Booster Gold #25
With today's release of Booster Gold #25 from DC Comics, the current relaunch does something that the title's first incarnation in the 1980s could not at that point in its numbering: continue.
After
the end of Dan Jurgens' first Booster Gold series in the '80s,
Michael Jon Carter-the man who traveled from the 25th Century to establish
himself as a superhero-with-benefits in our time-became a part of the Justice
League International, one of the most respected and most derided teams of all
time (both inside and outside of comics). The long and winding road that brought
Booster back to his own ongoing just over two years ago included costume and
power changes, a relationship with fellow Justice Leaguer Ted "Blue Beetle" Kord
that would define both characters and finally a major change in his role-from
"guy with a power suit who shills toothpaste between crises" to "Apprentice to
the Time Master."
My first experience with Booster Gold as a reader was actually years after the first series was canceled. During the Doomsday! story in the Superman titles, Booster was the guy who ended up giving the titular villain his name, before the craggy creature killed Superman and put Ted Kord into a coma. In the months that followed that story (my first as a regular DC reader, having grown up as a Marvel kid), I came to really care about Booster and Beetle as the powerless Booster (whose costume had also been mangled by Doomsday), who were the most human members of the League. In the months that followed the fight, Booster sat vigil at his best friend's hospital bedside and turned the story of the Justice League's collapse under Doomsday into something decidedly human. It was only later that I moved backward, finding both the Justice League International comics by Giffen and DeMatteis that made Booster Gold a household name to DC readers and the original comics, written and drawn by Dan Jurgens-writer of the Justice League America and Superman books I'd loved so much in the previous year. And then I became a fan.
I wondered how some other creators, friends and fans felt about Booster Gold turning 25 again, and asked them to drop me a line-a sentence, a paragraph, whatever-to communicate it. Here's what I got:
Dan Jurgens (Creator of Booster Gold)
The first time around, Booster Gold only made it to issue 25. I
hadn't written much before and always thought it would have been nice to have
the opportunity to handle the character again with the benefit of more
experience.
Fortunately, we got that chance a couple of years ago and I think we're doing a much better job. Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz came with a terrific "take" on the character and we've tried to build on that. Mike Siglain is a great editor to work with and Norm Rapmund is doing a fabulous job finishing the book artistically.
So... here's to 25 more!
Norm Rapmund (Inker, Booster
Gold)
I think I was excited months ago when I got the cover pencils to Booster
Gold #25. It's like, "Hey! We made it!" Not bad for "the greatest hero
you've never heard of". Ha! Ya know, I'm just here to make Dan's layouts look
the best they possibly can and from the look of #26, the best is yet to come!
I'm embarrassed to admit this but, I really didn't have much knowledge of
Booster when I started on Booster Gold #1. Over the last two
years he's grown to be one of of my favorite characters in the DC Universe.
Geoff Johns (Writer, Blackest
Night)
In all honesty, my favorite Booster Gold issue is coming up.
The work Dan is doing on the Blackest Night crossover is
stunning. It's gut-wrenching and tragic, and yet you can see the absolute
warmth and humanity Booster has inside him. It elevates the character to an
entirely different level for me.
Jeff Katz (Founder, American Original)
Booster's appeal, to me, comes from the fact that he's
an imperfect guy. He's inherently flawed, like all of us. He has an ego, yet
tries to put it aside in an effort to fight the good and noble fight. In a lot
of ways, Booster Gold as a character is about all of us
trying to conquer our own worst nature. He's proof that you can confront, defeat
and move past your flaws - well, some of them anyway.
J.M. DeMatteis (Co-Writer,
Justice League International)
I really didn't know much-well, anything-about Booster before he appeared in JLI,
but he soon became one of my favorite characters, primarily because of his
chemistry with Blue Beetle. The two of them were, in many ways, the most real,
the most believable, characters in the book. The two regular guys (okay, so one
of those "regular guys" was from the future and the other flew around in a giant
bug) who kept the book grounded. They were interesting as people-the costumes
were secondary.
I think my favorite Booster Gold moment is in I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League. Booster had been getting goofier and goofier...and then, at a certain point in the story, he realizes that he's become a buffoon (y'know, moreso than the usual Beetle-Booster buffoonery)-and that he's done it as a kind of self-protection. And he starts to smarten up. And everyone else just can't wrap their heads around it. Especially Beetle.
