Booster Gold #15
Summary
It’s still 2462, and the news is reporting on how, with only
a few shopping days left until Christmas, Booster Gold is about to be executed
for his time-travel related crimes. The people on the street seem to be mostly
accepting of this verdict.
Soo and Rip hear this telecast as well, and are bummed, even
more so when the cops show up to arrest them. But Rip Hunter, Time Master that
he is, is able to punch them out as Dr. Soo realizes that he’s not one of those
adventurer-scientists when he almost breaks his hand in the fist-fight. Still,
they have no idea what their next move is until Skeets explains that he has an idea.
At a local hospital, a doctor explains that Booster’s
illness was caused by a mutated 25th century bacteria that the
medicine of the 20th century had no hope of curing. But this doctor
can fix Booster up almost instantly, as well as healing the other assorted
injuries Booster’s racked up over the past few issues. Still, as Broderick
points out, it's all basically pointless, as Booster is still going to get executed.
Elsewhere, Booster’s sister decides to do…something!
At the future version of STAR Labs, Soo and Rip manage to
use the police uniforms they stole from the cops to sneak into the building and
get the parts they need to fix Skeets and Booster’s suit. They also discover
that the rules of time travel in the DC Universe, only rarely enforced, mean
that any particular form of time travel can only be used once, as no person
could survive the strain of the same method twice. Or something. It’s best not
to think too hard about it. What that means is that they’ll need to get a new
form of time travel device to get back to the Reagan-era, and Soo has found a
mothballed “Time Platform” invented by Hex antagonist Reinhold Borsten that
just sitting in a warehouse in Metropolis.
The next day, Broderick has gathered a massive amount of
cops to escort Booster to the killing ground because he can guess where this is
heading. Still, this precaution is not enough as Soo and Rip free Booster and
Trixie, and they are then rescued by Booster’s sister, Michelle, who has stolen
a hover-schoolbus. Broderick angrily orders
his men to pursue.
Unfortunately, a school bus, even in the future, isn’t
terribly fast, so the police are able to start taking potshots from their
hoverbikes. But Soo was able to re-energize Booster’s suit, and that means it’s
time for “the world’s best-looking, best-dressed, and just plain best
super-hero to go to work!”
The party makes it to the warehouse, and Soo and Rip get the
time platform back online, as Booster tries to explain to Michelle that he’s a
super-hero in the past. She tells Booster she already knows, as she got a
picture of him and Reagan in the mail just after he left, and Skeets reveals
that he knew that Booster was destined to be a super-hero in the past, and
that’s why he let him steal the time machine in the first place, as well as
sending that photo to his family.
Broderick then arrives with the Animal from last issue, who
starts manhandling Booster again. Trixie tries to explain to Broderick that
Booster was actually a hero in the past who did important things, and finds an
article on a nearby computer about Booster from 1987, their relative future, to
prove that they all need to go back to the past to ensure history flows as it
should. Broderick ain’t buy that, and holds Trixie at gunpoint to force Booster
and his friends to surrender. But the Animal remembers Trixie saving its life
last issue, and attacks Broderick. With that loose end tied up, Booster invites
Michelle to come back in time with them, promising that she’ll be the brother
of “the most famous, handsome, and eligible guy in Metropolis!”
Michelle’s deadpan response, “Really? You found me a new
brother.” Okay, that was pretty funny.
But the scuffle has damaged the power cable, and it looks
like Booster is going to have to stay behind to hold the conduit together. But
the Animal, simple that he is, cannot comprehend or tolerate such a bittersweet
ending, and so knocks Booster into the time machine just as it activates, which
allows a recovered Broderick to kill the Animal in one last act of spite!
Booster and pals end up in a farm in Iowa in March 1987, which,
improbably enough, they all consider a good thing.
Later, to prove that Booster is really a good guy and not an asshole who just escaped punishment for his crimes, the purported hero anonymously donates a
shitton of food to a charity that the nurse who was harassing him a few issues
back works at to prove that he’s really an okay guy. The end!
Continuity!
-Booster and the rest had left the present in late 1986, meaning that they effectively "lost" four months when they returned to the 20th century.
Review
Kind of a clunker of a story. Booster is nominally the good guy, but he doesn't really do anything all that good over the course of the story. I guess he is willing to sacrifice himself to send the rest of the team back to their proper time but, then again, it's his own damn fault they're in this mess in the first place.
So, to make Booster seem like less of an asshole, they turn his opponents into fascists who want to kill Booster without giving him a trial, and simply ignore any explanation any of the protagonists offer for why Booster should be allowed to escape. This story probably could have used a bit more nuance.
The bigger problem is that this story essentially ends by restoring the characters to where they were before the story started, although they do pick up Michelle, who won't be sticking around. Booster doesn't seem all that different after his experiences in the future. Yeah, he anonymously donated all that food, but the whole 'heart of gold' schtick has been played pretty hard by Jurgens throughout the series.
It's not a bad story, but it does boil down to 'heroes go to dystopian future, find oppressive regime, escape.' And that's not exactly a fresh plot.
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