One of the biggest cliches in American superhero stories is that the superheroes are often, by default, champions of the status quo. But what if the status is not quo? Should superheroes be using their powers to build a better world? That question is at the heart of Booster Gold #17.

The issue themes will be familiar to fans of Roger Moore's James Bond: A mad scientist plans to improve the world by killing a bunch of people, and the Americans and Russians stand on opposite sides advocating for their own interests while a lone hero struggles against all odds to save the day.

The Russian agent is the amoral mercenary Cheshire. The issue's interesting twist is that the American agent is also a villain; the superhero Hawk's good intentions have become warped by his political ideology. Caught in the middle is Metropolis' own Corporate Crusader, Booster Gold, who is just trying to mitigate the collateral damage.

When it all builds to a head, Booster is forced to play his opponents' hardline games against them with a bluff that only an unknown wildcard could hope to pull off, as seen in this very dramatic sequence of panels:

Can superheroes make the world a better place? Booster Gold is still fighting to find out.

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Booster Gold #16 is peak 1980s. From the "Greed is Good"-era mock corporate advertising on the cover to Booster's Miami Vice white suit with untied high-top kicks and short-cropped hair, this thing oozes day-glow and Rubik's cubes.

And while I do love all that stuff — after all, I am a child of the 80s who grew up with Knight Rider and Transformers — the page I appreciate the most in this issue is the throwback to the Silver and Bronze Ages of comics when readers were treated to cutaway views of important places like the Batcave or the Fortress of Solitude.

Meet the Booster Gold International Mansion (with garage and helipad in back)!

Check out that American Flag in the Entertainment and Press Room! Rambo couldn't have done it better.

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This might surprise you, but my favorite page from Booster Gold #15 doesn't have Trixie Collins in it. It doesn't even have Booster Gold in it.

Instead, it features some anonymous guy in a trucker hat.

Who says Booster doesn't have a heart of gold?

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Booster Gold #14 is my least favorite issue of Booster's original volume.

I can't put my finger on just one reason why, but the art is a big part. Jurgens' take on the future of the DC Universe (and sequential-panel storytelling) was clearly being influenced by Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, which had taken the comic-book-reading world by storm earlier that year. What works for Batman doesn't necessarily work for Booster.

It doesn't help that the crowded panels are oversaturated with secondary and pastel colors. I typically like colorist Gene D'Angelo's work, but his color choices, clearly intended to play up the psychological tension of our physically-ailing hero stuck in an era that's out to get him, are perhaps working too well for me.

That said, the issue is not entirely without redeeming value. For example, page 19 does efficiently introduce Broderick, the Dirty Harry of the 25th century. And the final page, with a deconstructed Skeets, builds to a good cliff hanger.

But for my money, the best page in the whole book is this one:

If you couldn't tell before now, I'm a sucker for the Booster/Trixie relationship. Seeing them support one another emotionally in the lamplight.... Yeah. This one's got to be my favorite.

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I hope you're in the mood for some T&A today!

Booster Gold #13 is the only time Gary Martin ever inked a Booster Gold adventure, and the difference between it and what came before is striking. Take page 10 as an example:

Surgically clean lines, heavy black shadowing, and screentone gradients all contribute to a fittingly moody environment as a weakened Booster Gold struggles back into the super-hero saddle.

Or maybe that mood is just the sexual tension between scantily-clad Trixie and full-moon Booster?

"Ready to go," indeed!

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