Eddie
Argos (Singer,
Art Brut)
I first discovered Booster Gold when I was about twelve. It was the early
Nineties and I found nearly a complete collection of the first 25 comics in a
second hand shop. I bought them all because I thought it would be ace to read a
complete series of comic books from its start to its end. As I read them though
I realized I really liked the character he seemed more like a real person than
any other superhero I'd read and I loved the idea that he had nicked a load of
stuff from the future and traveled back in time with it. By the time I had
finished the last issue I was hooked and set about trying to find every comic he
was in. I bought as many back issues of the JLI as I could find and then set
about finding what he was up to at that moment in time. I followed him through
all his daft escapades in the JLI, him starting the Conglomerate, joining
Extreme Justice and finally to having his own comic again.
Regularly buying comics because Booster Gold was in them felt a lot like following an obscure band to me. I spend a lot of time searching in second hand shops and In the same way people lend each other 7″ records to check out obscure bands. I would lend, no lend is not the right word. I would Force people to borrow Booster Gold comics from me to check out an obscure Superhero. So when Booster Gold got his own book again a couple of years ago, I was ecstatic. To me it was like an obscure record being played on mainstream radio. This superhero fella that I'd been following for ages finally got the equivalent of a second album and it was awesome. Now he's about to surpass the 25 mark that he made it to last time. I suppose that's like he's in top 10 in the Billboard or something. Hooray.
Alright, I know the Booster Gold as a band metaphor is a bit of a stretch. You have to admit though, "Extreme Justice" does sound a lot like an awful early nineties metal band.
Walter Stephens (Webmaster,
Boosterrific.com)
I feel obligated to point out that my "history" with the character of
Booster Gold is purely in the role of a fan, which makes
me only as qualified to offer an opinion as everyone else who has loyally
followed his adventures for the past 2+ decades as detailed by oh so many master
artists at DC Comics.
However, now that you ask, I have to say that what I like best about Booster is his enduring spirit. The poor boy made a few mistakes early in life (probably due to bad parenting), and in the years since has been exposed to a never-ending string of tragedies far worse than what most of his contemporaries have experienced. (An abbreviated list includes betrayals by his manager and sidekick; the losses of his fortune, the respect of his peers, and his right arm; the deaths of his mother, twin sibling, and best friend;... ugh.) Yet he keeps bouncing back, usually stronger than ever before and always with an impish grin and a new scheme. He's the resilient, charming anti-hero who desperately wants us to believe that he does all the right things for all the wrong reasons because, like most of his admirers, he'd rather be the Fonz than Joe Friday.
As much as I hate to take to the obvious choice for my favorite Boosterrific moment, I have to admit that I never tire of reading Booster Gold's Justice League audition in Justice League #4. In so many ways, it's Booster at his best. It even makes Batman smile.
Troy Brownfield (Writer of Booster
Gold's Daily Planet obituary)
I liked Booster Gold when he first appeared, but
the character REALLY clicked for me beginning with Justice League
#4. And of course, there are some great character-defining moments in #8 as
well. I like that he's a hero that's not entirely motivated by altruistic
means, yet will eventually work his way toward doing the right thing. The
Justice League Unlimited episode, "The Greatest Story Never
Told", encapsulates that really well. Jurgens and company were fairly prescient
with Booster; they anticipated Celebreality culture and
the TMZization of the news a couple of decades before it actually happened.
Booster doesn't often get his sociological due, but
that's a pretty spot-on notion to have been parodying in the mid '80s.
Eric Ratcliffe (Columnist,
Comic
Related)
My first real exposure to Booster was the
I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League and Formerly Known
as the Justice League books. He and Ted were the guys you'd love to
hang out with and couldn't help but laugh at their antics. Then of course Geoff
Johns came in and made him the hero of the Multiverse and then the hero of all
space and time.
Michael is one of those unique characters in the industry where he always tries to do his best to do the right thing (well I mean not when he first started out), and does his best to correct things that he feels need to be changed or fixed. His book is one of the constant highlights at DC and Dan Jurgens has truly molded something very unique that is fun to read every month. So here's hoping for another 25 and then 25 more after that.
Russell Burlingame is a journalist and columnist living and working in New York City. In high school, Russell interviewed Elliot S. Maggin for a review of the Kingdom Come novelization, and since then has worked consistently in and around the comics industry. He interned for Wizard magazine, and has freelanced for Wizard and Newsarama, in addition to a number of non-comics publications, Russell is currently working on a graphic novel based on Cap'n Internet, the comic strip that ran in his college newspaper; and a graphic biography of folk singer Phil Ochs with artist Marion Vitus.
Currently, in addition to his freelance work and his comics projects, Russell writes a number of columns for ComicRelated, including Conscientious Sequentials, The Gold Exchange, What's Perhappenin', Closing Statements, Reflecting 'Pool and To See or Not To See.
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