The BOOSTERRIFIC catalog of Justice League Quarterly #10

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Cover Date: Spring 1993
Release Date: January 12, 1993

Current Value: $3.50
Chance Value Will Go Up: 1,000% (per Wizard: The Comics Magazine #19, March 1993)

Cover Description: Booster Gold poses with energy crackling around his fists. Repeated endlessly in the background is the word "execute."

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Boosterrific Rating: 2 of 5 Bronze Stars.

For the second consecutive issue in this series, Booster Gold appears in half the stories in this anthology issue.

Booster is the motivator in "Time and Chance," the issue's lead story. While Mark Waid's script is primarily concerned with building on the gambling angle of Booster's back-story, it is clumsy in execution with particularly weak characterization and art.

If "Time and Chance" is an ungainly disappointment, "When Titans Date" is a sublime character piece played for humor. Booster and friends spy on the love life of teammate Blue Beetle, and knee-slapping hilarity ensues.

This issue is definitely a mixed bag.

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ISSUE ARTISTS

Ruben Diaz (Assistant Editor)
Brian Augustyn (Editor)
D. Rodriguez & Mike Sellers (Cover Art)
Alex Jay (Cover Art -- logo)

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Important Notes: The events of stories in this issue must take place prior to Justice League America #69 (for pretty obvious reasons).

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Story Title: “Time and Chance!”

Mark Waid (Writer)
Rod Whigham (Penciller)
Jose Marzan, Jr. (Inker)
Gene D'Angelo (Colorist)
Bob Pinaha (Letterer)

Setting: New York, NY
Era: 20th-century

Friends: Blue Beetle, Fire, Guy Gardner, Ice, Doctor Demosthenes, Jack Marshall
Foes: Rubenico, Berganza
Bystanders: Miss Rubenico

ANNOTATIONS

WARNING! The following content may reveal key story elements. Read at your own risk!

Page 1, panel 2
HIS STORY: While on monitor duty at the Justice League Headquarters, Booster Gold has a flashback to his arrest on gambling charges in the year 2462. Visible are his mother and twin sister, Michelle. While this instance is clearly a nightmarish memory for Booster Gold, it does add to the origin of Booster Gold if only to illustrate that the arresting officers did indeed inform Booster of his rights.

Page 9, panel 2
Booster Gold, accompanied by Blue Beetle, Fire, Guy Gardner, and Ice, confront the young man who has just broken into the JLA Headquarters. The intruder, Toby Kwimper, calls himself "Doctor Demosthenes." Demosthenes was an ancient Grecian orator and statesman born in 384 B.C. He is renowned for warning the Athenians against the Macedonians and Alexander the Great.

Page 11, panel 1
The Justice League meets with Doctor Demosthenes' friend, expert computer hacker Jack Marshall. Fire is shown wearing the costume that she donned briefly in Justice League America #63 through #66.

Page 12, panel 5
After hearing that a man named "Rubenico" is in charge of the syndicate stealing banking information from consumers using the B.O.O.K.I.E. automated gambling terminals in New York City, Booster Gold takes a new interest in the situation.

Page 13, panel 4
HIS STORY: Booster retells his origin. His flashback shows him wearing the number 10 on his jersey. Previous origin stories consistently show that Booster wore the number 13.

Page 14, panel 2
HIS STORY: Booster reveals that the Rubenico syndicate owned the gambling operation that he participated in during his college football days. His contact with the syndicate was a man known as Snake Eyes. "Snake Eyes" is a gambling term for rolling the number one on each of two dice.

Page 15, panel 4
In a fit of anger, Booster destroys the Justice League trophy case. Rather unexpectedly, this case contains actual metal trophies, not the souvenirs of past cases as often seen in the Batcave.

Page 16, panel 3
Booster flies out of the JLA Headquarters, headed to Rubenico's penthouse suit in Triumph Tower (based loosely, perhaps, on New York's Trump Tower) intending to attack Rubenico...

Page 19, panel 4
FIRST APPEARANCE: ...only to find himself confronting Rubenico's young daughter. She holds the book Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, one of the best selling children's books in history.

Page 21, panel 3
Blue Beetle's attempt to explain Booster's state of mind to Fire includes the phrase "put right what once went wrong." This is an allusion to the opening narration for the NBC television show Quantum Leap about a time-traveler attempting to correct erroneous events in history.

Page 21, panel 4
Fire and Ice very briefly touch on the possibility that if Booster were to succeed in deterring Rubenico from establishing the gambling syndicate that ruined his life in the 25th century, then Booster would have never returned to the past to prevent the Rubenico Syndicate from forming. It's paradoxes like this that make sorting out time-travel stories so confusing.

Page 26, panel 1
FIRST APPEARANCE: Booster is attacked by Mr. Berganza, hired muscle for the Rubenico Syndicate. Berganza and his two associates wear very bulky high-tech suits of armor that inexplicably appear to be more than a match for Booster Gold's future technology.

Page 31, panel 1
Shortly before Booster bursts into young Miss Rubenico's bedroom, Mr. Rubenico is reading fairytales to his daughter. The dialogue in this panel is a veiled reference to future events, when the fallow Rubenico Syndicate will rise up to destroy the life of Michael Jon Carter, alluded to here as the "handsome, noble prince."

Page 34, panel 5
HIS STORY: By threatening and humiliating Rubenico, Booster has made an enemy of Rubenico's daughter. If this panel is any indication, in the future, the reason that the Rubenico Syndicate will target young Michael Jon Carter may be because Booster attacked the family in the past. Is Booster Gold responsible his own downfall?

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Story Title: “When Titans Date”

Mark Waid (Writer)
Ty Templeton (Penciller)
Karl Kesel (Inker)
Steve Mattsson (Colorist)
Bob Pinaha (Letterer)

Setting: New York, NY
Era: 20th-century

Friends: Blue Beetle, Fire, Flash
Foes: Tattooed Man

ANNOTATIONS

WARNING! The following content may reveal key story elements. Read at your own risk!

Page 59, panel 1
Booster Gold, Fire, and Flash have arrived at a restaurant in order to spy on the date of their friend and fellow member of the Justice League, Blue Beetle II. No one is wearing his/her costume.

Page 59, panel 3
Booster laments leaving his $48,000 car in the hands of an untrustworthy valet. The average price for a new car is around $16,000.

Page 61, panel 2
Fire accuses Booster of having no soul for spying on his best friend's disastrous date. Of course, Fire could leave, or alert Beetle to Booster's eavesdropping, but she does neither. So Booster probably isn't the only person in the room with no soul.

Page 61, panel 4
Booster's car is a Romanaclef 5200. A "roman a clef" is a literary term for a story in which real persons or events are disguised with fictional names. It sort of makes you wonder what a Romanaclef automobile really is, doesn't it?

Page 62, panel 1
Flash points out to Booster and Fire that the Tattooed Man is present in the restaurant. The Tattooed Man was a foe of Green Lantern Hal Jordan and the Justice League for many years and was once a member of the Secret Society of Super-Villains.

Page 68, panel 2
While (unnecessarily) trying to save Beetle from the Tattooed Man, Flash accidentally destroys Booster's car, which had the license plate number "8ET-459."

Page 68, panel 4
Fire uses her power on the drink of a fellow who has been sitting behind her in the restaurant since she arrived. Though it is never declared, this figure looks strikingly similar to artist Ty Templeton. (Roman a clef indeed.)

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