Booster Gold #17
As Dan Jurgens' first arc as writer on the All-New Booster Gold, "Reality Lost," nears its close, we're still being teased with far more questions than answers-both in the main story and in a six-page backup feature that ties to DC's "Origins and Omens" run-up to Geoff Johns' "Blackest Night" event. We lost four pages of the lead story for it, but Jurgens explains that the process wasn't as painful as it might seem: "I had already written a 22 page script for the story when it was decided to do 'Origins and Omens.' So, yeah, there was some shifting around and general reorganization that had to happen and a couple of scenes were pushed into issue 18. When the writer also happens to be drawing the story it's pretty easy to shift gears mid-stream without losing a beat."
Booster continues to be throttled through time by a mysterious villain who is bent on possession of a powerful artifact-an ancient, Egyptian knife imbued with chronal energy. Here, while the villain keeps Skeets and Goldstar incapacitated, Booster is caught doing a delicate dance. He's trying to keep time intact while gently guiding past events to happen as they should...all while avoiding contact with a younger version of himself who is there fighting a very familiar battle. It's one of the most important nights in the history of the DC multiverse, and our hero must tread very lightly while some events unfold around him. Some of the aspects of this issue have been seen very recently in the book, verbatim, and Jurgens explains that it was important to keep that intact: "It was important to lock this into a very specific moment in time and replicating those specific scenes is the best way to do it."
There's a healthy dose of Giffen-DeMatteis-style Booster humor here, too, as an encounter with a C-list supervillain is the fodder for both "ugly costume" and "stupid gimmick character" chuckles before giving way to a one-punch super-battle. But while Booster is bemused by Chronos' silly, ineffectual nature, our energy-based mystery villain is seriously irritated by both Chronos and Booster, who in his estimation are squandering the power they have over time.
"I don't know that I'd say he has a specific beef with Chronos. He came to get the knife and Chronos happened to be there. Let's just say he doesn't approve of Chronos' agenda," Jurgens explains. "Not to mention his choice in clothing."
It's another month and another boosterrific turn on art by Jurgens, Norm Rapmund and Hi-Fi Colors, whose contribution to this issue-with lots of gold and lots of lightning-shouldn't be underestimated.
Ultimately in the end, Booster is teamed with an unlikely partner to help him set things right after the mystery villain vanishes, taking the knife with him, and his influence seems to have finally stopped shunting Booster around the timestream. How this will play itself out in the "Reality Lost" finale will be an interesting question, and likely one that will offer us some answers to curiousities that we didn't even know we had.
The "Origins & Omens" backup is worth noting, if for no reason other than its implication that during the course of "The Blackest Night" Booster will again find himself stunned by the identity of a mystery villain. This time it's the Black Beetle, chief antagonist of "Blue & Gold," whose identity has teased readers for a year now, since his first appearance at the end of "52 Pick-Up." There's also a panel of Booster and Ted Kord/Blue Beetle II which is bound to be one of those images on the Internet for years to come. Asked to talk about the scope of "The Blackest Night," Jurgens tells us, "Sorry, can't answer that, but I know what Booster's involvement is and I'm not talking!"
As usual, writer/artist Dan Jurgens sat down to discuss the issue with Comic Related. This week, though, the conversation was so long, that a number of the questions just didn't make their way into the review. See these bits of conversation below, but be forewarned that thare are some mild spoilers ahead:
CR: How early in the writing process for this series did someone say, "At some point, Booster has to team up with himself!"?
DJ: It is kind of a natural, isn't it?
Don't worry though. We won't be going to the well on this one too often.
CR: We reusing all that dialogue a nice break from scripting, or was looking it all up more trouble than it was worth?
DJ: You're right. It isn't any kind of time saver. However, it was important to lock this into a very specific moment in time and replicating those specific scenes is the best way to do it.
CR: And did the positions that Wally and Booster took the same as in the original issues? How much reference did you have to do?
DJ: Not much. I still remember drawing Booster Gold #4 quite well, after all.
specific
CR: Barry seems...well...cooler than he's been depicted in the recent past. Is this more in line with how DC wants to depict him now that he's alive again?
DJ: It's simply my take on him. I never found it necessary to depict him as totally nerdy. Besides, "Central City CSI" has kind of a nice ring to it, wouldn't you say?
CR: Actually, for some time now I've kind of secretly thought that if Barry were to come back, a Gotham Central-like title set in Central City might be a good way to differentiate him from Wally!...All those jokes about Chronos' costume, and nothing at all about the collar? Is this just a case of Booster understanding that he's kinda People Who Live in Glass Houses here?
