Well, the series went out strong, and with its characteristic emphasis on family. Add in a big battle won despite staggering odds against our hero, a curtain call by all the characters in the series, and an ending filled with hope and positivity and – *sniff* – I’m going to miss you, Jaime!
Alright, let me shake that off and get into a bit I can criticize.
Now that I’m fully rested after having to endure that exhaustive weekend of New York Comic Con, now would probably be a good time to do a detailed write-up about the event. Well, that’s not going to happen.
Truth is, there isn’t too much to write about. It was your usual fare, only with tons more people than the last couple years, meaning that it was harder to walk around and even harder to get into a couple panels. One panel about self-publishing I couldn’t get into because it seemed to have been held in a room the size of an elevator and was already filled to the brim. And the DC/Marvel panels? Forget about it. I went to a couple, but I had to stand in the corner due to the amount of people there.
By the way, if anyone was at the Dark Reign panel, I was the jerkwad asking about D-Man. Yeah, that’s right. D-Man! Represent!
I got some books signed here and there. Jason Aaron, despite looking like a guy who would tear your throat out with the slightest provocation, is a really swell guy and really gracious. Van Lente, Gage, Parker, Pak and Calero were also pretty cool to talk to. My true failure of the weekend is my inability to find Larry Hama in time. I had hoped to have him sign the “Venom vs. Carnage inside the internet” issue of Carnage Unleashed and the “Rad Eddie” issue of Venom: The Hunted, but by the time I figured out where he was going to be, I was a half hour too late. Oh well. He probably would have haymakered me for it anyway.
One of the cooler moments is finding former Booster Gold co-writer Jeff Katz and Booster Gold creator/artist/writer/caterer Dan Jurgens at the DC booth. I asked Jurgens about whether or not Booster’s old secretary Trixie is Rip Hunter’s mother, which he said no, but a good guess. I began explaining my harebrained “Ted Kord is the next Batman” theory to Mr. Katz and he surprised me with the revelation that he himself has read that very article. Hell yeah! High five!
Unfortunately, he tore down any hope of Kord being the Dark Knight. Awww.
You ever read the Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz run of Booster Gold? It was pretty good stuff. The majority of it dealt with Booster’s personal quest to use time travel to save the life of the 2nd Blue Beetle and Booster’s 1st best friend, Ted Kord. Rip Hunter kept insisting to Booster that this was an impossibility and that it would mess up time something fierce. Booster didn’t listen and with the help of Dan Garrett, Jaime Reyes and the mysterious Black Beetle, saved Ted’s life.
Wouldn’t you know it, everything went wrong. This was all some kind of scheme by Mr. Mind and the present was reduced to Max Lord and his OMACs laying waste to almost all the superheroes. Ted saw that his death had a role in the grand scheme of things and seemingly killed himself in some kind of time travel clusterfuck with the use of Black Beetle’s scarab. Booster was broken up about it, but got over his failings with the help of Batman’s compassion.
Despite Ted’s redeath, we were given a happy ending. But wait… what’s this?
Hey! Ted’s alive after all! Johns himself said so. Good for Ted.
Not all good. What’s he going to do now? Ted Kord is supposed to be dead. Blue Beetle is supposed to be dead. He can’t go back to the blue and lighter blue. Even if you ignore there already being a Blue Beetle around (in a sadly cancelled series), an arc in Manhunter shows that Ted being alive would ruin Wonder Woman’s defense for killing Max Lord. It would make her look even worse in the public eye.
It’s a shame. A young guy like himself given a second chance. He’s rich, he’s brilliant, he’s a gadget wiz, he’s got his own secret hideout and you know he’s just raring to go back to fighting crime. Blame it on the economy, but sometimes a talented guy just can’t find a job.
Wait a minute… Wasn’t there a job opening this week?
A couple months back, I reviewed Infinite Crisis in “Graphic Audio” form. Graphic Audio is a company that takes books and turns them into jacked up radio plays. I didn’t know what to expect, but came out entertained. Luckily, there was more fuel for my ears in the form of Graphic Audio’s take on Greg Cox’s novel adaptation of 52.
