Customer Reviews

Showcase Presents: Booster Gold, Vol. 1

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In his introduction, Booster Gold was considered not-your-normal hero. He was in it for the fame, fortune, and girls. While other heroes might disappear after a good deed, Booster Gold would stick around as long as it took for the reporters and television to arrive. Not your normal good guy, his flippant yet fun attitude made his comics different. This collection holds Booster Gold issues 1-25, along with a single issue of Action Comics where he met up with Superman again.

The stories here are fun, and there is this mysterious quality about him for a while as his origin is slowly revealed. Who is he? How did he get a Legion flight ring? Was he some other hero in disguise? The answers come quickly, but the fun keeps on going. I keep stressing fun because it's important you understand this isn't some dark brooding Batman comic. This is a hero who doesn't take himself seriously very often, and wants the glory for every good deed.

The artwork throughout is nice, but naturally the best issue is the one penciled by John Byrne. Still, there's not a shabby page in the bunch. Oh yeah, and Skeets is in there too!

I hope they release the next Showcase volume soon. With Booster's recent more serious turn in his new series, it's interesting to see his lighter side when he first started out.

In the 80's DC's stodgy line of square-jawed heroes was shaken up by the brash and (for the time) hip Booster Gold. Unlike other heroes he used his heroic deeds to land endorsement deals, make money and date starlets.

This low-price collection shows off his story.

Of course readers will have to endure 80s relics. Not just the Miami Vice fashions but also that type of comic story-telling with simplistic villains, bad costumes and heavy-handed melodrama. And the book ends with a bit of a whimper as it is forced to play a minor role in a forgotten crossover event.

But for your $15 it's a fine deal.

BG is not a grade A hero, but that's part of the fun of the book. Even he knows that. Unlike other superheroes, BG wants to be rich and famous. He has tremendous self-doubt and tons of people hate him.

This is mildly diverting superhero fare that's worth a read, esp at this price. Skip the last 5 or so issues before the last one though, they're pretty terrible (aliens from another dimension, that kind of thing). Before that though, BG manages to be pretty interesting take on the hero from the future archetype. Unlike every other hero from the future he actually does what a human would do and plays the stock market and tries to become famous. Also culture shock often leads to predictably amusing results.

As a whole, the book is always amusing, but never outright funny and generally good but never great.

Score would be more like a 3.5 if that was an option.

Nowadays, if superheroes are your cup of tea, you can find ones with nearly any personality quirk you could think of. But a couple decades back, this wasn't as much the case, so a hero like Booster Gold had a nice original feel. In particular, Booster was one of the shallowest heroes around: vain and interested primarily in money and glory. He was perfectly willing to save the world, but he wanted everyone to know he did it, and that he did it well.

Written and drawn by Dan Jurgens in the post-Crisis DC Universe, Booster Gold was introduced in issue 1 of the magazine of the same name. Though this is his first story, Booster is already an established hero in Metropolis, trying to take over Superman's territory. He is assisted by a small flying robot named Skeet and initially is fighting a mysterious group called the 1000. Within a few issues, we go back to the beginning of Booster's story: he is really Michael Carter, a disgraced football player from the 25th century, who has traveled back in time with some high tech devices to give him his powers. His first real adventure averted an attempted presidential assassination, giving him a good reputation right off the bat.

Other issues deal with additional fights with the 1000, a trip back to the future and tussles with Superman and Lex Luthor. All the while, Booster has other things to cope with: movie deals, commercial endorsements and the like. In these efforts, he is assisted by his agent Dirk Davis and loyal assistant Trixie Collins. Booster's saga in his own comic would end in issue 25, so the entire run is in this Showcase volume, though he would still hang out with the Justice League.

Perhaps the great strength in these comics is that Jurgens doesn't play Booster for laughs, though his personality could lend itself to humor. Instead, this is regular superhero fare, and this only emphasizes how shallow Booster really is. This is good, but not great material, and its not surprising that Booster Gold never really took off: despite his spotlight seeking, Booster will never get out of the shadows of the DC greats like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. But if you want to read the stories of a slightly change-of-page 1980s superhero, Booster Gold is a decent read.

