Friday, May 3, 2019
No Laughing Matter
Here we go again.
Heroes in Crisis isn't even over yet, and Booster Gold is already being included as a possible victim of the next round of DC's version of Russian Roulette.
This is the house ad that ran in this week's DC's Year of the Villain Special advertising for August's upcoming relaunch of Batman/Superman. As you can see, our hero, Booster Gold, is included among the list of possibilities to become the newest threat to the DC Universe in August's relaunch of Superman/Batman Batman/Superman.
The series writer, Joshua Williamson, spoke about the upcoming series with The Hollywood Reporter.
"We discover, through the Batman Who Laughs series that the Batman Who Laughs have been working on this massive plan since Metal. What it is is, he has sleeper agents throughout the [DC Universe]. They've been infected, and they're slowly turning into the worst versions of themselves," Williamson teased. "Some of them know they're changing, some don't. Some aren't aware it's kind of like a Jekyll and Hyde situation where they're not aware of [what] the other side is doing.
I can't say as I'm particularly enthusiastic about this, but I think it's more the timing than the concept. What with Metal, Doomsday Clock, Heroes in Crisis, Leviathan, "Year of the Villain," etc., it's starting to feel like villains having the upper hand is the rule, not the exception, in the modern DCnU. A little sunlight, some *joy*, some *fun* would do everyone some good. Why bother being a hero anymore if it's never anything but murder and sadness? No one likes to always be in crisis.
In other words, why so serious, DC?
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Wednesday, May 1, 2019
This Time in Color
Rob Snow dropped a note in Monday's comments to say "Looks like DC is republishing the 80s Booster and Beetle runs in color." DC hasn't made any announcement yet, but Amazon.com certainly agrees with him.
Per https://www.amazon.com/Booster-Gold-Fall-Dan-Jurgens/dp/1779500750/:
Booster Gold: The Big Fall Hardcover — October 1, 2019
by Dan Jurgens (Author)
The 1980s stories that introduced the time-travelling adventurer known as Booster Gold are collected in color for the first time.
Introduced in 1986, the glory-hungry but bumbling hero known as Booster Gold is in reality from the 25th century. Traveling back in time, Booster planned to use futuristic technology to become a super hero called Goldstar -- but he managed to mangle both his mission and his name, winding up with the oddball name by which he is known. In these stories, while battling rad 1980s super-villains, Booster attempts to line up endorsement deals with limited success. Collects BOOSTER GOLD #1-12, plus design material, unpublished story pages and more.Product details
Series: Booster Gold
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: DC Comics (October 1, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1779500750
ISBN-13: 978-1779500755
Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 10.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 13 ounces
"Unpublished story pages?" What's the chance this is why Dan Jurgens was teasing us with those unused pages from issue 6 earlier this month? (Please, please, please.)
I also have to wonder whether this will see print as "The Big Fall," or if that's a placeholder title. "The Big Fall" is the name of the story in the first issue of the series, not the whole twelve issues. You kids today might find this hard to believe, but back in the day, comics weren't written with an inevitable 6-issue collection in mind, so there weren't many "The Big Fall: Part 5"s out there. Granted, Issue 12 does end with (Warning! 33-year-old spoilers!) Booster sick and powerless and Skeets (gasp!) corrupted and deactivated. So maybe "The Big Fall" is as good a title as anything.
(Issue 12 is kind of a downer stopping point, isn't it? They couldn't have just kept going to issue 15? That's the one that brings Booster's origin full circle. Oh, well. I guess they have to have a reason to publish a second volume. I doubt many new readers would tune in for Millennium tie-ins.)
Even though I already own multiple copies of each issue of Volume 1, I'll probably pick this up, too, for the unpublished material. You can never have too much Booster Gold!
Thanks for calling our attention to that, Rob. (And for those of you interested, here's the link to that Blue Beetle reprint.)
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Monday, April 29, 2019
Statler and Waldorf in Blue and Gold
My two favorite muppets as my two favorite heroes, as sketched by illustrator Neil R King, aka BoldFacedComics on DeviantArt.com.
For the record, that's Waldorf wearing Booster's gold and Statler in Beetle blue. Those two old grumps have never dressed better.
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Friday, April 26, 2019
This Day in History: Booster Gold Dies
It is a cliche in superhero comic books that characters die and then get better. The trope was well established by the time Superman's funeral ignited the general public's imagination, but ever since 1992, you simply aren't a real super hero until you've returned from "the other side" at least once.
Booster Gold joined that not-so-elusive club on this day in 1994 between the panels of Justice League Task Force #13.
At the time, the Justice League had been fractured into three groups with incompatible philosophies about what constituted "justice." Wonder Woman's "international" faction was most in line with the historic methods of the team as the strong arm of traditional, established political authorities. Martian Manhunter's task force was also aligned with the United Nations, though it preferred less direct means of diffusing problems. Captain Atom, on the other hand, championed more unconventional and forceful means of "extreme" justice, fighting fire with fire, so to speak.
These internal differences were exacerbated by the threat of the alien Overmaster, who had returned to Earth (after a previous encounter with the Justice League a decade earlier) in order to eradicate humanity. He had the power to do it, too. The dysfunctional Justice Leagues America, International, and Task Force have to put aside their differences to stop him. The crossover event, titled "Judgement Day," reads better than many of DC's official "Crisis"s.
Usually, comic book deaths are used as a cheap trick to ramp up the stakes, tug at the heartstrings, or inflate the threat posed by the bad guy. Booster was lucky. He died in a good story that respected established characterization. Specifically, his death was a side-effect of his overconfidence that history couldn't ever be changed, a misunderstanding with tragic consequences.
Of course, that wouldn't mean much unless Booster recovered to learn from his mistake. Spoiler alert: he did.
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Wednesday, April 24, 2019
New Release: Heroes in Crisis 8
At long last, all / most / almost all of our questions will / could / should be answered into today's Heroes in Crisis #8!
io9.com has the issue preview, which seems to imply that.... No. I won't spoil it.
Buy this issue and make Skeets happy! (*Somebody* needs to be happy.)
Comments (7) | Add a Comment | Tags: heroes in crisis io9.com new releases previews
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