Showcase Presents: Booster Gold by Dan Jurgens

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A character that has shown up in various DC animated series is Booster Gold, a fame-hungry and money-hungry superhero. He's also been portrayed in various elseworld and event comics as even more unflattering.

So who is this real Booster Gold? This book gives clues as it contains all 25 issues of his original series by Dan Jurgens from 1986-88, plus a crossover with Superman in Action Comics #594, and an entry from Secret Origins #35.

The book is actually quite good. If you associated the 1980s with the darker Batman stories or John Byrne's often disturbing take on Superman, this book is different in many ways.

Often times, Booster Gold in battle reminded me a bit of the Silver Age Marvel characters with wise cracking characterization. Indeed, in battle , he's as good as any other superhero.

It's once the action fades that Booster's problems appear. Booster is focused very much on the bottom line of money, fame, and women. This isn't to say that's his sole purpose, but he's concerned about image and fame.

Six issues in, Booster's origin is revealed and it turns out to be a doozy. His supersuit was stolen technology from the 25th century where he worked at a museum at a security guard and stole a time machine to come back to the 20th century and become a superhero. In some ways, this quest could be seen as a quest for redemption. He had been a promising college football quarterback for Gotham City in the future but had thrown it away in a point shaving scheme.

By the time I reached the end of the book, I'd begun this differently. It wasn't so much an effort to make up for his mistake as it was to reclaim the type of life he'd wanted had he made it to the NFL, which makes for a character who is extremely flawed.

This isn't helped by him trying to make his way in Metropolis as a competing superhero to Superman and Superman clearly doesn't approve. I do have to admit that this does leave me feeling a little sorry for him. And Booster does care genuinely about several people, though way too often, he puts concern for others in the backseat of his own ego and career

Whatever, you think of Booster, the stories are solid with a mix of superhero action, time travel, and human drama as Booster is put through his paces. The one bad thing about the book was that the last two issues (Issue 24 and 25) come as weeks 3 and 7 of DC's Millennium Event, so a lot of stuff is disconnected and we don't fully know what's going on.

The book does make me curious to learn more about some DC comics from this era particularly Blue Beetle and Justice League International. As for Booster, he's like a lot of people in real life in that he's doing a lot of the right things for all of the wrong reasons. In real life, it is doesn't much, but with superhero comics, it definitely does which is why the character has a limited appeal.



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