Batman Beyond
“Canceled by Yesterday, Part One”
Volume 6, Issue 48, December 2020
Released October 27, 2020
Cover Price: $3.99
Writer: Dan Jurgens
Penciller: Paul Pelletier
Inker: Norm Rapmund
Colorist: Chris Sotomayor
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editors: Ben Abernathy, Dave Wielgosz
Cover Artists: Francis Manapul, Dan Mora
Heroes: Batman IV, Booster Gold
Villain: Blanque
Supporting: Skeets III, Warren McGinnis
Settings: Gotham City, DCU, USA, 21st-century; Gotham City, DCU, USA, 21st-century
Cover Description: This book has multiple covers. Booster Gold appears on both.
Brief Synopsis: Booster Gold helps Terry McGinnis (the Batman of the future) repair history.
Issue Summary: Reveal Potential Spoilers
Booster Gold's role in this story:
Featured (Booster Gold plays a prominent role)
Costume Worn: MARK I.v2 power-suit
Story Notes: When originally solicited, this story was advertised as "First Contact."
This story has been reprinted in:
Batman Beyond: The Eradication Agenda (2021)
Page 6, panel 1
In the future when Bruce Wayne is driven into a paranoid rage and attacks his proteges, Booster Gold arrives in the nick of time to save Terry McGinnis. Booster will explain that he was too late to save his Terry's brother, Max, and the only way to rectify this mistake is to travel back in time.
Page 6, panel 3
The "Greatest Hero You Never Heard Of" was the tagline for the second volume of Booster Gold comics in 2007...
Page 7, panel 2
HIS STORY: ...which was several years before Booster says he debuted as a hero in "the twenty-teens." Consider that Booster Gold was an established hero when he was chosen to lead the Justice League International in 2011 (Justice League International volume 3) and was an established time cop in the second phase of his career when he helped Superman in 2018 (Action Comics #993). I guess time passes differently when your universe has a new Crisis every year.
Page 7, panel 3
PRODUCT PLACEMENT: Terry recognizes Booster from his "old" commercials for Booster's Zit Zapper. While it might seem demeaning that Booster's legacy in the late 21st century is an acne product, it's probably worth remembering that contemporary celebrities like Katy Perry, Zendaya, and Kendall Jenner have also appeared in skin care advertisements.
Page 10, panel 1
Skeets arrives with a Time Sphere with two seats. The last time we saw a Time Sphere, in DC Cybernetic Summer, it had only one seat. (By the way, is this the first time that Booster Gold has made an overt reference to a time-traveling DeLorean, the automobile-turned-time machine in the Back to the Future franchise?)
Page 11, panel 1
Booster, McGinnis, and Skeets travel back in time to Gotham City, circa 2020. The trees appear to have summertime foliage, but since no one in this issue is wearing a medical face mask, it would seem the global COVID-19 pandemic of 2019-2020 never reached Gotham.
Page 14, panel 3
"Schway" (first appearing in the 1999 Batman Beyond television cartoon) is the future slang word replacing "cool." At least that's what the schway kids tell me.
Page 15, panel 1
Booster references a series with Blue Beetle that never made "made it to air." Following his guest appearance on an episode of Smallville in 2011 (with Blue Beetle Jaime Reyes), a Booster Gold television series was actually announced by the SyFy channel. However, the network chose not to film a pilot.
Page 16, panel 1
Booster and Terry come face-to-face with Blanque, a telepathic and telekinetic villain who first appeared in 2016's Superman: Lois and Clark #3 written by Dan Jurgens.
Page 18, panel 5
In a scene evoking the arrival of a different Superman villain, Doomsday, in 1992's Justice League America #69 (also written by Jurgens), Blanque effortlessly throws Booster Gold through a wall.
Page 19, panel 1
Booster Gold, meet Warren McGinnis, the boy fated to become the father of Terry McGinnis. (What are the odds that Booster would accidentally bring Terry back in time to the exact time and place where his father is coincidentally being threatened by a supervillain?)
Boosterrific Review: Maybe I've become jaded by recent DC Comics offerings—an endless stream of Jokers and grim 'n' gritty alternate realities—but I found this issue to be everything I could have hoped for: pop culture references, product placements, time travel shenanigans, and plenty of Skeets! It feels very much like a continuation of Booster Gold volume 2, and I'm a sucker for consistent characterization.
Boosterrific Rating: Boosterrific!
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