Hm. Already, I could tell that this wasn’t going to be more of the same. Infinite Crisis and 52 are very different. Infinite Crisis was seven slightly-longer-than-usual issues, condensed. For the novelization, they had to add in bits from other comics from that time to pad out the story. The Graphic Audio experiment took an average story and transformed it into something pretty good. In fact, reader Illvillainy, who picked up the CD set based on my review, had this to say:
Granted my imagination had me envisioning Doug Mahnke doing, say 12 issues, of gorgeous art while listening to the CDs but going back to read IC afterwards and seeing 7 rushed and badly paced issues of Phil Jimenez trying to be George Perez with scrunched up layout and one page splashes was severely disappointing. The audiobook wasn’t perfect but it made me like the idea of IC a hell of a lot more.
52 is another beast entirely. The quality was far superior on all fronts and due to lasting 52 issues, the story was more decompressed. Well, maybe “decompressed” isn’t the best word for 52. It’s just that there were so many subplots going on that if you were reading it for one of them specifically, you could go at least a month without an update. I cared about all of them to at least some extent, so I was cool with it. Though, really, I was mostly in it for Booster’s storyline.
A couple weeks back, Johns and Katz finished off their spectacular run of Booster Gold, bringing us some closure, while opening several new plot threads. A lot happened in there that I enjoyed, including the scene with Booster and Batman. Yes, sure, you can complain about how Batman remained completely silent about finding photos of a beaten and tortured Booster when he found Joker’s camera circa Killing Joke, but I dug it. Not only because Batman, the big superhero cynic, was giving Booster the well-deserved props, but because it went both ways.
Fact is, Booster hated Batman more than any other superhero. That’s a damn lot. What’s that you say? Hal Jordan? No, Hal Jordan didn’t really hate Batman. He was more submissive to what Batman had to say against him and was at most irritated. Superman? More disappointed than anything else. Red Hood? Just confused in a frustrated way. Booster Gold, on the other hand, outright tried to MURDER Batman!
I still remember when Countdown to Infinite Crisis happened and people were frothing at the mouth to see how Booster would react towards Batman. Ah, that was a fun scene.
So anyway, the new issue of Booster Gold finally had Booster and Batman bury the hatchet. That’s cool.
But another big moment involved Rip Hunter’s reveal that he brought back Booster’s sister Goldstar. Now, I understand that only a handful of comic readers have read anything with Booster in it outside his Justice League/Blue Beetle team-up stuff, so I’m sure there’s quite a few of you wondering who this is. It’s a logical thing to wonder, since other than an earlier flashback, she hasn’t been seen for about twenty years.
Months back, a picture was released of the upcoming animated series Batman: The Brave and The Bold. The image showed Batman in a more 1950’s style, appearing in front of a clean-shaven Green Arrow and the current version of Blue Beetle. While I wasn’t exactly ecstatic about it, it at least interested me more than The Batman. Even disregarding the “fuck the fanboys” interview that preceded that series, I just couldn’t get into it.
But Brave and the Bold already had two things going for it. One, it had a good concept. One of the things that made Justice League Unlimited so cool was the idea of a random superhero you may have never heard of showing up in an episode alongside someone you have heard of. Hell, that’s how I was ultimately introduced to Booster Gold. Here, it’s simplified with the original JL roster being replaced with just Batman, holding the series together in a looser continuity, while teaming up with a different guy in each episode. It’s not so much a Batman cartoon as it’s another DC Universe cartoon. That’s cool. I can get into that.
The other thing that it has going for it is Blue Beetle. I’m not just saying this as a fan of Jaime Reyes. There are two things I ultimately felt were missing from Justice League Unlimited: Plastic Man and Blue Beetle. For some reason they didn’t have the broadcasting rights to either character over the course of the show and the most we got was Elongated Man bitching about Plastic Man without us ever seeing him. Granted, it isn’t Ted Kord in this series, but I’ll take what I can get.
Say, I just noticed that Ted Kord is sort of Spider-Man-like while his successor Jaime is Venom-like. Huh.
