Category: Booster Gold

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The All-New Atom volumes 3 & 4: The Hunt for Ray Palmer & Small Wonder


By Gail Simone, Rick Remender, Mike Norton, Pat Oliffe, Dan Green & Trevor Scott & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1782-2 (TPB Hunt) 978-1-4012-1996-3 (TPB Wonder)

After the events of Identity Crisis and 52, superhero physicist Professor Ray Palmer disappeared, leaving his world behind him. But life goes on, and his teaching chair at Ivy University was offered to a young prodigy from Hong Kong. The neophyte just happened to be Palmer’s pen-friend and confidante: privy to his predecessor’s secrets ever since he was a child.

Dr. Ryan Choi unwillingly inherited his predecessor’s super-hero career as well – under some rather suspicious circumstances – battling super-villains, monsters and seemingly random chronal catastrophes that are making Ivy Town a viper’s nest of bizarre occurrences.

With this third volume (collecting issues #12-16 of All-New Atom) the so-likable legacy hero joins an eccentric team of heroes to track down his missing mentor in a story-arc that coincided with events of unfolding mega-crossover Countdown to Final Crisis…

Written by the brilliant Gail Simone and illustrated by Mike Norton, Dan Green & Trevor Scott, the The Hunt for Ray Palmer starts with ‘Never Too Small to Hit the Big Time’ as size-shifting homicidal maniac Dwarfstar returns, swiftly followed by a procession of Palmer’s oddly unique Rogues’ Gallery.

Temporal anomalies are devastating the city and Choi’s only chance to sort it all is the creepily coincidental alliance offered by infamous “time-thief” Chronos…

‘Second Genesis’ finds Choi and the wily villain lost in the South American jungles, encountering the tiny alien barbarians Palmer once lived with (see Sword of the Atom link please) before the new Tiny Titan links up with Donna Troy, Jason Todd and the Monitor – all major protagonists in the aforementioned Countdown to Final Crisis.

Choi joins forces in their search of the entire multiverse, with a first stop in ‘Heavens to Bitsy’ taking them from the super-scientific civilisation located on the bottom of Choi’s pet dog (not his underside, but the bit by the tail…) and from there to the post-existence paradise where all dead superheroes go. The manic manoeuvring features classy and clever cameos from a host of departed DC stars…

However, nothing is as it seems and by the time the new “challengers of the unknown” reach neutral ground and a rendezvous with Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, it’s clear that something or someone is sabotaging them. ‘Loss Leader’ sees Choi abruptly yanked from the quest and returned to Earth to save Ivy Town from the effects of the swifty escalating and accelerating time-storm one: of the funniest and grossest hero exploits ever recorded – or as Choi puts it, ‘Ewwww’…

The book concludes on a hilariously action-packed high note with ‘Forward! Into the Past!’ as further hints on the identity of the mastermind behind the All-New Atom’s troubles are revealed when Ivy Town takes a reality-warping, mind-bending trip back into the Summer of Love.

Ghosts, aliens, monsters, naff villains and Hippies abound, and there’s a guest-shot for those clearly inadequate guardians of the Time Stream, the Linear Men…

This fun-filled frantic frolic is a joyous return to clever, light-hearted adventure of the Good Old days (whenever they were) and these collected tales are everything a jaded superhero fan needs to clear the palate and revive flagging interests.


The All-New Atom volume 4: Small Wonder sees the adventures of the legacy Tiny Titan come to an abrupt halt with this final collection of mind-bending, time-busting yarns, collecting issues #17, 18 and 20-25 but sadly and inexplicably omitting #19 – a rather tasty subterranean thriller fill-in from Keith Champagne & Jerry Ordway.

Whether the switch from gleefully, wistfully whimsical scripter Gail Simone to darker, more hard-edged Rick Remender indicated the series was failing or perhaps actually caused its eventual demise is a matter of speculation – but it was probably neither and just another example of rapidly changing popular taste shredding sales below a viable cut off point…

Following the events of publishing events Identity Crisis and 52, size-changing part-time superhero Professor Ray Palmer vanished, leaving his world behind him. But life went on regardless, and his position at Ivy University was offered to a young prodigy from Hong Kong: Palmer’s confidante and someone privy to his predecessor’s secrets since childhood. Ryan Choi inherited his Palmer’s super-hero identity too – under rather suspicious circumstances.

The kid battled super-villains, monsters and seemingly random chronal catastrophes that were making Ivy Town a viper’s nest of bizarre occurrences and nexus of improbability.

Gail Simone started proceedings with 2-parter ‘The Atom and the Amazon’ – illustrated by Mike Norton, Andy Smith, Trevor Scott & Keith Champagne: a bravura blend of action, adventure and surreal comedy wherein expanding villainess Giganta sexually harasses the junior professor into a date whilst the mysterious forces and agencies infesting Ivy Town jockey for position before an impending emergent crisis…

Things come to a head when Federal Department of Metahuman Affairs agent Diana Prince steps in and asks Choi to wear a wire on his assignation…

When a creep with a detachable brain provokes a confrontation, Wonder Woman steps in and events spiral out of control until Ryan uses a brilliant seldom-seen ploy to calm things down. Sadly, the pacification is only temporary, as the brain-thing incites the entire city to attack the heroes, before The Atom saves the day …and is rewarded by the most outrageous offer he has ever heard…

Simone ended her run with ‘A Few Small Affairs’ wherein the sinister mastermind behind so many of Choi’s problems traps the diminishing hero in a perfect prison: a paradisiacal hallucination…

Meanwhile in consensus reality, demons, monsters and aliens rampage through Ivy Town…

To see how he stops that mess you’ll need to get this book, but that’s not the end of the affair. That comes in epic encounter ‘Inside Out’ by Rick Remender, Pat Olliffe & John Stanisci, pitting the out-of-his-depth Tiny Titan against truly horrendous odds and seemingly insurmountable hazards.

In ‘The Positive Aspects of Negative Thinking’, Choi learns that his explorations of the micro-cosmos have infected him with a virus and unleashed a monstrous carnivore on the city that only he can deal with. ‘How to Disappear Completely’ then leaves him shocked and reeling when the beast devours his best friend Panda.

Consumed with a need to make amends, Choi is utterly unaware that arch-enemies Chronos and Dwarfstar are preparing to attack, and is horrified and derailed to discover that the micro-monster has since disintegrated dozens of citizens. Meanwhile, his bodily infection is causing him to uncontrollably shrink in violently painful spasms…

Donning a high-tech containment suit, Choi struggles on in ‘Strange New World’: becoming lost in the Microverse before joyfully discovering that the townsfolk “consumed” by the monster were in fact simply reduced to sub-atomic proportions and entrapped in an extremely hostile new universe.

