, round number.

Speaking of Batman, he comes off just as poorly as Booster Gold does. As I wrote back in April, King ostensibly set out to recreate Alan Moore's "For The Man Who Has Everything..." by showing that the world was a worse place without Batman. However, instead of affirming the heroic value of one of the most popular fictional characters of all time, King instead successfully invalidates another of Moore's stories, The Killing Joke. In the end, all it takes is "one bad day" for Bruce Wayne to become a gun-toting murderer. Was that the goal, to demonstrate not that the world is better with Batman in it but that *Batman* is a better person because his parents died young? Unlike Booster, who King treats as a brain-dead court jester, Batman should be deserving of some respect. But no, his character is dragged through just as much mud.

If this story is any indication, King clearly cares nothing for characterization. Any excuse to write a feral Catwoman who kills for no apparent reason or a Batman who shoots first and asks questions never. (Or worse, Green Lanterns who shoot themselves in the head on a dare.) Judging by the quote above, I'm guessing that King intentionally ignored years of character development so that Booster Gold would be in position for that other story he wants to tell. Otherwise he certainly went out of his way to mangle some beloved characters for no obvious reason.

#END RANT

Maybe you were one of those people who who read "The Gift" and liked it. More power to you. In that case, perhaps you'd like to hear what BleedingCool.com has to speculate about this announcement.

Personally, I found the ridiculous premise, careless resolution, and misguided characterization insulting to some characters and artists I'm actually quite fond of. If "The Gift" is any indication of the kind of story that King likes to write, I'd prefer that he left Booster Gold on the sidelines instead.

FOOTNOTE 2018-05-18:

I'm guessing... lobotomy? (As I said above, "the excuse of immaturity can only be stretched so far.")

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Booster Gold fans who voted in Monday's poll were pretty clear that they want the beard to go.

Last week's poll question: Should Booster Gold keep his beard from BATMAN 46? (85 votes)

Those of you who love the beard, take heart. You'll be seeing more of it before it goes away. Earlier this week, writer Tom King tweeted this image by artists Tony Daniel and Tomeu Morey from next week's Batman #47:

I guess when Booster broke history, he also broke his razor.

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Last week, Russ Burlingame shared his latest commission from Drew Moss on Twitter. If you ask me, it's pretty terrifying.

One of these days, Booster Gold is going to get the better of Doomsday. I hope I'm still around to see it.

Thanks for sharing, Russ.

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Just as Booster Gold's time with Superman is winding down, DC announces the party is continuing with Batman!

From April solicitations released earlier this week:

BATMAN #45
Written by TOM KING
Art by TONY S. DANIEL and SANDU FLOREA
Cover by TONY S. DANIEL
Variant cover by OLIVIER COIPEL
"THE TRAVELERS" part one! Booster Gold has come to Gotham City, and he's enlisting Batman and Catwoman to go on a time-traveling mission to rescue . . . Booster Gold!

It seems a younger Booster Gold has gone back in time to kidnap an even younger version of himself, and to rescue his own past, Booster must pursue both of his previous incarnations through Batman's history to find out what is going on.

The start of a new story that will sow the seeds for a whole new epic to come—and also the return of Master Class artist Tony S. Daniel (DAMAGE) to BATMAN!
On sale APRIL 18 • $2.99 US

This story must be what Tom King was hinting at on Twitter earlier this month.

Buckle up, Booster boosters, 2018 is the year of Booster Gold!

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