Booster Gold #1

Booster Gold #1

Cover Date: February 1986

Creative team: Dan Jurgens (Writer and Pencils)/Mike DeCarlo (Inks)/Tom Ziuko (Colors)/Augustin Mas (Letterer)/Janice Race (Editor)

Summary

Ah, Booster Gold! Some have claimed him as the first post-Crisis hero, thus making him a bit of a historic curiosity in that regard.

Inside the offices of Blaze Comics, the most metatextual of all fictional comic book publishers, an editor is sitting at his desk, bemoaning on how he needs a new hero for his comics, one that will drive sales! But who?

At the Metropolis Athletic Club, new hero Booster Gold is negotiating the sale of his film rights. He wants merchandising and points! He is clearly a sharp negotiator! Also, he is an acquaintance of a senator, who, unfortunately, thinks that his name is “Buster.” Booster closes the deal, and tells the mogul to call his agent to formalize the terms of the deal.

On his way out, he gets his fingerprints on a “spa shake” glass, which is taken back to the office of some shadowy man.

Booster heads to a limo, where his new blonde chauffeur, Sunny, is waiting for him, and tells him to shake a leg, which he literally does. Inside the back of the car, Skeets the hoverdroid is there to tell Booster that ‘shake a leg’ is an expression, and that he needs to work on the “languages and customs” of this place. Booster ignores the droid and calls his agent, Dirk, who tells him that he’s got a cereal commercial lined up, a guest spot on “Love Cruise” and that he hasn’t gotten in contact with the JLA yet. A guest spot on “Love Cruise”? Come on, Dirk! Have you seen the demographics for that show? Booster has to get his face out there to the young people with disposable income, not senior citizens on fixed incomes! We also meet Trixie, the secretary of “Goldstar”, Booster’s shell corporation.

On the way back, a giant tanks comes roaring down the street, and Booster decides it’s time for some heroism! He and Skeets get out, and Booster vows to “head those turkers off at the next block!” Skeets corrects him that he wants to head those “turkeys” off.

Booster manages to crash the tank, and fights off some goons, only to be irritated that there’s no witty banter during the fight, even after he threatens to “tear those guys lung from lung.” Skeets continues to try and correct Booster, because those odd malapropisms are probably going to be noticeable to someone at some point.

After working his way through the disposable goons, Booster faces their boss, Blackguard, whose costume is actually mainly green and silver. Booster gets his ass kicked.

The shadowy man vows to use those fingerprints to identify who Booster Gold really is, as his previous investigations haven't gone anywhere.

Back to the fight! Booster tries to end his battle against Blackguard by using his power to redirect a car to fall on Blackguard. But that turns out not to work at all, and Blackguard gets up as Booster thinks about coming up with some sort of backup plan. Also, Jimmy Olsen is reporting on the scene for WGBS, because this comic takes place in Metropolis, and that needs to be reflected in this comic,  but I guess Jurgens wanted to establish Booster a bit more before bringing in Superman.

Booster eventually defeats Blackguard by tricking the villain into smashing his fist right into a power terminal, electrocuting him. Not the most auspicious of debuts.

Goldstar, Inc! Dirk is making more deals! Trixie, being from Kansas, is young, innocent, and wholly unprepared for this crazy world of business. She also has a cat running around the office for some reason, likely to further humanize Trixie in the face of soulless capitalism. It turns out that the editor from Blaze Comics wants to license Booster Gold's image for a new series. Boy, I just don’t think that’s going to sell very well.

Booster, looking for more publicity, arranges with the home office to make sure the press is present when he arrives at STAR Labs to return the device that Blackguard stole. Also, he wants Trixie to call the JLA to tell them Booster totally has a Legion flight ring, and would totally be a great member. Seeing as the JLA at this point had the immortal Vibe and Gypsy on their roster, he might have a point.

At STAR Labs, Dr. Klyburn, eternal supporting character, yells at Booster for bringing a classified device in front of dozens of reporters. But that argument gets cut short when Booster gets blasted to the ground by a mysterious woman in a rather gauche magenta and blue unitard. To be continued!

Continuity!

-This issue is basically in the post-Crisis continuity, in that it came out the same month as Crisis on Infinite Earths #11, when the five surviving worlds of the Multiverse got merged into one universe. That said, the Jimmy Olsen who appears in this issue is clearly the pre-Crisis version, because he works as a television reporter, instead of working for the Daily Planet.  This weird glitch is because even though the Crisis ended in issue cover-dated March of 1986, the Superman line wasn't rebooted until the issues cover-dated October 1986, leaving this weird interregnum. 

-Dr. Klyburn was a STAR Labs scientist that seemed to show up whenever any character traveled there, presumably just as a way to show that DC Comics all took place in the same shared universe.

-The Legion Flight Ring is the badge of office of the members of the Legion of Super-Heroes, who hail from the 30th century.

Review 

First of all, even though the whole 'Corporate Super-Hero' thing has now been done to death, this comic came out 30 years ago, when having a character explore the economics of superheroism was downright progressive. For that matter, Booster was kind of a breath of fresh air, as by this point in DC Comic History, most the main characters had become hopelessly ossified. 

First issues are tough, especially when you have to set up a completely new character and his or her supporting cast. I think that Jurgens does a good job at sketching out the things he needs to, although I have no idea where he's going with the 'Blaze Comics' side-plot, and I say that already having read the rest of the first year's worth of this title. 

Now, all of that said, I feel like maybe Dan Jurgens could have gone a bit farther with the idea of a hero who was in it for the money. Yeah, Booster negotiates a business deal in this issue, and has a corporation supporting him, but the movie deal seems like harmless fluff, and his company is essentially a mom-and-pop operation as far as these things go. 

There's also a subplot dealing with Booster's mysterious origin here, which is kind of a non-starter. Booster has a Legion Flight Ring, a robot pal, and is constantly reminded by said robot pal to adjust his speech patterns 'to this setting'. And since every other alternate reality was emphatically destroyed the same month this came out, limiting Booster to either being from the future, or from the distant future. And, to be honest, when the details of the origin do get fleshed out, they don't really make Booster a better character.

In total, it's a promising start.