That elation is tempered however when he realises that time passes much faster there, and if the horrors inhabiting the place don’t eat them first, they will all die of old age before he can save them…

Guest-starring time-displaced hero Booster Gold, ‘Forecast Fascist Future’ focuses on Chronos and his partner in time-crime, a mysterious lady from Choi’s past, before the myriad plot-threads of the series converge and Ray Palmer returns to save the day: revealing some shocking truths to – and about – his successor in ‘Time’, a gripping conclusion to a bold epic and conclusive proof that the Tiny Titans should have been awarded more time to continue their adventures…

Alas they didn’t and the series passed away, but at least lovers of fun, fantastic fantasy Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction have these volumes to enjoy, if they can find them. Let’s all hope that DC get around to rereleasing all of them digitally ASAP…
© 2007, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Boo$ter Gold: Future Lost


By Dan Jurgens, with John Byrne, Steve Englehart, Joe Staton, Mike DeCarlo, Ty Templeton & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: ?978-1-7795-0672-6 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: The Shape of Fun to Come… 8/10

After the cosmos-crunching Crisis on Infinite Earths re-sculpted the DC Universe in 1986, a host of characters got floor-up rebuilds for the tougher, no-nonsense, straight-shooting New American readership of the Reagan era. Simultaneously, a number of corporate buy-outs such as Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and The Question joined DC’s roster with their own much-hyped solo titles. There were also some all-new launches for the altered sensibilities of the Decade of Excess – the superb Suicide Squad and Shiny, Happy Hero Booster Gold.

The cobalt & yellow paladin debuted amidst heaps of hoopla in his own title (February 1986 – and the first post-Crisis premiere of a freshly integrated superhero line), presenting wholly different approaches to DC’s army of old-school costumed boy-scouts.

Created, written and drawn by Dan Jurgens, the saga featured a brash, cockily mysterious metahuman golden-boy jock who had set up his stall as a superhero in Metropolis, actively seeking corporate sponsorships, selling endorsements and with a management team in place to maximise the profit potential of his crusading celebrity.

Over fraught, fight-filled months we learned Michael Jon “Booster” Carter had been a rising sports star in the 25th century before falling in with a gambling syndicate and fixing games for cash pay-outs. When he was caught and banned from competition, he could only find menial work as a night-watchman in The Space Museum. Whilst there, he struck up a friendship with automated tour-guide/security-bot Skeets and devised a bold plan to redeem himself.

Stealing a flight ring, force-field belt, energy-rods, alien super-suit and wrist-blasters, Booster used the Museum’s prize exhibit – Rip Hunter’s time machine – to emigrate to the fabled 20th Century Age of Heroes where he might earn all the fame and glory his mistakes had cost him in his own time…

Initial success led him forming a multi-faceted company where Business manager Dirk Davis and company PA Trixie Collins later hired hotshot scientist Jack Soo to construct a second super-suit that would enable Booster to hire a camera-friendly, eye-candy girly sidekick…

Accompanied everywhere by sentient, flying, football-shaped robot Skeets, the glitzy showboat soon encountered high-tech criminal gang The 1000 and a host of super-villains, earning the ire of many sinister masterminds and the shallow approbation of models, actresses, headline-hungry journalists, politicians and the ever-fickle public…

Created, primarily written and drawn by Dan Jurgens with inks usually by Mike DeCarlo, colours from Gene D’Angelo and letters by Steve Haynie, this glittering prize of a compilation covers the end of his early days, in Booster Gold volume 1 #13-25, Millennium #3, 4, 6 & 7 and Action Comics #594, plus material from Secret Origins #35 and Who’s Who Update ’87 #1 (collectively spanning February 1987 to December 1988).

The saga resumes in the aftermath of a conclusive victory. With the threat of the 1000 ended ‘The Tomorrow Run’ (inked by Gary Martin) finds Booster at death’s door, not because of his numerous injuries but because his 25th century body has succumbed to 20th century diseases.

Set during the Legends publishing event – which saw the public turn violently against costumed heroes – the dying Carter is rescued from a mob by Trixie wearing Soo’s completed super-suit. With no other options they take Michael back to the future where he can be properly treated, even though Booster’s offences carry a mandatory death penalty in his home era…

Recruiting young Rip Hunter (destined to become the Master of Time) Trixie and Dr. Soo accompany the distressed hero to a time where ruthless Darwinian capitalism rules and everything Michael Carter once dreamed of has turned to bitter ashes. ‘A Future Lost’ (inked by DeCarlo) follows Booster and Trixie as they search for a cure (and his missing twin sister Michelle) whilst Hunter and Soo seek a means to return them all to 1986.

Booster’s illness is only cured after they are arrested: the authorities believing it barbaric to execute anybody too sick to stand up, before ‘Runback’ (inked by Bruce D. Patterson) concludes the saga in fine style with the missing Carter twin saving the day and retreating to the 20th century with the time-lost travellers.

Booster’s close call has a salutary effect on his attitudes and character. Inked by Bob Lewis, ‘Fresh Start’ sees a kinder, gentler corporate entrepreneur re-establishing his heroic credentials with the celebrity-crazed public of Metropolis, to the extent that Maxwell Lord offers him membership in the newly re-formed Justice League, just as sultry assassin Cheshire raids a biotech company recently acquired by Booster Gold International…

‘Dream of Terror’ (inked by Arne Starr) reveals all as new owner Booster learns his latest corporate asset has been making bio-toxins to eradicate all “undeserving” individuals (for which read non-white and poor) and that its creator is currently loose in Mexico City with the lethal bug. Moreover, the deranged biochemist has bamboozled militant hero Hawk into acting as bodyguard while his plans to “save humanity from itself” take effect…

DeCarlo returned to ink ‘Showdown’ in #18, as a relentless lawman from Booster’s home-time tracks him down through history, resolved to render final judgement before ‘Revenge of the Rainbow Raider’ (Al Vey inks) pit the Man of Gold against the colour-blind and utterly demented Flash villain in a 2-part thriller that sees our hero rendered sightless and his future-shocked sister go native amongst the 20th century primitives.

The tale concludes with ‘The Colors of Justice’ as Dr. Soo saves Booster even as Michelle is being kidnapped by extra-dimensional invaders…

Up until this moment the art in this volume, whilst always competent, had been suffering an annoying hindrance, designed as it was for high quality, full-colour comic books, not stark, black and white reproduction. Although legible, discernible and adequate, much of the earlier art is fine-lined, lacking contrasting dark areas and often giving the impression that the illustrations lack solidity and definition.

