In a recent poll here at Boosterrific.com, a majority of respondents agreed that they preferred Booster Gold as a member in an ensemble cast. This trend continues as reviews of Justice League: Generation Lost and Time Masters: Vanishing Point remain enthusiastic regarding team interaction and creative storytelling. Contrast this with recent reviews of Booster Gold here at Boosterrific, which contain words like "frustrating," "sidetracked," and "disappointing."
Almost every theme (except perhaps that of "stolen virginity") recently explored in recent pages of Booster Gold was seen in Giffen/DeMatteis' earlier, much celebrated work. The only major difference was that these bizarre misadventures were not always happening to the same character. Batman was dedicated to the task at hand, Blue Beetle was hatching madcap schemes, Flash was concerned with sex, and Mister Miracle was lost in space. These days all of those things are happening at once to Booster Gold, and it's frustrating.
There are several potential solutions to the current unease that seems to be growing among the series established readers. But it is no coincidence that the complaints have grown louder since the supporting cast of Booster Gold -- Rip Hunter, Daniel and Rose, Michelle Carter, and even Rani -- have disappeared in favor of unnamed Darkstars and alien pirates. Certainly once a rapport has been established between the audience and the characters, it's a disservice to let them fall by the wayside.
Erin posted on Oct. 22, 2010 at 2:48 PM
I always seem to forget to vote in these polls. I like Booster solo or as a team member. What's currently interesting about him being a team member is that it's different in two books. In TMVP he's the only one besides Rip or Skeets that knows what he's doing but the other two members of their search party easily disregard him. In JLGL he's had a little clash at the start with his teammates but somehow became the leader, and even though some are aware of this their not challenging it.
I remember on the DC boards seeing Giffin promising big things including expanding the cast. Supernova/Daniel was supposed to have big things happen to him, Michelle was going to have a larger role and etc. Unless their run is going on longer than I anticipated than I don't see how their going to show all of this. Much less introduce a new character--one that Michelle pretty much adopted into the family--when their not even going to do anything with her.
Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Oct. 22, 2010 at 3:18 PM
Though I omitted it from my post above, I've postulated before that Giffen and DeMatteis are in a tough spot with Booster being featured in 2 event tie-ins in addition to his regular series, which has the worst sales of the three titles. I suspect that the pair are feeling forced to tread some water while the other stories resolve in order to keep from telling completely conflicting tales. I'm sure that they wouldn't have introduced Rani if they weren't planning on using her: they are both much better writers than that. I have a great deal of faith in Giffen and DeMatteis, earned by their combined half-century+ of enjoyable storytelling. I'm just growing impatient with this particular story. There's only so much character development to be had from deceased supporting characters (like Beetle, Barda, and Miracle). I'm anxious to get past this current, overly-indulgent, nostalgic story that seems to have sidetracked Booster from the more relevant things he has been doing.
Erin posted on Oct. 22, 2010 at 4:14 PM
True but at present it does seem this way. If they are trapped between two ongoing tie ins then focusing in on the supporting cast could only improve the title. I don't think the current stories would feel as stretched thin if they cut to what Michelle was doing more often. I've seen the potential their run could have but I think trending into the past has hurt it. Especially when you consider the nature of his current mission. Slipping into the nostalgic stories has made the tension disappear. If Boosters' more concerned with going on a repo job with Ted than trying to stop Max then why should we care either? There's so much potential for what could be done that seems to get lost in the shuffle and in some cases seem to take the character development back. If they have to explore this particular past and not include the cast I would have loved to get more insight on how Booster feels about Max, something writers have barely scratched the surface of. As much as I love Ted we've already seen Booster get sidetracked from his time traveling duties because of him during Johns/Katz run.
tiggerpete posted on Oct. 22, 2010 at 4:28 PM
as someone who wasn't really reading comics before Infinite Crisis, I never got a chance to read Blue and Gold having wacky adventures in continuity, so maybe I am liking this nostalgic trip down memory lane since I never got a chance to experience this time period the first time. I like seeing Booster interact with his history with maturity and experience that he lacked before.
Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Oct. 22, 2010 at 5:37 PM
@tiggerpete: I understand your position, and I recognize that part of my exasperation with the current situation comes from my familiarity with the history of the characters and writers. And if the approach of selling books laced with nothing other than nostalgia drew readers, I might begrudgingly accept it. But it doesn't, and I don't know why most readers would want to stick around for retread stories.
(By the way,'pete, if you haven't read the old JLI stuff, at least the first 40-50 issues, you really should. They are truly fantastic, and far more serious than you would probably expect given the modern tendency to look back and lambaste them for their slapstick humor and intra-team bickering. I recommend them highly.)
tiggerpete posted on Oct. 23, 2010 at 12:01 AM
I do have the first 2 trades of JLI, and I'm trying to collect a complete run of all of the post-crisis Justice League books, but thats not always an easy thing to do. While I don't hate the Giffen Demateis run on Booster Gold, I don't think its quite up to the level I know is possible given the creative team and their history with the character. I think if you switch writers, I say go for a big name, but throw a curveball, I say get Grant Morrison to write an arc, given his propensity for old obscure comic references, I'm thinking it would be quite fun to see what he would do, and when he's done, we get Jurgans back on.
Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Oct. 23, 2010 at 12:16 AM
How, exactly, is Morrison a "curveball"? He's DC's current go-to guy. His stories can be moderately entertaining (though heavily derivative) when he has Silver Age history to draw from, but he's incoherently esoteric otherwise. Clearly I don't care for his writing, but I admit that it does sell very, very well. If that's what it takes to get big numbers of readers on BOOSTER GOLD, I can bite my tongue, I guess.
Superman posted on Oct. 27, 2010 at 1:19 AM
Now that I think about it, Booster having solo adventures is not such a bad thing. And it would have been okay if Giffen and DeMatteis didn't tie in too much with JLGL if they had a good story to tell of their own. There are really only two things I dislike about their current arc: [1] It's too... undisciplined; and [2] they STARTED this arc with the search for Max, and so the rest of the arc must also be about the search for Max. Had they chose to start with weird JLI adventures and kept it from spilling all over the place I probably wouldn't gripe so much.