The 52 series a few years ago relaunched Booster Gold as a viable superhero, to the extent that Booster nowadays has got his own comic book again and a new mission in life safeguarding the DC universe's time stream. Even today Booster's got that rep as a self-absorbed, publicity-seeking hero, but now he uses that as a cover. Back in the 1980s, though, he really was as advertised. When creator/writer/artist Dan Jurgens first introduced him (and I consider this series to be Jurgens' best work), Booster Gold was a breath of fresh air, something different and (for my money) more true to life than his more altruistic contemporaries who were quick to disparage the heck out of him. In this humongous trade, we get to relive Michael Jon Carter's early years as this mysterious figure who appeared out of nowhere to become Metropolis's newest (and most crass) crime fighter. And, as it promptly unfolds, we learn that this guy isn't at all allergic to product endorsements and guest stints on talk shows. There's no surprise at all when Booster Gold incurs Superman's instant disapproval. Even with repeated readings, dude still doesn't establish a good first impression. You gotta love it.

There are several neat things about Booster Gold, and, yes, I do think that Booster's self-indulgence, grandstanding, and obsession with being the media darling is a neat thing. Casual readers are already aware that Booster Gold is a man displaced from time, having illegally time traveled from the year 2462 to the present (which, back then, was the '80s) so that he could make a better life for himself. In the 25th century, Michael Carter was a disgraced star football quarterback who had been languishing as a lowly security guard at the Space Museum. So, even back then, time travel was very much part and parcel of Booster's make-up. I dug that Booster had artificial super powers. The best part is that these powers were generated from artifacts Booster had stolen from his 25th century work place. A power suit, a Legion flight ring, Brainiac 5's force field belt. When I first read this decades ago, I quickly realized the inevitability of the Legion popping in somewhere down the line (this happens in issues #8-9).

SHOWCASE PRESENTS: BOOSTER GOLD collects BOOSTER GOLD's entire first run (issues #1-25, but in black & white), as well as ACTION COMICS #594, in which Booster again faces off against the Man of Steel and this time gets the upper hand. As the first issue opens up, Booster had already been hogging the spotlight in Metropolis for two months, although no one knew much about him. This includes his inner circle: his secretary Trixie and his agent Dirk Davis. Two regulars in the current series show up eventually, Rip Hunter, the Time Master, and Booster's twin sister Michelle (a.k.a. Goldstar). And, as ever, Booster's impetuous behavior is somewhat kept in check by his little (and wiser) robot sidekick, Skeets.

In between the ego trips and the glamorous life and the shameless product pushing, Booster actually punches the clock and safeguards Metropolis from crime. His main adversary during this series is the 1000, a nefarious hi-tech criminal organization that had built a sprawling compound underneath Metropolis (and what's up with that, Superman?). Several of the issues tie-in with the LEGENDS and MILLENNIUM events. Booster foils an invasion from Dimension X (but this has a tragic twist... until Booster's new series came along and rectified it). But maybe the best story arc in this run is the terrific two-parter in which Booster manages to save President Reagan from an alien shape-shifting assassin while getting to also hang out with the Legion of Super-Heroes. And, by "hanging out," what I mean is that the Legion believes Booster to actually be the one trying to assassinate Reagan.

One of DC Comics' high points was when Giffen, DeMatteis, and Maguire were ruling the world with their Justice League run, and that comic book's popularity was spearheaded by Booster Gold and his good pal Blue Beetle. I'm glad that Showcase Presents has finally featured Booster Gold. It gives new readers a chance to get the back story on this corporate hero who is more well meaning that you'd think. For longtime readers like me, it's another sip of nostalgia, and I can't believe I'd regard something from as recent as the '80s as nostalgic. I am an old dude.

Now if DC would only release a Showcase Presents volume of Blue Beetle's run. Because I still miss Ted Kord.

This book contains the complete run of the classic "Booster Gold" comic book of the 1980s as well as a handful of other comics, including a crossover with "Action Comics" with Superman and a "Secret Origins." Booster was different from the start. Often funny, the comics chronicles Booster Gold's first adventures as he goes back in time from the 25th century to the modern age to be a hero and win fortune and fame. Booster is a relentless self-promoter; pushing his own movie rights, pouting when the press is not around, arguing with Superman about being a superhero. There are parts of the book that really don't quite fit, especially towards the end as various plots and greater stories intrude. The editors really should have included notes as to what was happening (much as they have in the recent collections of the JLI comics). While Booster is at center stage (just as he would want it), there is an excellent supporting cast: Skeets, Booster's funny robot guide, his worshipful sister Michelle and his spunky secretary Trixie. If Booster is a second rate hero, his villains are decidedly third rate and not well fleshed out. Still, this work is a must have for any Booster fans and shows his development as a hero.