With Booster Gold #21 the marvellous Ty Templeton became regular inker and his bold, luscious brush-strokes brought a reassuring firmness and texture to the proceedings. As if to affirm the artistic redirection the stories became a tad darker too…

‘Invasion From Dimension X’ has Booster’s search for his missing sister impinge on a covert intrusion by belligerent aliens first encountered and defeated by the Teen Titans. To make matters worse these extra-dimensionals are using Michelle as a power-source to fuel their incursion, resulting in ‘Tortured Options’ for Booster who must choose between saving Michelle or the city of Minneapolis when the invaders open their assault with a colossal kaiju attack…

Guest-starring Justice League International, the astounding battle climaxed in public triumph and personal tragedy after which the heart-broken, embittered Booster seemingly attacks Superman in ‘All That Glisters’ (Action Comics #594, November 1987, by John Byrne & Keith Williams): a terse, brutal confrontation that crosses over and concludes in Booster Gold #23, displaying ‘Blind Obsession’ (Jurgens & Roy Richardson) as the real Man of Gold crushes a Kryptonite-powered android doppelganger designed by the world’s most unscrupulous businessman to kill Superman and frame a commercial rival…

If only they had known that at that very moment Booster Gold International was being bankrupted by a traitor at the heart of the company…

After Crisis on Infinite Earths and Legends, DC’s third mega-crossover Millennium saw Steve Englehart, Joe Staton & Ian Gibson depict how robotic Manhunters had infiltrated Earth to abort the next stage in human evolution.

Billions of years ago the Manhunters had rebelled against their creators. The Guardians of the Universe were immortal and worked towards a rational, emotionless cosmos – a view not shared by their own women. The Zamarons had abandoned the Guardians at the inception of their grand scheme but after countless millennia the two factions had reconciled and left our reality together.

Now they had returned with a plan to midwife a new race of immortals on Earth, but Manhunters had infiltrated all aspects of society throughout the universe and were determined to thwart the plan, whether by seduction, connivance or just plain brute force. The heroes of Earth gathered to protect the project and confront the Manhunters in their own private lives… and their own comics.

In its original form each weekly instalment of Millennium acted as a catalyst for events which played out across the rest of the DC Universe titles. In addition to the miniseries itself, Millennium spread across 21 titles for two months – another 37 issues – for a grand total of 44 comic-books. Issues #24 and 25 of Booster Gold were two of them and are supplemented here by pertinent excerpts of the miniseries taken from Millennium #3, 4 & 6 before ‘Betrayal’ reveals that one of Michael Carter’s inner circle has been a Manhunter agent all along. It bankrupted the hero at the most propitious moment simply so that the robots could buy his loyalty during their assault on humanity and led to all-out battle bout ‘Down’ from Millennium #7 before the series came to a shocking climax in ‘The End’ as the scheme succeeds and Booster actually switches sides …or does he?

After the surprisingly satisfying and upbeat denouement, Booster became a perennial star of Justice League International where, with fellow homeless hero Blue Beetle, he became half of the one of funniest double-acts in comics.

As “Blue and Gold” the hapless, cash-strapped odd couple were always at the heart of the action – pecuniary or otherwise – and the final tale here ‘From the Depths’ (by Jurgens & Tim Dzon, as originally seen in Secret Origins #35, December 1988), reprises the early tragic days of Michael Jon Carter in a brief and exceedingly impressive tale played as much to tug the heartstrings as tickle the funny-bone…

This compilation then closes with the entry from Who’s Who Update ‘87 #1.

As a frontrunner of the new DC, Booster Gold was a radical experiment in character that didn’t always work, but which exponentially improved as months rolled by. Early episodes might be a necessary chore but by the time this volume ends it’s a real shame that the now thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable ride is over. Perhaps not to every Fights ‘n’ Tights fan’s taste, these formative fictions are absolutely vital to your understanding of the later classics and will make any fan happy and every reader a fan.
© 1987, 1988, 2020 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman: Time and Time Again


By Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Roger Stern, Bob McLeod, Brett Breeding, Dennis Janke, Tom Grummett, Jose Marzan & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1852865702 (TPB)

When Superman was re-imagined after Crisis on Infinite Earths, many of his more omnipotent abilities were discarded. Like his earliest days, he was a far from omnipotent hero, more in touch with humanity because he wasn’t so far above it. One thing that was abandoned was his casual ability to travel through time.

Indeed, rather than being able to navigate the chronal corridors with ease, in this splendid epic from 1991 (originally published serially in Action Comics #663-665, Adventures of Superman #476-478, and Superman (volume 2) #54-55 -with epilogues from #61 & 73 – the Man of Tomorrow is trapped in a cataclysmic and volatile temporal warp, bounced around from era to era with his abilities constantly diminishing and utterly unable to regain his home and loved ones.

That specifically means co-worker and girlfriend Lois Lane, to whom he has just divulged his greatest secret… his real identity…

It all begins in Adventures of Superman #476 as Dan Jurgens & Brett Breeding’s ‘The Linear Man’ sees a rogue (self-appointed) guardian of the Time Stream attempt to forcibly return chronal refugee-turned superhero Booster Gold to the 25th century he originated from. When Superman intervenes, the battle sparks a tremendous explosion, causing the Caped Kryptonian to careen through time. Each “landing” leaves him in a significant period of Earth’s history such as Roger Stern & Bob McLeod’s ‘Lost in the ‘40s Tonight’ (Action Comics #663) precipitating a meeting with that era’s first mystery men before almighty wraith the Spectre transports him not home but to ‘The Warsaw Ghetto!’ to act as temporary savour in an iconic battle saga by Jerry Ordway & Dennis Janke from Superman #54.

Apparently only gigantic explosions can launch him back into the time stream, such as occurs in in ‘Death Rekindled’ (Adventures of Superman #477 Jurgens & Brett Breeding) when a trip to the future introduces him to an iteration of the Legion of Super-Heroes needing help to destroy a monstrous Sun Eater… ‘

That climactic detonation deposits him ‘Many Long Years Ago’ (Action Comics #664, Stern & McLeod) to end up a Jurassic castaway until a clash with marooned time thief Chronos propels him into the Pleistocene and a chronologically adrift encounter with primordial alien race the H’v’ler’ni (AKA the Host)…

That tussle tosses him forward to ‘Camelot’ just as the Dark Ages begin, battling valiantly but in vain beside eventual All-Star Squadron champion and Seventh Soldier of Victory Sir Justin the Shining Knight in Superman #55 (Ordway) before landing again with another LSH for blockbusting finale ‘Moon Rocked’ (Adventures of Superman #478 Jurgens & Breeding) and resolution and reunion with Lois via a 5-page excerpt from Action Comics #665’s ‘Wake the Dead’…

Also included are the contents of Superman #61’s ‘Time and Time Again Again!’ and #73’s ‘Time Ryders’ – both by Jurgens & Breeding – as the Man of Tomorrow has further dealings with the Linear Men Matthew Ryder, Waverider, Liri Lee and Hunter…

As Superman is gradually depowered whilst seeking to get home without wrecking reality, he enjoys incredible memorable moments – such as walking with dinosaurs, cathartically crushing Nazis, tussling with a mammoth and fighting Etrigan the Demon during the fall of civilisation. He also meets many milestone characters from DC history including the WWII Justice Society of America, and encounters the Legion of Super-Heroes at three critical points of their long and varied career: making this tale a significant marker for establishing the key points of post-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity…

