Booster Gold #12

Booster Gold #12
Cover Date: January 1987
Creative Team:

Summary

At the ruins of the Goldstar, Inc. building, the authorities are shepherding the defeated Shockwave away as some local residents start yelling at Booster for allowing this level of destruction, which is all part of the Legends crossover. 

But that’s all a bit perfunctory, because Booster is a bit more concerned about the fact that the Director has only given him an hour to rescue Trixie and Dirk’s daughter, and so doesn’t have any time for these crossover shenanigans! As he puts it “Booster Gold will not be responsible for another death!” Well, that’s not quite the most inspiring line to exit on.

Booster flies off for the final confrontation but, as Skeets points out, he’s running out of power at an alarming rate, and they don’t have time to signal Superman or the JLA.

Back on the ground, Dirk calls a reporter “an obtuse nerd” before storming off.

In the 1000’s base near the docks, Trixie and Dirk’s daughter are being led back to their cells, and Trixie spots Senator Ballard tied up in another room. Trixie wonders “who are they going after next, the Pope?” Well, that would be exciting, because then we might get a Pope John Paul II/Booster Gold teamup. Tell me that wouldn't cause a sale spike!

Booster approaches the base, and Booster asks why Skeets shut down in the middle of the fight last issue. Skeets doesn’t know.  But there’s no more time for talk as the first wave of the Director’s goons emerge from the water to attack Booster and his robot buddy. The goons are dispatched in short order, but Booster loses even more power in the process. He and Skeets then have a conversation about the fashionability of Skeets’ fins.

Elsewhere, Dirk has decided to get more involved with this exciting story by following after Booster in his car. He thinks that, but for Booster, his daughter would be safe, but quickly concludes that “But if Boosteroo is truly the hero we claim, everything will still be cool!...I hope.”

In the 1000’s base, the Director sends a few more waves of minions to ensure that Booster’s energy reserves are completely drained, including a special group of lizardmen he apparently created for this purpose.  He also reveals that Trixie seeing Senator Ballard was all part of his plan. Outside, Dirk finally arrives to lend a hand…except he’s useless, so he’s just going to stand around and wait for Booster to save the day. Booster doesn’t exactly have a strong bench of supporting characters.

Eventually, when Booster has run out of energy, the Director allows him to find Trixie and Dirk’s daughter, and Booster has to give them his Legion Flight Ring to help them escape, meaning he is now completely powerless.  The Director, satisfied, orders his minions to abandon the complex so that he can fight Booster one-on-one in a final confrontation.

Booster, who was told that Ballard as still in the base, searches for the Senator, only to be blasted by Skeets as soon as he finds him, because the 1000 had somehow hacked into the futur-ebot last issue. Skeets then crashes to the ground, broken, and Ballard reveals that he was the Director all along, and that this is payback for Booster foiling a couple of his earlier plots, and now that Booster and he are on equal footing in terms of powers, he and Booster will fight to the death! But Booster is already reeling thanks to the blast from Skeets, and isn’t up to a fight, so Ballard decides to just shoot him in the head with a gun.  I guess his sense of sportsmanship only goes so far.

But Skeets has one last bit of energy left, and blasts the gun out of the Director’s hand, giving Booster time to regain his footing. The Director responds by breaking Booster’s right arm. But Booster is a former athlete and the Director is a middle-aged bureaucrat, meaning that Booster is able to get control of the fight, and is about to drag the Director to justice when a fire started by Booster in an earlier fight with some of the 1000’s minions starts to consume the base, leading to a big explosion.

Outside the ruins of the base, Trixie and Dirk watch as a battered Booster emerges from the flames, and promptly collapses. To be continued!

Continuity!

-This issue takes place during the Legends crossover, but doesn't have a crossover logo on its cover for some reason, maybe because the crossover bits consisted of one scene at the very beginning of the issue that made no real impact on the plot.

-The plot of the Legends crossover was that Darkseid was angry at the heroes of Earth for foiling his many, many schemes to conquer the universe, so he sent at agent with mind-bending powers named Glorious Godfrey to use his powers to make the public hate heroes, which would soften up the Earth for conquest. For most of the comics that were crossovers, this mainly meant that people hated super-heroes for a few issues, and occasionally rioted against them. So, that's what's happened here.

-The Director will never, ever appear again. He died on the way back to his home planet.

-Oh, I forgot to mention this in the notes for the last issue, but it turns out that Booster had been using his future knowledge to make a fortune in the stock market, making all of his efforts at branding seem kind of pointless in comparison.

Review

Well, at least that's over with.

Over the course of the first 12 issues of this comic, a full year's worth, the Director was effectively the primary antagonist in either nine or ten issues, depending on how your feel about Mr. Twister. Over the course of all of those issues, what do we know about the Director/Senator Ballard?

We know he has grandiose plans. We know that he hates Booster for foiling his plans. We...don't know much else, though. The Director just isn't a very compelling character, he's basically just your standard-issue super-villain, which is a problem, because the entire purpose of Booster Gold is that he's somehow different from other heroes.

Or, to put it differently, in what did Booster's unique characteristics make a difference in the plot? Well, I suppose the fact that his identity was public allowed the Director to kidnap some members of his supporting cast, but, then again, supporting cast members of heroes are always getting kidnapped. I just can't help but feel like you could have done this story with just about any character, and it would be virtually the same.

I mean, I can't even really say that this issue shows how much Booster has changed over the past 12 issues, because it's hard to say he's much different of a character now. I guess it shows that there is an innate goodness in him when he risks his life to save Trixie and Dirk's daughter, but it's not like Booster couldn't save them, that would have pretty much killed the series.

I think this whole Director arc has been middling, and probably should have only lasted half as long. But, as the end of the day, I don't think it's bad, or even below-average. It's just kind of bland. And hey, pretty much all super-hero books in the mid-80s DC line were bland or worse.