Booster Gold #1,000,000 Review

BOOSTER GOLD #1,000,000
Written by Geoff Johns & Jeff Katz
Art by Dan Jurgens

I'm not sure why this needed to be Booster Gold One Million, as Peter Platinum and Booster's visit to the year one million didn't really add anything to the story nor did it last long, but this issue still managed to be another amzing issue in a sea of greatness that made up this week in comics.

Contrary to the cover image, there is no fight or dramatic confrontation between Booster Gold and Peter Platinum. After watching Ted Kord sacrifice himself to fix the timeline last issue, Booster got caught in a time distortion as time corrected itself around him and it sucked him into the future, specifically the year one million.

There, he quickly runs into Peter Platinum, who is the year one million version of Booster Gold and has perfected the scam tactics of Booster Gold to become one of the most popular heroes of that era. He thinks Booster has travelled to the future to get his "cut" and offers him 5% and later 10% to not expose him. Booster is disgusted that this is his only legacy as a hero. This is the only use of Peter Platinum and Rip Hunter shows up to pick him up in his time sphere shortly after the

After being picked up by Rip Hunter, Booster, still upset over the death of Ted and pissed about his current legacy to the super hero community, tells Rip off and quits the new Time Masters team.

Upon returning to his time period, he ends up fighting the Royal Flush gang, mirroring the opening of this series, and he's quickly backed up by Green Lantern and Green Arrow, who rib him about probably setting this whole thing up and, in general, talking down to him.

Booster is visibly annoyed and the confrontation is defused by Batman, who contacts Booster and demands he come see him immediately. In the Batcave, Booster doesn't want to hear Batman tear him a new one and quickly starts getting down on himself and lists his own faults before Batman stops him mid-rant and shows him pictures from the Joker's camera on the night Batgirl was crippled that show Booster trying to stop the Joker and getting tortured.

Turns out, Batman knew about this a long time ago (retconned in prep-time? does the goddamn Batman have no limits?), but noticed it was an older Booster than the one he had met in the early days of the Justice League and didn't question him until now. While the time travel implications of this are starting to hurt my brain, I loved what came next as Batman began to compliment Booster and telling him to keep doing whatever it is he's doing as he's proud of him and basically tells him to stop caring if people thinks he's crazy or a screw up and do what he thinks is right.

It was a hallmark moment, the second for Batman this week, along with what he did in Final Crisis: Requiem, and I'm pretty sure anyone that gets a heart to heart from Batman that doesn't involve him scaring the crap out of you has to feel like a million bucks and Booster is re-energized and heads back to Rip Hunter to rejoin the Time Masters.

It makes enough sense if you don't think about it too hard.  

There, Rip has a surprise for Booster with the "resurrection" of his sister, who has her own Booster-like outfit on and has been told all about Booster's mission to save time. Seems Rip plucked her out of the time stream at the moment of her death and since it's the future, there are no time ripples like with saving Ted. Not sure how this works, as there should be no concept of the past or future in time travel, but she's back, it's nice and it makes enough sense if you don't think about it too hard.

Here, we also learn the mysterious identity of Rip Hunter. Turns out he's Booster's son, as he tells him to keep up the good work and calls him "dad" as Booster and his sister use the time sphere to go off to Paris to celebrate. They were already gone and didn't hear him say this, but it's a nice touch for the fans and make sense with everything that's happened so far.

Finally, there's an awesome ending page where it shows an image of Skeets in a french beret and Booster and his sister in front of the Eiffel Tower with a historians take on the Booster Gold family and his legacy and they go to great lengths to make it sound like some profound insight into why Booster Gold was the only screw up or black sheep in the family of time travelling heroes and they conclude it by saying he was always smiling, despite his numerous screw ups, and that he was probably just an idiot on top of everything else.

Verdict - Must Read. Pure Booster Gold and I thought it was a great cap off to the Johns and Katz run on the book that really gets to core of what makes Booster Gold great. (not sure if Katz is gone, but it's Johns last issue co-writing). Look for it to dominate the Moments of the Week later this week.

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