This hugely enjoyable epic is highly readable and cheerfully accessible for both returning and first time fans so it’s a true shame it’s currently out of print and still unavailable as a digital edition. Hopefully with Superman’s 85th anniversary impending there are moves afoot to rectify that…
© 1991, 1992, 1994 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Boo$ter Gold: The Big Fall


By Dan Jurgens, Mike DeCarlo, John Verpoorten, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-0075-5 (HB)

After the cosmos-crunching Crisis on Infinite Earths re-sculpted the DC Universe in the mid-1980s, a host of characters got floor-up rebuilds for the tougher, no-nonsense, straight-shooting New American readership of the Reagan-era. Simultaneously, a number of corporate buy-outs such as Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and The Question joined the DC roster with their own much-hyped solo titles. There were even a couple of all-new big launches for the altered sensibilities of the Decade of Excess such as the superb Suicide Squad and a Shiny, Happy Hero named Booster Gold.

A true icon of capitalist brand-aware America, the newcomer has suffered numerous setbacks and relaunches, before finally finding his proper place as the guardian of DC’s timestream and continuity. This engaging hardback and eBook compilation covers his early days, re-presenting Booster Gold volume 1 #1-12 (spanning February 1986 to January 1987), and offers fascinating bonus background material as well as a backwards-looking revelatory Introduction from Dan Jurgens.

The blue and yellow paladin appeared amidst plenty of hoopla in his own title – the first post-Crisis premiere of the publisher’s freshly integrated superhero line- and presented a wholly different approach to the traditional DC costumed boy-scout.

Created, written and drawn by Dan Jurgens with inks by Mike DeCarlo ‘The Big Fall’ introduces a brash, cocky, mysterious metahuman/obnoxious golden-boy jock who has set up his stall as a superhero in Metropolis. Unlike any other costumed champion, BG actively seeks corporate sponsorships, sells endorsements and has a management team in place to maximise the profit potential of his crusading celebrity…

Accompanied everywhere by sentient flying-football-shaped robot Skeets, the glitzy showboat soon encounters high-tech criminal gang The 1000 and their super-enforcer Blackguard. This earns him the unrelenting ire of sinister mastermind The Director and the shallow approbation of models, actresses, headline-hungry journalists, politicians and the ever-fickle public…

In issue #2’s ‘Cold Redemption’, Blackguard is aided and abetted by thought-casting mercenary Mindancer as the Director’s campaign of malice leads to another close call for Booster. Soon after, his highly public private life takes a tawdry turn in ‘The Night Has a Thousand Eyes’ when opportunistic starlet Monica Lake begins briefing the ravenous media on her “relationship” with the Man of Gold. He is unable to refute the claims since he was knee-deep in hired thugs and super-villains at the times she claims to have shared with him…

That cataclysmic combat in #4 results in a tremendous ‘Crash’ when urban vigilante The Thorn drops in to help scuttle the 1000’s latest scheme, but once the dust settles Booster finds himself in real trouble as business manager Dirk Davis is so busy licensing his boss for a comicbook that he fails to head off an IRS audit.

It appears Booster Gold has no official record and has never paid a penny in taxes…

Happily, in ‘Face Off’, our hero saves an entire stadium of ice hockey fans from avaricious terrorist Mr. Twister, earning himself a reprieve from the Federal authorities, after which an alien refugee crashes in Metropolis’ Centennial Park in #6’s ‘To Cross the Rubicon’. This sets up Man of Gold to finally meet Man of Steel for the long-awaited origin saga…

Michael Jon “Booster” Carter was a rising sports star in the 25th century who fell in with a gambling syndicate and began fixing games for cash pay-outs. When he was caught and banned from competition, he could only find menial work as a night-watchman in The Space Museum. Whilst there, he struck up a friendship with automated tour-guide and security-bot Skeets, and devised a bold plan to redeem himself.

Stealing a mysterious flight ring and force-field belt plus energy-rods, an alien super-suit and wrist-blasters, Booster used the Museum’s prize exhibit, Rip Hunter‘s time machine, to travel to the fabled 20th Century Age of Heroes and earn all the fame and glory his mistakes had cost him in his own time…

Superman, already antagonistic because of Booster’s attitude, is ready to arrest him for theft when the almost-forgotten alien attacks…

They all awaken on a distant world, embroiled in a vicious civil war and personally still at odds. As a result of ‘The Lesson’ and a vicious battle, Superman and Booster both accept some uncomfortable truths and agree to tolerate each other when they return home. Meanwhile, back in Metropolis, Dirk Davis and company PA Trixie Collins hire hotshot scientist Jack Soo to build a super-suit that would enable Booster to hire a camera-friendly, girly eye-candy sidekick…

More questions are answered in 2-parter ‘Time Bridge’ when the 30th century Legion of Super-Heroes discover evidence that their flight-rings and forcefield technology were being used by a temporal fugitive named Michael Carter. Dispatched to 1985 by the Time Institute, Ultra Boy, Chameleon Boy and Brainiac 5 arrive soon after the fugitive Carter and become involved in his very first case. The Director and shape-shifting assassin Chiller were planning to murder and replace Ronald Reagan but, in the best superhero tradition, Carter and the Legionnaires misunderstood each other’s intentions and butted heads…

The plot might have succeeded had not Skeets intervened, allowing Carter to save the day and get official Presidential approval. Ronnie even got to name the new hero…

Back in 1986, the long-building final clash with the Director opens in #10 with ‘Death Grip of the 1000’ as Dirk’s daughter is kidnapped and he’s coerced into betraying Booster, just as the nefarious super-mob unleash a horde of robotic terrors on Metropolis to wear out the Man of Gold and catalogue his weaknesses…

After Trixie is also abducted in ‘When Glass Houses Shatter’, the 1000 increase the pressure by setting blockbusting thug Shockwave on Booster, resulting in the utter destruction of the hero’s corporate HQ and home before a frenzied and frenetic final clash in ‘War’, which leaves a proud owner of an extremely pyrrhic victory…

To Be Continued…

Supplementing these blockbuster battle frenzies, ‘The Making of Booster Gold’ takes us back to the beginning and reveals how the series came about, reprinting Jurgens’ original series proposal, first character and costume studies, augmented by models of Skeets and premium give-aways, assorted press release materials and house ads, and the editorial pages from #1.

Even more enticing is ‘The Secret Origin of Booster Gold #6’, detailing how John Byrne’s reimagination of Superman in Man of Steel caused some frantic rewriting of the published BG issue. The hidden benefit of that is five pages of unused pencils that had to be scrapped to accommodate the new reality offer an intriguing “What If?” to end proceedings here…

As a frontrunner of the new DC, Booster Gold was a radical experiment in character that didn’t always succeed, but which definitely and exponentially improved; as the months rolled by the time traveller grew into one of DC’s best books.

