bob posted on Oct. 10, 2024 at 4:26 PM
Hey Boosterrific forgive me if you have already reviewed this. Is All Access (the new thing) any good? And where does that take place in the timeline?

 Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Oct. 10, 2024 at 6:12 PM
Bob, I usually add new comics to the Boosterrific Database within a week of release. Once I finish adding the book to the Database, I usually insert/update links in the "New Release" blog posting for that issue. The system automatically provides links for the most recent books at the bottom of the home (main) landing page, and of course, all books can always be found listed in the dropdown on the Comics page linked in the main menu. As it happens, I finished annotating DC ALL IN SPECIAL earlier this week, and you can find that information as well as the Boosterrific Review at boosterrific.com/comics/issues/ais101/DC-All-In-Special-Volume-1-Issue-1.

For what it's worth, I was not particularly impressed with the issue, mainly because it just feels like "more of the same" to me. I'm tired of endless, forgettable event stories whose only significance is teasing the next event story.

Grant posted on Oct. 4, 2024 at 4:40 PM
Not just you! Absolute Power was incredibly generic at best, if not completely uninspired. The central takeaway, that they should reform the Justice League, was incredibly dumb considering that the League never needed to disband to begin with. It also showed a lack of follow-through with DC's "push" for the Titans, who never ended up dealing with anything outside of their wheelhouse for the majority of their run. It feels like a disingenuous waste of time.

As for the "All-In" special, I genuinely don't know why this had to be a thing. So much time is spent on name cards. On top of that, Booster's writing is incredibly flat. Booster isn't an idiot and I don't see why people keep writing him like one. It reads as something out of a fan fic, like the writers were amateurs. I can't imagine we'll follow up with the Booster plot for about half a year to a year and a half.

Darkseid's material is also incredibly disappointing. In interviews, Snyder talks about how Darkseid is meant to represent Superhero Fatigue. He doesn't want to amass a great power and lead a fearsome army. He's above that. So Darkseid...amasses a great power and leads a fearsome army. It's dumb and I don't know why it's trying to be bigger than itself when it clearly isn't.

 Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Oct. 4, 2024 at 6:02 PM
Grant, are you living inside my head? "It feels like a disingenuous waste of time" could have been *my* title for this post. (If you are living inside my head, I recommend that you get out. It's not healthy in there.)

BoosterCola posted on Oct. 4, 2024 at 7:22 PM
I feel your opinions 100% and wish we could go back to the V2 BG writing and storytelling. Even though I enjoyed Blue & Gold, the 'Booster is an idiot' treatment is played out. BG at the end of 52 to the N52 was peak. I dunno if we'll ever get that back anytime soon. In the meantime, I know it may be taboo to love Tom King(because he can't write BG well at all), but his Black Series stories are top notch, best in class! Thanks for the Booster championing as always!

 Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Oct. 4, 2024 at 8:28 PM
Hrumph. Tom King belongs to that group of writers who doesn't care a whit about established characterizations, so Black Label books are exactly (and only) where his work belongs.

Jeff posted on Oct. 4, 2024 at 9:39 PM
I liked the all in special, thought it was good not great. Thought booster accepting the justice league card was a little due to him being a time master and having to keep him being a competent hero a secret.

Tiche posted on Oct. 5, 2024 at 2:26 AM
In all honesty, I was completely unsurprised by how Absolute Power/All In turned out. Scott Snyder is very good at talking his writing up, saying how deep it is, and then delivering the most comic book writing to ever grace a crossover event of the year.

The peak of this is his Dark Nights saga. It purports to delve into deep metaphysical concepts and the fundaments of the DC "omniverse". In execution, it's a schoolyard experiment in oneupmanship. My edgy Batman OC is now a threat to all the universe... wait, all the multiverse... wait... all the omniverses!

It's infantile, and that it tries to market itself as meaningful makes it patronizing, especially when held directly in comparison to the comics that raised my standards to a level Snyder consistently fails to meet but says he's going to surpass. His latest offering was exactly on par for that. It's not without merit or value, but... it was another big crossover event in an annual tradition of big crossover events.

Brandon posted on Oct. 5, 2024 at 4:08 AM
To be honest, that post you shared a few days ago about the All-In Special with the scene of Superman saying he "always" saw Booster "as someone with the best of intentions" kind of exemplifies why I also find it difficult to get invested in anything DC publishes today.

Its so off-the-mark and so out of character, we might as well not even be reading a story about Booster Gold and Superman. It might as well be any two random characters.

I loved the JLI era and was cautiously excited about Fire and Ice finally getting a miniseries. But they felt so much like different characters, I couldn't bring myself to care.

Honestly, I'd rather see a complete, hard reboot of everything than this "It's the same characters you love and everything 'happened', but we're going to completely ignore every aspect of their established characterization".

I feel like that's the new normal.

Tiche posted on Oct. 5, 2024 at 5:58 AM
"Tom King continues to write unfamiliar characters using familiar names. At this point, I just want this series to be over."
From this site's own review of Heroes in Crisis #8. It's a sentiment I've found myself echoing a great deal. There's always a degree of characterisation changing between writers and between runs, but at this point it really does feel as though the Batman of today has nothing in common with the Batman I spent years reading, and the same applies to so many other characters.

Jeff posted on Oct. 3, 2024 at 2:19 AM
Anyone know which comic picks up with boosters story after (spoilers for dc all in) being trapped without skeet's alone in a world ruled by darkseid

 Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Oct. 3, 2024 at 5:13 AM
It has not been announced. And from what I've been reading in interviews with Snyder and Williamson, it sounds like we won't be getting answers for months. It's looking like it might be another scenario like we saw after the New 52 JLI Annual.

Jeff posted on Oct. 3, 2024 at 11:29 PM
lol, still wonder sometimes why superman and Wonder Woman kissing had an affect on booster perishing.

 Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Sep. 28, 2024 at 5:54 PM
Sigh. I really do miss thought balloons.

Eskana posted on Sep. 30, 2024 at 8:08 PM
True- they tell us what the person is actually thinking at the time. I always feel like the narration boxes are from a later time. So, when Superman is calm and collected and thinking about it, he might respect Booster as he is now. But in the moment? I'd like to know what he's thinking.
Maybe things evened out after the whole Action comics "Booster has to stop Superman when he goes back to see if his father survived Krypton" thing.

Brandon posted on Oct. 1, 2024 at 4:34 AM
Isn't that narrative box in the first image pretty much the same thing as a thought balloon? He's not saying it out loud, so it must be his "thoughts".

 Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Oct. 1, 2024 at 2:45 PM
They serve similar functions, yes, but they aren't identical. As Eskana points out, voice over narration doesn't feel as immediate. In literary terms, narrative boxes are third person limited point of view whereas thought ballons are third person omniscient. (In omniscient, the reader is privy to the unfiltered thoughts of the characters.) For example, that panel of Superman thinking negative thoughts about Booster would be very hard to do with narrative boxes. The difference between the two is a style choice, and both options should be available to writers benefiting the kind of story they're trying to tell.