Booster Gold

I love Booster Gold's modern rejiggering. It was Booster Gold v2 that brought me back to DC from Marvel. Or at least, it was the run that brought be back to "modern" DC comics from reprints of Silver Age madness. It's ironic in that Booster Gold showed me that DC comics didn't have to be ALL CROSSOVER CRISIS ALL THE TIME, even though his story dwelt a lot on revisiting previous crossover crisiseseses.

But then Booster Gold, the lil comic that could, got noticed by the baleful eye of DC editorial and before you knew it, he was wrapped up in crossover messes again. Ungh. How often did they need to bring Ted Kord back? We get it. He and Booster were buddies. But there was another Blue Beetle at the time that needed the support. Imagine taking on a new job after your precursor retired only to have them keep "popping in" for the next few years, at which point everyone you're working with flocks to them instead of you.

Ungh. I like Ted and all, but sometimes the dead need to stay dead (or in their own time).

Anyways, at the recent ComiCon it was not Dan DiDio's reaction to be called out on the dearth of female creatives in the new line that made me sad. I was already sad about that - my only tenuous comics connection is that I went to college/LARPed with G. Willow Wilson (CLAN TREMERE 4 UNLIFE) back in the day and she deserves her own mainline comic if she wants one. No, the thing that gave me a case of the NuSads was his statement that there would be no backdoors for the relaunch/reboot, specifically that Booster Gold would not know/travel to anything in the past.

That blows.

Seriously, it's turning back the clock on one of the freshest takes on an old also-ran character. Booster went from showboating, self-promoting egotist to timecop whose cover is that he's a showboating egotist then back to just being a jerk again. The idea that Booster had to be a bit of a punchline in order to keep his personal time stream safe from future/past meddling was genius. To take that away for the sake of showing how SRIUZ BIZNZZ they are about the reboot is silly, specially when we know that they're not. If DC was serious about the reboot, Batman wouldn't be allowed to chug on as he has been, Morrison or not.

So here's the deal, Booster Gold. I'm opening up the Drewniverse to you. Any version of you is more than welcome to show up, from the showboating Classic Booster to the even more dickish Smallville Booster to the fetishy gender-swapped version, as your continuity-streams collapse, Boosters Gold (#35/52) will be there for you.

The main character will be the Booster Gold we know and love, direct from an escape from DC circa Flashpoint. He and his team (Rip Hunter, Skeets, etc) will make a daring escape from their collapsing continuity in Rip's Time Sphere. Adrift like some sort of metaphor for DC comics, they will eventually find Boosters', a sort of Restaurant at the End of the Universe venue, built by an alternate incarnation of Booster Gold. Like all the Boosters that eventually end up there, our Booster is able to make a deal - his group can use Boosters' as a base of operations in exchange for gathering certain energies (chronocontinuitons) for the owner, an incarnation of Booster Gold from the Red Son universe named "The Gold Standard" (he got out when communism was taking over the world).

Chronocontinuitons are generated and gathered from important events, thus necessitating Booster to travel not only through classic, NuDC, and Drewniverse time, but into elseworlds and neverworlds in order to witness "world changing" happenings. Obviously, we'll be getting pretty meta here and not bothering to limit ourselves to just DC comics. Booster Gold, Booster Girl, Skeetster Prime, and Rip Hunter, Jr. all traveling to the Amalgam Comics Universe to take part in the creation of Dark Claw? You betcha. Fiddling with Heroes Reborn? You know it ("Why does this look so familiar?" Booster asks. "Everything old is new again," replies Rip Hunter.). Booster Gold and The Goon team up to fight Anung Um Rama in a combination boxing match/drinking contest? Please.

Of course, in between the fun, we'll learn that there is a secret conspiracy afoot at Boosters' where somebody may not exactly be who they claim to be and are instead another character, lying low until the time is right for his revenge.