Perhaps not to every Fights ‘n’ Tights fan’s taste, these formative fictions are absolutely vital to your understanding of the later classics and have a dated charm that may well suit you, too.
© 1986-1987, 2019 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Time Masters: Vanishing Point


By Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund, Rodney Ramos & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3047-0

After the cosmos-crunching Crisis on Infinite Earths re-sculpted the DC Universe in 1986, a host of characters got floor-up rebuilds for the tougher, no-nonsense, straight-shooting New American readership of the Reagan era. The decluttering exercise also made room for a few superheroes of types previously unknown at the company “Where Legends Live”.

Disgraced sports star Michael Carter came back from the 25th century to our era, tooled up with stolen technology, determined to recreate himself as a superhero. As Booster Gold he made a name for himself as a mid-level hero and supreme self-promoter and corporate shill.

Created, written and drawn by Dan Jurgens, the saga featured a brash, cockily mysterious apparently metahuman golden-boy jock setting up his stall as a superhero in Metropolis. Here he actively sought corporate sponsorships, sold endorsements and hired a management team to maximise the profit potential of his crusading celebrity.

He was accompanied everywhere by sentient, flying, football-shaped robot Skeets.

Their time came and went and Booster’s title folded, but he lived on as part of Justice League International where he became roughly half of comics’ funniest double-act, riffing with the equally light-hearted lightweight Blue Beetle.

Booster and Ted Kord (technically the second Blue Beetle) were the class clowns of billionaire Maxwell Lord‘s League: a couple of obnoxiously charming frat-boys who could save the day but never get the girl or any respect.

When Lord murdered Beetle, precipitating an Infinite Crisis, Booster was shattered. Eventually, though, he recovered and redefined himself as a true hero through a succession of multiversal conflagrations. In landmark weekly maxi-series 52 and later Infinite Crisis, his intriguing take on Heroism diverged down strange avenues when Booster – traditionally only in it for fame and fortune – became a secret saviour, repairing the cracks in Reality caused by all the universe-warping shenanigans of myriad multiversal Crises and uncontrolled time-travel.

Working at the instruction of enigmatic and irascible mentor Rip Hunter: Time Master, Booster relinquished his dreams of glory to secretly save us all over and over and over again as the protector of the time-line, battling incredible odds to keep history on track and continuity in order.

This time-bending full-colour collection gathers 6-issue miniseries Time Masters: Vanishing Point (from September 2010-February 2011), detailing how Rip, Booster and Skeets steer a small posse of superheroes through the uncanny and lethally mutable corridors of time in search of a missing comrade vital to the existence of everything…

At the climax of a harrowing campaign of terror by The Black Hand and following Earth’s invasion by the New Gods of Apokolips, Batman was apparently killed at the conclusion of Infinite Crisis…

The world at large was unaware of the loss, leaving the superhero community to mourn in secret whilst a dedicated army of assistants, protégés and allies – trained over years by the contingency-obsessed Dark Knight – formed the Network to police Gotham City in the days which followed: marking time until a successor could be found or the original restored…

Most of the Bat-schooled battalion refused to believe their inspirational mentor dead. On the understanding that he was merely lost, they eventually accepted Dick Grayson (the first Robin and latterly Nightwing) as a stand-in until Bruce Wayne could find his way back to them. The more cosmically endowed super-friends weren’t prepared to wait, however…

Batman, of course, is the most brilliant escape artist of all time and even whilst being struck down by the New God of Evil had devised an impossibly complex and grandly far-reaching scheme to beat the devil and save the world…

The chronally-fluctuating epic opens with elderly time guardian Booster sharing a few moments of educational bonding time with his son before Rip Hunter shakes off the happy memories and gets back to the immediate task at hand: reminding Superman, Green Lantern Hal Jordan and a blithely oblivious prime-of-life Booster of the dangers involved in interfering in historical events, no matter how tragic or cruel they might be…

Meanwhile, at the End of Time mystery hero Supernova is finding inviolate citadel Vanishing Point has been destroyed by incalculable forces and, after consulting with his unseen boss, grimly sets off in search of Rip…

The rescue mission for Bruce Wayne is Hunter’s idea. He tracked the hero to various time periods, where the Dark Knight briefly materialised before plunging back into the time stream again. Rip now hopes to extract him with the assistance of some of the Gotham Guardian’s oldest allies, before his random trajectory causes irreparable damage. He also fears enemy interference from enemies as yet unknown…

In Rip’s 21st century Arizona lab, Booster’s sister Michelle is confronted by two likely suspects as “Time Stealers” Per Degaton and Despero break in. The battle looks lost until Supernova arrives to turn the tables, but after driving off the villains the mystery man vanishes; still intent on finding the reason for Vanishing Point’s destruction and the time-stream’s increasing instability…

In the 15th century the rescue squad’s search ends in frustration, but as Rip prepares to bring them home a chronal disruption seizes them, propelling them all on an uncontrolled trip through time and also across dimensions…

On arrival Rip is confronted by a barbarian warrior with a demonic right hand (DC’s short-lived 1970s sword-&-sorcery star Claw the Unconquered), and Hunter’s thoughts go back to another salutary lesson delivered by his father on the crucial nature of his self-appointed mission. After a short battle he finally convinces the enraged swordsman that he is neither wizard nor foe.

As they join forces against a common threat, in another time and place Booster, Superman and Green Lantern have arrived in the middle of a war between humans and aliens. Unable to obey Hunter’s admonition not to get involved, the heroes engage the invading Mygorgs, unaware that in a distant time-pocket Degaton and Despero have met with their allies Ultra-Humanite and Black Beetle.

The consensus is that some outside force is destabilising time and it must be stopped if their own plans for domination are to succeed…

The superheroes’ resistance ends when Booster encounters a sword-wielding woman warrior named Starfire (another star of DC’s short 1970’s dalliance with sword-&-sorcery) and a tenuous alliance is formed just as a dragon-riding witch captures Superman and Green Lantern…

Although separated by dimensional walls, both Rip and Claw and Booster’s team are facing similar perils: held by unearthly wizard Serhattu and his accomplice sorceress Skyle whilst the mage attempts to control of time and escape his extra-dimensional realm using the out-worlders’ science…

And in the ruins of Vanishing Point, the Time Stealers find a cell and free Hunter’s greatest foes: former comrades and fellow Linear Men Matthew Rider and Liri Lee…

As Serhattu and Skyle prepare their campaign of conquest and their captives struggle against mind-bending mystic shackles, at Vanishing Point Supernova attacks but is unable to stop the Linear Men and Time Stealers getting away.

In the other-dimensional realm, Hunter takes a huge chance and the heroes escape imprisonment but are sucked into a time vortex. The gamble succeeds and the liberated champions recover in time to chase Serhattu and Skyle to the site of the first Atomic Bomb test and stop their attempt to steal the awesome unknown power for themselves.

