Booster Gold #14

Booster Gold #14
Cover Date: March 1987
Creative Team: Dan Jurgens (Writer and Pencils)/Mike De Carlo (Inks)/John Constanza (Letterer)/Gene D'Angelo (Colors)/Barbara Randall (Editor)

Summary

It’s still 2462, and Booster is quite upset that his mother is dead and his sister is missing. He starts punching the walls of their old apartment building until the cops get called and he and Trixie have to run.

Trixie asks Booster why they had to run so fast, and Booster explains that unauthorized time travel is super-illegal, to the point of being about the same as “detonating a nuclear bomb in a church.” Ah, yes, who could forget Beneath the Planet of the Apes?

Dr. Soo and Rip Hunter are trying to get their time machine to work again…and failing. Rip eventually comes to the conclusion that they can’t repair the ship with the materials they have on hand, and will have to venture out into the strange world of the future if they ever hope to get home.

In fact, the year 2462 turns out to be largely the same as 1986, which confuses the men, as they had hoped for more advancement, because the future essentially looks like the present, except with more television screen mounted everywhere. They also hear that Booster has been sighted by the cops.

Booster and Trixie, still in the Goldstar suit, try running back to the safety of the time sphere, only for it to be blown to bits by a couple of cops on hoverbikes. They manage to take down to the future-police, but have to flee before reinforcements arrive, meaning they’ll be forced to leave Dr. Soo and Rip on their own. And, moments after they leave, Soo and Rip do come back to find the time sphere in ruins.

Over the city, Booster and Trixie keep flying, and Trixie wants to talk to Booster about everything that’s going on. She asks if they should find a doctor to help Booster deal with that terminal illness. Oh yeah, that thing. Booster's not really all that concerned about that. Trixie suggest they turn themselves to the police for help with that as well as finding Dr. Soo and Rip, and Booster points out that doing so would end up with him getting imprisoned for a very long time on account of his many crimes in this era. Trixie demands to know what Booster is going to do, because she doesn’t want to “rot in some yucky jail.” And all Booster can do is try and comfort her with a hug.

At the future-police headquarters, the cops have decided to call in an ‘Animal’ to deal with Booster, and they all realize that things are about to get messy.

Dr. Soo and Rip, out of ideas, head to the local library, and try to access files about time travel to help them figure out a way to get back to their proper time. They don’t find anything that isn’t censored by the government. Rip suggests looking up his own biographical information for leads, and the men find out that the records were lost in a nuclear war, explaining why 2462 isn’t as advanced as it should be. Dr. Soo points out that the coming apocalypse will probably happen in their lifetimes, and wonders if going back to the ‘80s is really worth it.

Booster and Trixie are still milling about without a plan, until Booster decides they should get some normal clothes and look for Dr. Soo and Rip. Trixie suggests looking for Booster’s sister, which he doesn’t seem particularly interested in doing. Before they can do any of that, though, they get attacked by the “Animal” which turns out to be a mutant raised by that state for the primary purpose of hunting other mutants, and is a giant bald man unable to even speak a single intelligible word. Booster still doesn’t have any power for his suit, so he’s useless,  Trixie, still trying to figure out how her suit works, knocks Animal onto a hoverboat that she then manages to blow up, sending the mutant to the bottom of the harbor. Since she's against killing people, even mutants,  she uses the rest of her suit’s energy rescuing the Animal, which gets both her and Booster arrested by the police.

At future-police headquarters, Broderick, a federal agent, strolls in to announce that the state will let Booster see a doctor to find a cure for his illness, but it's going to be a waste of time, because he’s scheduled for an execution the next day.

Elsewhere, Soo and Rip are able to sell the “antique” money in their wallets for the supplies they need to bring Skeets back online…just in time for the police to track them down as well. To be continued! 

Continuity!

-The 21st Century nuclear war is another reference to Hex, since the aftermath of that war was the setting for that comic, which actually got cancelled the month before this issue of Booster Gold came out.

Review

I guess my biggest problem with this series is that it should be more ambiguous than it is. After all, the reason that Booster is in so much trouble is because he stole a time machine and dicked around in the past which could have erased every single person from existence. That's kind of a bad thing, and Booster should have to deal with the consequences from it.

Instead, it's played more like the government is the bad guy here, sending marauder hover patrols to hunt the protagonists and employing giant mutants to beat the crap out of Booster before summarily sentencing him to death without a trial.

But, the thing is, Booster is definitely guilty of all of the things they're accusing him of, and he's not repentant about it in the least, and making the government be the clear bad guys here kind of strikes a false chord. After all, Booster isn't really that good of a guy. He's lied, cheated and stolen. There should be a bit more subtlety to this story other than Booster and friends defeating some mildly authoritarian future government.

A more minor problem is that Booster has been dying for the past few issues, but hasn't really shown any symptoms of sickness, and doesn't really seem all that concerned about it, either. Granted, that was a just a cheap device to justify the main cast heading to the future, but it would be nice to have it treated with something a bit more substantial than lip service from Trixie.