Booster Gold #19

Booster Gold #19
"Revenge of the Rainbow Raider"
Cover Date: August 1987
Creative Team: Dan Jurgens (Writer and Pencils)/Al Vey (Inks)/Duncan Andrews (Letterer)/Gene D'Angelo (Colors)/Barbara Randall (Editor)

Summary

The stock market has fallen, and that makes Booster sad! But he has no time to dwell on that, because he’s due at an important art show!

At said art show, which is hosting paintings by a guy named Morris, Booster meets up with his old ex-girlfriend Monica Lake. As you might recall, their last conversation did not end well. This one goes no better, as both are still bitter, and snipe loudly at each other. Booster also feeds Monica’s date a bogus stock tip in a final act of spite.

Booster finds Morris, and offers to buy all of the art on display because…I don’t know, but he wants them! All of them! But Morris has a low opinion of Booster, for obvious reasons, and has no interest in selling his work to the such a gaudy hero. Booster can’t believe that anyone would put principles above money.

The Rainbow Rider, lamest of all of Flash’s rogues, then bursts in an accuses Morris of being a hack! Also, he has color-coded beams that can affect people’s emotions, and he hits Booster with his yellow beam, which makes Booster a coward, leaving him incapable of doing anything as Rainbow Rider steals all of the art and escapes. Lois Lane, who was also attending the art show, thinks about how this will be great fuel for an expose.

Rainbow Rider goes home and thinks about his origin, because all of the people wanted to know about the early life of Roy G. Bivolo! Biviolo was a wimpy artist type growing up, until Morris befriended him. They both went to the same art school, but Roy found it hard to succeed, since he had total color blindness, and evidently could not conceive of working in grayscale. Morris, being his friend, suggested they work together, and he became the front man for their collaborations, which quickly became a runaway success. Morris then cut him out of the partnership, causing Roy to drop out of art school out of a sense of betrayal. Roy’s father then died, but not before inventing some goggles that were supposed to cure Roy’s color-blindness, but only gave him superpowers instead. Roy then became a criminal because he felt rejected by society and got his ass kicked by the Flash a million, billion times. But the Barry Allen Flash is dead, and he doesn’t much feel like fucking with Wally West, so he’s come to Metropolis to get revenge on Morris.

At the Booster Manor, Dirk comes in showing Booster a scathing editorial that Lois Lane has written about him. Booster suggests they demand the Daily Planet retract the story, but Dirk is skeptical that Perry White will play ball. 

Also, Morris’ insurance agent has arrived. The insurance agent explains that his company is obligated to pay Morris quite a bit of money if they can’t recover the art, so he’d like to hire Booster to fight Rainbow Rider and get the paintings back. Booster claims that he isn’t a hero for hire, which is sort of, technically true, and also that, with the Lane story, he really can’t take the publicity hit of working for an insurance company. But he will do it for free to settle the score against the Rider.

Somewhere out west, Michelle is traveling through America, and stops at a motel. She handles a suitcase and thinks about how angry Booster would be if he knew the contents. Also, some kids from the next room over look at her suspiciously.

On the way to the Rider, Skeets points out that Booster doesn’t really need to money from being a hero, and asks why Booster still does it. Booster claims he’s doing it for fun.

Booster and the Rider face off again, and Booster somehow loses pretty badly. Rider sprays Skeets with black light, knocking the robot out of the fight, and then blasts Booster with white light, draining him of color and blinding the hero. To be continued!

Continuity!

-House ad for Wild Dog, the greatest hero to ever hail from the Quad Cities.

Review

A two-parter starring the Rainbow fucking Raider? No wonder this comic got cancelled.

But seriously, the Rainbow Raider is just not a villain who's going to enhance many stories. If you're doing a Silver Age type story, something fast paced, and centered around action and spectacle, then maybe it could work, but any story that involves any thought from the reader whatsoever is going to run aground if Rainbow Raider is the main villain.

And this isn't an action-packed story. In fact, there's only one real fight scene in the book, and it ends with Rainbow Raider pulling out a whole bunch of random light powers and blinding Booster. Also, we get the origin story of the Rainbow Raider, which I don't think anyone really wanted to see. I mean, color-blindness doesn't really create a ton of pathos for a character, even if he is a painter, and especially if his knee-jerk reaction to failing as a painter is to dress up as a rainbow-themed super-villain.

The other problem is with the insurance agent, and Booster explaining to Skeets that he really isn't doing the super-heroics for any reason but kicks at this point. That's a pretty big mis-step, because if Booster is just some rich asshole who does a bit of costumed heroing on the side, he's not really unique at all. Hell, he's just Iron Man with blue accents. The premise of the story as it started was that Booster was leveraging his costumed persona into making money, which was different. Now, that's been entirely subverted, and Booster is just like any other hero, except with a bit more money, and a bit more dickishness.

And that's a shame.


Also, I just realized that Booster took two bad hits in the press in this issue alone despite the fact that he's the only hero who employs a full-time PR guy. How the hell does that work?