After returning Starfire, Claw and the mages to their rightful places, the heroes press on, unaware that the Black Beetle has betrayed the Time Stealers and Linear Men to steal the time-warping powers locked in remains of chronal-energy being Waverider…

Hunter’s team are again diverted however by time-travelling psychopath Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash who wants the Omega energy causing Batman’s time-ricochets for his own…

As they battle the super-fast maniac, elsewhen Supernova attacks Black Beetle, and another player co-opts the Waverider power. With time in flux the battles bleed into one another and Hunter’s heroes meet the Time Stealers, Linear Man and Supernova for one final catastrophic clash…

Fast-paced, deviously compelling and extraordinarily convoluted, this is the kind of Fights ‘n’ Tights clash die-hard comic fans live for: a complex saga full of fights, inside jokes or references and impossible situations all surmounted by bold heroes in full saviour mode. It’s just a pure shame that such excellent work excludes so many readers who would certainly enjoy it if only they had the neceassry background history to hand.

Furious fun and thrills for those in the know, or anyone willing to trade comprehension for non-stop action…
© 2010, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Booster Gold volume 3: Reality Lost


By Chuck Dixon, Dan Jurgens & Norm Rapmund (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2249-9                  978-1-84856-250-9 (Titan Books UK edition)

After the cosmos-crunching Crisis on Infinite Earths re-sculpted the DC Universe in 1986, a host of characters got floor-up rebuilds for the tougher, no-nonsense, straight-shooting New American readership of the Reagan era.

Corporate buy-outs such as Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and The Question were assimilated into DC’s roster beside revamped versions of their own hotly hyped solo titles. There were even all-new launches for the altered sensibilities of the Decade of Excess: tradition-challenging concepts such as Suicide Squad and a shiny, happy, headline-hungry hero named Booster Gold.

The cobalt & yellow paladin debuted amidst plenty of hoopla in his own title (February 1986 – the first post-Crisis premiere of the freshly integrated superhero line) presenting wholly different approaches to DC’s army of old-school costumed boy-scouts.

Created, written and drawn by Dan Jurgens, the saga featured a brash, cockily mysterious metahuman golden-boy jock who had set up his stall as a superhero in Metropolis, actively seeking corporate sponsorships, selling endorsements and with a management team in place to maximise the profit potential of his crusading celebrity.

Accompanied everywhere by sentient, flying, football-shaped robot Skeets, the glitzy showboat soon encountered high-tech criminal gang The 1000 and a host of super-villains, earning the ire of many sinister masterminds and the shallow approbation of models, actresses, headline-hungry journalists, politicians and the ever fickle public…

His time came and went and Booster’s title folded, but he lived on as part of Justice League International where he became roughly half of comics’ funniest double-act riffing off the aforementioned Blue Beetle.

Booster and Ted Kord (technically the second Blue Beetle) were the class clowns of billionaire Maxwell Lord‘s League: a couple of obnoxiously charming frat-boys who could save the day but never get the girl or any respect. When Lord murdered Beetle, precipitating an Infinite Crisis, Booster was shattered but eventually redefined himself as a true hero in the multiversal conflagrations of 52 and Countdown.

In landmark weekly maxi-series 52 and ultimately Infinite Crisis, the intriguing take on Heroism diverged down strange avenues when Booster – a hero traditionally only in it for fame and fortune – became a secret saviour, repairing the cracks in Reality caused by all the universe-warping shenanigans of myriad multiversal Crises and uncontrolled time-travel.

Working at the instruction of enigmatic and irascible mentor Rip Hunter: Time Master, Booster relinquished his dreams of fame and acclaim to save us all over and over and over again.

This third time-bending full-colour collection gathers issues #11, 12 and 15-19 of the Booster Gold comicbook (volume 2, spanning October 2008 to June 2009), revealing further progress in the time-guardians’ never-ending battle to keep history on track and mankind in existence.

The action opens with Jurgens & Norm Rapmund illustrating a sequence scripted by Batman scribe Chuck Dixon. ‘Vicious Cycle’ finds Rip, Booster and his freshly resurrected sister Michelle at a loss after a recent Gotham visit. After Batman, Robin and Batgirl rout B-list bad guy Killer Moth at Gotham Museum, a simultaneous robbery by meekly ineffectual Wiley Dalbert causes the dynamic trio to blink out of existence…

After experiencing the urban hell of Gotham without Batman, the team start trying to rectify the situation and learn Killer Moth’s score was planned by Dalbert as cover so that the little time traveller could swipe an ancient Egyptian knife.

Popping back further to sneakily replace the Moth, Booster clandestinely carries out the fateful robbery and stops Wiley too… but that only makes the restored reality infinitely worse…

Forced to try again – this time with Booster as Batman and Michelle impersonating Batgirl – events spiral into even crazier and more contorted convolutions (humiliating too!) before an approximate restoration of history is re-established…

Sadly the time-team’s ultra-secret efforts have brought them to the attention of stretchable sleuth Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man…

Following a two-part battle against Chronos and Starro the Conqueror – not collected in this edition- the temporal turbulence resumes with ‘Reality Lost’ from #15-18 plus #19’s ‘Reality Lost: Epilogue’; written and pencilled by Jurgens with Rapmund again handling the inking chores.

Having dragged Michelle from her surprise role as Da Vinci’s muse, Booster tries to return them to Rip’s secret lab only to find it no longer exists. Thanks to Skeets’ encyclopaedic history files and temporal processors, the stranded chrononauts discover the current crisis stems from unfinished business at the museum where they met Wiley Dalbert…

Booster sets his Wayback Machine for that apparently accursed night, and walks into a trap and is attacked by Dibny. A few years from then they would be best friends in Justice League International, but at that instant the blue and gold figure is nothing more than a bold bandit as far as the Ductile Detective is concerned…

Concealing the horrors which would soon destroy Dibny’s life, Booster nevertheless convinces Elongated Man of his bona fides before enlisting his aid in tracking down the time anomaly playing hob with reality. The root cause is the ancient knife, but the real problem is that it’s been taken by Booster’s villainous, time-bending dad Rex Hunter, precipitating a perilous odyssey through the ages to recover it…

Leaving Ralph and Michelle to search time for Rip Hunter, Gold starts to hunt for the accursed blade…

Poignant pit-stops in World War I, ancient Egypt and his personal time-line result in deadly encounters with Enemy Ace Hans von Hammer, pre-lightning bolt Barry Allen, time-bandit Chronos, and even his own earlier, surlier, self-absorbed self. Through it all Booster learns the true price and value of his secret career.