DJ: The collar is the least of the offenses. The palette and striped pants are so incredibly bad that the collar fits into the category of a minor offense.
CR: So, Booster caused Barry to be at the chemicals...but would he have been there anyway if not for the Booster/Supernova battle outside? I wasn't clear on whether this was totally Booster's doing, like other events have been in the past.
DJ: This can cause one of those time travel types of headaches, but yes, Booster's presence was required to get Barry back to the lab.
CR: Is the villain breaking time a little bit by stealing the same knife over and over? It strikes me like when Gog was going back in time and killing Superman over and over again in The Kingdom.
DJ: No. The reason for taking the knife over and over again will be made very clear next issue. Believe it or not, there's a grand scheme at work here!
CR: On that note--why three copies of the same knife? Why not 12?
DJ: Because three is what he needs! Again, next issue will clarify all that!
CR: I haven't read Barry's origin story in a long while; did we ever see what case he had been working on that night, prior to this?
DJ: Just working off Showcase #4, no.
CR: What are the chances that the Scarab Dan Garrett found in an Egyptian crypt shares something with the Ancient Egyptian Time Knife?
DJ: Why, that would be really something, wouldn't it?
CR: So what's the mystery villain need at the end of time?
DJ: Sorry, Russ. Once again, we're moving into "next issue" territory.
CR: That's a setting you've visited before; what's the chance that our energy-based friend is going to run into Doomsday, having been hurled there to die, or Hal Jordan, dressed as Parallax and breaking stuff?
DJ: While I can't tell you what WILL be in the next couple of stories, I can tell you what WON'T be. Doomsday and Hal Jordan are NOT in the next issue.
CR: "Your presence has repercussions you can't understand." Will we see that come to fruition within "Reality Lost" or not?
DJ: Think of it more as developing condition of time travel. Booster is still quite new at this and not at all the time master Rip is.
CR: Booster's subterfuge relies pretty heavily on Barry not letting anyone die--not even someone he thinks is a badguy.
DJ: True. It's reasonable to assume Barry is the kind of guy who would works to preserve life.
CR: I feel like Kevin Maguire would be kinda jealous of that "I'm gonna hurl" panel!
DJ: Thanks! That was a lot of fun. I'd like to do more of it.
CR: On that note--will you be penciling the Giffen-written issue of Booster Gold [number 20, announced at the New York Comic Con]?
DJ: I certainly hope to. Keith put together a great script.
CR: So you've mentioned the Titans story to me before in conversation...but can you give readers an idea of where all the elements on that last page fall? And can we take from Booster's reaction that the readers will recognize the man behind the Black Beetle mask?
DJ: As the shot implies, this is definitely going to deal with the very early days of the Titans.
CR: "I can always talk to Bats." --Apparently Booster isn't a big Grant Morrison reader?
DJ: This story started somewhat before Batman's death.
CR: This month's cover seems very general--what went into deciding to have a less plot-intensive image?
DJ: Mike Siglain and I talked about the idea of doing poster-like covers from time to time. I think it's a great way to show off the main characters.
CR: So...speaking of Morrison...two Boosters in the same place splinters time, but they can use 1,000 Supermen from all over the Multiverse in Final Crisis?
DJ: Sounds like Rip Hunter should pay a tutorial visit!
CR: So our villain is trying to live down his "years of insignificance?" He sounds like a great foil for Booster!
DJ: Yeah, he is. He has a great desire to be significant.
CR: So how did this knife become the MacGuffin, anyway? For the Dalbert story, it seemed organic to Chuck...but how did the collaboration take shape? Did you tell him what the item was going to be?
DJ: Not quite sure what you mean by organic, but we told Chuck from the start it was going to play a crucial role.
CR: Doesn't it also seem like Dalbert's overall DCU status/impact is substantially increased by this story?
DJ: Potentially, yes.
CR: No mention by Booster, by the way, of having just seen Chronos. Want to put the Remender arc in perspective? Has it "happened" yet at this point?
DJ: I think that was covered when Chronos says, "You KNOW me?" Booster clearly does, which implies a meeting, right?
CR: Have we ever seen Barry Allen draw a gun on someone before??
DJ: Not that I can recall. That's a good quesiton.
CR: What are the odds that Chronos inadvertently hijacked a shipment with the Time Knife, as opposed to the whole thing being manipulated? This is some Keyser Soze stuff going on!
DJ: I think the real magic here is that Chronos was totally ready to overlook the knife in favor of old clocks. In the beginning he wasn't a time traveler, just someone who used good timing to plan his crimes. That kind of places him in a particular class of non-heavyweight villain.
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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. Russell also takes point on the Hot Shot of the Week feature.
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