I forgot about this series, until the recent release of the trailer. Gentlemen! Behold!
That’s… pretty awesome. Plastic Man’s there too! There’s another thing going for it! Yeah! I wonder if Tom Kenny will be voicing him again. For those out of the loop, he played Plas in a failed cartoon pilot a year or so ago.
According to Wiki, Booster Gold and Skeets will get their own episode too. This thing just keeps getting better and better. Not to mention Green Lantern Corps and Red Tornado. And on the villain side, not only do they have Gentleman Ghost, but they have Black Manta in there… and they’re allowed to call him Black Manta this time!
Consider me stoked. I’m in the mood for a lighter Batman right about now.
Earlier tonight I was in the middle of a conversation about how many Cable archetypes there are in comics and this little idea clicked in my head. It’s silly, but I can’t shake the need to at least give it a mention.
DC has been playing around with Kingdom Come a lot lately. I haven’t been reading Justice Society of America, but I know Starman is from that reality and they’ve been using a good amount of heroes and villains from that story since the new volume started up. Most notably KC Superman and Gog from Kingdom. Geoff Johns writes JSA and is also a co-writer of Booster Gold.
Recently, Booster Gold introduced the title character’s father. He never showed up in Booster’s old series, including his issue of Secret Origins, but I suppose something was suspect about his lack of appearance mixed with Booster choosing never to bring him up. Now he’s in league with Per Degaton, an old school Despero, Ultra-Humanite and the mysterious Black Beetle. What they’re planning isn’t exactly known.
When he was teaming up with corrupt time-traveler Rex Hunter, Booster Sr. (I don’t recall ever seeing his name) was out to undo the destinies of the Justice League so that he could use time travel to his advantage and become the ultimate superhero. Think about that. He wanted Superman, Batman and all the rest out of the way so that he could be the top hero. He’s totally missing the point about what being a superhero is about and it’s set to someday blow up in his face. Sound familiar?
Not just that, but notice the short, white hair and scar going down his right eye. Seemingly based on Cable, just like another DC character.
What I’m wondering is if Geoff Johns has any intentions on somehow taking this guy…
…and having him change costumes so he can someday be this guy…
I’m not saying that this is going to happen. I’m not even certain if I want it to happen. All I’m saying is that if it does happen, I totally called it. Just throwing that out there.
I read some comics and I review them here. Just click “Read the rest of this entry” to see them. I know you’re all very excited. Happy Valentines Day!
Yep. It’s time for another edition of Ruin the Moment, distracting you as I work on the next Professor Marc article.
This is based on Tim Drake receiving the call that Bart Allen has been killed needlessly because DC wrote themselves into a corner.
In a couple hours, I’m going to be leaving for the weekend for my brother’s wedding. No computer access during that time, so the site is in the hands of the leader guy, the newbie and the guy who’s too busy doing real writing work.
Some quick notes before I go:
– The Dr. Strange movie is the better of the four Marvel animated movies (Strange > Ultimates > Ultimates 2 > Iron Man). The animation is better, the ugly shading is fixed and some of it is genuinely good. Unfortunately, it’s marred with goofy additions like having Strange, Mordo and the others fight by conjuring swords instead of straight sorcery. The ending is the absolute stupidest and laziest deus ex machina I have ever seen in any superhero movie, which is saying a lot. In conclusion, the movie is okayish.
– If you’re going to get the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters on DVD, don’t do it for the 80 minute deleted movie. It’s just an early version of the movie where the animation is only two-fifths done and the deleted scenes (which are available with full animation elsewhere on the DVD) are inserted. Though to its credit, there is a nice unused ending that involves Dr. Weird screaming at Meatwad, “Well, keep it down! I’m trying to fuck a tangerine!” a second before the end credits.
– Booster Gold #1 is fantabulous. It really, really is. The comic is about a muscular idiot in tights, his annoying robot companion and a guy who knows way too much about history banding together to repair the past and keep time stable. Hm…
I always thought this show needed a second chance. Thanks, Geoff Johns!