Preserving the way things are causes pain and humiliation, costs everything he ever cared about and promises nothing but frustration and early death. He even had a chance to save Ted Kord after meeting Max Lord’s father before the maniac was born but lacked the guts to do what he wanted to…

After the triumph and tragedy, a potent vignette by Jurgens & Rapmund wraps things up with a recap of Booster’s ‘Origins and Omens’ of his immediate future: first seen as a teaser produced during the lead-up to twinned publishing events Blackest Night and Brightest Day

Sadly, despite its dark and foreboding appeal, moments of sheer comedy gold and fast-paced action throughout, this engaging rollercoaster ride is ultimately a true fans’ story for die-hard Fights ‘n’ Tights devotees. That’s a great shame since this is also a fabulously well-crafted story that a wider audience would certainly appreciate if only they had sufficient back-grounding.

Perhaps DC’s current TV iterations will generate enough interest to get new readers picking up old stories and joining in the fun that’s still waiting to be had…
© 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Booster Gold volume 4: Day of Death


By Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2643-5

After the cosmos-crunching Crisis on Infinite Earths re-sculpted the DC Universe in 1986, a host of characters got floor-up rebuilds for the tougher, no-nonsense, straight-shooting New American readership of the Reagan-era.

A number of corporate buy-outs such as Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and The Question were assimilated into DC’s roster with their own hotly hyped solo titles. There were even a couple of all-new big launches for the altered sensibilities of the Decade of Excess such as Suicide Squad and a shiny, happy, headline-hungry hero named Booster Gold.

The blue and yellow paladin debuted amidst plenty of hoopla in his own title (cover-dated February 1986 – the first post-Crisis premiere of the freshly integrated superhero line) and presented a wholly different approach to the traditional DC costumed boy-scout.

Created, written and drawn by Dan Jurgens, the saga featured a brash, cockily mysterious metahuman golden-boy jock who had set up his stall as a superhero in Metropolis, actively seeking corporate sponsorships, selling endorsements and with a management team in place to maximise the profit potential of his crusading celebrity.

Accompanied everywhere by sentient flying-football-shaped robot Skeets, the glitzy showboat soon encountered high-tech criminal gang The 1000 and a host of super-villains, earning the ire of many sinister masterminds and the shallow approbation of models, actresses, headline-hungry journalists, politicians and the ever fickle public…

His time came and went and Booster’s title folded, but he lived on as a Justice Leaguer International where he became part of comics’ funniest double-act riffing off the aforementioned Blue Beetle.

Booster and Ted Kord (technically the second Blue Beetle) were the class clowns of Maxwell Lord’s Justice League International: a couple of obnoxiously charming frat-boys who could save the day but never get the girl or any respect. When Lord murdered Beetle, precipitating an Infinite Crisis, Booster was shattered but redefined himself as a true hero in the multiversal conflagrations of 52 and Countdown.

In landmark weekly maxi-series 52 and ultimately Infinite Crisis, the intriguing take on Heroism diverged down strange avenues when Booster – a hero traditionally only in it for fame and fortune – became a secret saviour, repairing the cracks in Reality caused by all the universe-warping shenanigans of myriad universal, multiversal Crises and uncontrolled time-travel.

Working at the instruction of enigmatic and irascible mentor Rip Hunter: Time Master, Booster surrendered all his dreams of acclaim to save us all over and over and over again.

This fourth time-bending full-colour trade paperback collects Booster Gold volume 2 #20-25 and Brave and the Bold volume 3 #23 from July to December 2009, and continues reviewing catastrophic conflicts from the time-line guardian’s never-ending battle to keep history on track and mankind in existence.

The action opens with ‘Shadows of Tomorrow’ from Brave and the Bold volume 3 #23 July 2009, by Jurgens and inker Norm Rapmund as, in his citadel beyond chronology, Booster is shocked to see his mentor Rip rematerialise in a badly beaten state, muttering the name “Magog”. A little checking reveals the name belongs to a hulking horned metahuman: a hero – of sorts – and despite the recuperating Hunter’s pleas to leave well enough alone, Booster slips into the time-stream to confront the military-trained hardliner…

The trail leads to war-torn Kahndaq during the US occupation and a tenuous team-up with a colleague who is everything Booster despises: a self-righteous hero who thinks the ends justify the means, even with the lives of hostage children precariously in the balance…

Booster Gold #20 featured ‘1952 Pick Up’ (by Keith Giffen, Pat Oliffe & Rapmund) – a light-hearted homage to B-movie sci fi and the Fantastic Four as the time traveller fetches up in early 1950s Nevada on the site of a clandestine and forgotten American space shot…

Before long he’s captured by covert operatives Frank Rock and Karin Hughes from an invisible agency dubbed Task Force X and embroiled in a secret mission involving traitorous Russian rocket scientists… and if he’s not extremely careful Booster could erase the timeline of a close future-friend and colleague…

The major portion of this collection then moves on to cover some unexpected fallout of the murder of the Dark Knight.

The only non-Time Master to know Booster’s secret was Batman. His deductive skills were beyond par and after noticing recurring anomalies around the shooting of Barbara Gordon the Dark Detective intuited Booster had tried hundreds of times to prevent it. Batman held his tongue as well as many photographs which proved Booster was not just a flashy, sensation-seeking bumbler…

Now as ‘Day of Death’ begins Booster raids the Batcave to retrieve that evidence only to be jumped by the Gotham Guardian’s successor…

Before he can even attempt to explain, they are both ambushed by the mysterious chronal raider called Black Beetle continuing to carry out his campaign to unmake history. Pausing only to gloat for a second the Beetle vanishes, followed an instant later by the substitute Batman…

And in the background a second glass tube appears. They both contain the uniforms of Robins who died in battle…

As I’m sure you all recall: following an all-out invasion by the New Gods of Apokolips, the original Batman was apparently killed at the conclusion of Infinite Crisis. The world at large was unaware of the loss, leaving the superhero community to mourn in secret whilst a small, dedicated army of assistants, protégés and allies – trained over years by the contingency-obsessed Dark Knight – formed the Network to police Gotham City in the days which followed: marking time until a successor could be found or the original restored…

Most of the Bat-schooled battalion refused to believe their inspirational mentor dead. On the understanding that he was merely lost, they eventually accepted Dick Grayson (the first Robin and latterly Nightwing) as a stand-in until Bruce Wayne could find his way back to them…

Now however Grayson has clearly been excised by Black Beetle and Booster has to rectify the situation before time unravels even further…

A new chapter opens with the Beetle conferring with a cloaked superior even as Booster consults his infinitely upgraded cybernetic companion who is keyed into to the ever-changing intricacies of the time-stream. Skeets informs Booster that the landmark first battle between the Teen Titans and the Ravager now ended with the young heroes’ deaths and like an intricate line of dominoes led to the eradication of most of Earth’s adult defenders… and worse…

Inserting himself into the appropriate moment to rectify the glitch, Booster is shocked to see Ravager’s terrifying father Deathstroke the Terminator aligned with Black Beetle to ensure the Titans’ doom…

Overwhelmed and beaten, Booster awakes to discover he’s failed again. The Teen Titans are dead and Rip Hunter is screaming at him. Also on the scene is mystic mystery Raven. She originally caused the Titans to unite, hoping to use them to stop her demonic sire Trigon conquering Earth, but now…

Hunter quickly ferries Booster and the witch to 2020AD to see what becomes of humanity. His actual plan is to find Black Beetle and try to glean the reason for his insane acts…

In that particular future Trigon idly presides over the last remnants of mankind with the Beetle at his side, but as Booster finds himself battling the demon lord, Hunter and Raven have united with a few strangely familiar characters in one glorious, last-ditch attempt to banish Trigon and unmake this fractured reality.

Although they are triumphant, the real battle is lost elsewhere as the Beetle raids Trigon’s treasure vault and steals the artefact he’s been after all along. Despite his best efforts Hunter is too slow to stop the Machiavellian monster stealing a scarlet scarab which promises unlimited power to the one who knows its secret…

With the greater game lost and the Beetle off the field, Booster finally has the leeway needed to fix the most urgent section of time and correct history, but is it all too little too late?

Everything is wrapped up and the scene set for the next catastrophic crisis when ‘Day of Death Aftermath’ sees Booster return to the Batcave for those photos and get the shock of his utterly unconventional life…

Fantastically absorbing and entertaining, this riotous romp is tragically a true fans’ story for die-hard comics mavens, with in-jokes and shared historical moments adding to the unbridled enthusiasm and exuberance of a classy time-busting tale. That’s a great pity since this is also a fabulously well-crafted story that a wider audience would certainly appreciate if only they had sufficient back-grounding.

I’m in touch with the continuity and still struggled occasionally but I’d love to be proved wrong and see if a total innocent could follow this nuanced little gem and get the buzz it gave me…

Who’s game to give it a go?
© 2009, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Blue Beetle: Black and Blue


By Matthew Sturges, Will Pfeifer, Mike Norton, David Baldeón, Carlo Barberi & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-85768-016-7

At the height of the Infinite Crisis El Paso teenager Jaime Reyes found a strange bug-shaped blue jewel. That night it attached itself to his spine, transforming him into a bizarre insectoid warrior. He was promptly swept up in the universe-rending chaos, aiding Batman and other heroes in a space battle. He was lost for a year…

Finally returned home, he revealed his secret to his family and tried to do some good in El Paso but had to rapidly adjust to some big changes. His best bud Paco had joined a gang of super-powered freaks, the local crime mastermind was the foster-mom of his other best bud Brenda and a really scary military dude named Peacemaker started hanging around, claiming the thing in Jaime’s back was malfunctioning alien tech not life-affirming Egyptian magic…

The Scarabs were designed to pave the way for a full invasion but fortunately the one attached to Jaime had been damaged over the centuries it was buried here and wasn’t working properly. With a little help from his friends and the newly rebellious gem itself Jaime thwarted the rapacious and infinitely patient invaders of The Reach and continued his unlikely mission as protector of El Paso and superhero in training.

The Hispanic Blue Beetle pluckily battled on as a back-up feature in Booster Gold and as a Teen Titan and this final volume (or perhaps not, since rumours of a Blue Beetle TV show still abound…) collects the previously-uncollected issues #27, 28, 35 and 36 of his own comicbook plus the Booster Gold back-ups from volume 2, issues #21-25 and 28-29 for your undoubted approval, courtesy of writers Matthew Sturges and Will Pfeifer and artist Mike Norton, David Baldeón, Carlo Barberi, Steve Bird, Jacob Eguren, Norm Rapmund & Sandra Hope.   J. Torres & Freddie Williams Jr. and battles one of the DC Universe’s gravest menaces in the startlingly powerful change of pace tale ‘Total Eclipso: the Heart’ by Rogers & Albuquerque.

The wonderment commences with ‘Black Magic Woman’ as Jaime and new girlfriend Traci Thirteen stumble onto an out-of-control supernatural vengeance plot instigated by a trio of slacker teens that looks likely to rip El Paso apart. Good thing then that our hero’s significant other is one of the most powerful witches on Earth…

Following that is a superb little yarn of generational evil, forgiveness and redemption guest-starring original Blue Beetle Dan Garrett which perfectly illustrates how much the kid hero had grown in the monstrous parable of ‘Brutus’, after which the continuity jumps to issue #35 (and if you’re a chronology-fiend here’s where Blue Beetle: Boundaries should go, so if you need to, read that before continuing…).

The solo comicbook concluded in a tense, life-changing two-parter ‘Only Change Endures’ which opened with a horde of the second Blue Beetle’s old foes attacking El Paso only to be soundly thrashed by his youthful successor. During the fray Jaime realised something was severely amiss with his scarab: it was becoming increasingly bloodthirsty and constantly urged him to use deadly force options from its vast weapons array…

At school romance was in the air, but when a battalion of other scarab-powered Blue Beetles calling themselves the “Khaji-Da Revolutionary Army” the situation went from hearts and flowers to def-con four …

Apparently when Jaime defeated the all-conquering alien Reach (Blue Beetle: Reach for the Stars) he inadvertently started a dissident movement amongst the interlinked insectoid warriors. Now they want Jaime to lead them in a bloody war of liberation across the galaxies and although the human was appalled by the thought his rebellious scarab was overwhelmingly in favour…

Of course it all ends in a devastating blockbuster battle, but before Jaime can regain control of his symbiotic scarab one of his closest friends pays the ultimate price and life just isn’t so much fun anymore…

After a brief sojourn in funnybook limbo Blue Beetle returned as a supporting strip in Booster Gold and those tales follow here, starting with a reintroduction and recap in ‘The Golden Child’ – part one of the thee-chapter ‘Armour-Plated’ wherein Jaime tackled a succession of robots with daddy-issues, resulting in excessive carnage and destruction in ‘Silver Spoon’ before ‘Thoroughly Modern Maria’ ended the drama on a cliffhanger when future villain Black Beetle turned up to instigate a centuries-long vendetta in the two-part ‘Black and Blue’ by attempting to murder the entire Reyes family…

The saga reached a climactic conclusion when old tutor Peacemaker helped heal the madly malfunctioning scarab in ‘The Beginning of the End’ after which a mission to the ancient Reach pyramid set everything to rights (for the moment at least) in the spectacular ‘The End of the End’.

Although long-gone as a comicbook series the latest incarnation of the undying Blue Beetle brand still survives and thrives in trade paperback collections where you can – and must – experience the frantic, fun, thrill-packed and startlingly moving exploits of a truly ordinary teenager catapulted into the terrifying world of high-level super-heroics.

Hopefully with the TV series apparently completed and awaiting scheduling, a new comicbook series can’t be too far away, so what better time can there be to finally tune in and catch up with all of these addictive super-teen triumphs?

© 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.