Booster Gold #34 - Anger, Fun, and then Anger Again

I apologize for my lateness; I've been busy with job interviews this week, and that does have a way of taking precedence. Anyway...

Boy oh boy did they get this one wrong.

If you were thinking of asking, "O Greatest Blogger (whom I have never heard of), is it possible for 5 pages of bad artwork to negate another 17 pages of otherwise acceptable artwork?" you are in luck, as that is exactly the question that this review will answer. For those of you who would like a hint, the answer is "yes."

This issue serves little purpose other than for Giffen and DeMatteis to go and relive their JLI days. As others have pointed out, this isn't even particularly their GOOD JLI days, more like the parody driven "ICBINTJL." But at least those pages LOOK good...

OK, let's get to it...

The Cover:

In Booster Gold #34, Maxwell Lord is something of a red herring. So why is he on the cover? And what happened to anything resembling detail? This is an uber close-up, Booster's face is roughly the size of mine. And ANOTHER speech balloon? I HATE those on covers. I don't think it's TERRIBLE, it just isn't my cup of tea.

The Story:

I can't even treat this like it is one book. There are two distinct sections to this book: Anger, Fun, and then Anger again. Normally I'd praise a book for ending the way that it began - symmetry to a story helps with closure - but NOT this time. Keith Giffen drew the sections that I labeled "Anger," and the writers especially forced humor into those sections rather than let it happen naturally. Chris Batista drew the section labeled "Fun." I'll examine "Anger" and "Fun" separately, as there is such an enormous disconnect between the two that it barely qualifies as anything.

Anger:

I will summarize this through the voice of Michelle Carter.

"Oh, hi, remember me? I went away for a while, but now I'm back looking totally different. Michael has a little girl running around whom I've never met before, but Michael should totally keep her because she's like, so cute, y'know? And that'd be totally more responsible of him. I know a lot about responsibility, like that time when I disappeared and traveled through time and hooked up with this guy and traveled and nearly died in Coast City. Hey, and check out my costume, it is ENTIRELY gold now instead of white with gold accents like it was in every other appearance from me. Isn't that totally hawt? Anyway, I'm gonna go and take this girl that I've only just met and travel through time. Kthanxbai."

I could complain about the "humor" used in that section, but Erin_Starlight does a much better job than I would do. Check out her livejournal. My issue comes from a completely far out take on Michelle, totally different than anything we have seen from her.

The Fun Part:

Ok, now I get to relax a little bit before I trash Keith Giffen for drawing like a three year old.

Booster travels back in time and immediately encounters the Blue Beetle. I don't have any problem with this exchange. I nearly cringed when he mentioned a "repo job," but the Book of Destiny thing isn't a bad MacGuffin for this. You could see a reason for some urgency with this.

The setup of the story is promising. I really don't like Beetle's improvisation - a Kirboid from Quatloo - but I suppose that's somewhat in character with Beetle.

I suppose the problem I have with a journey back in time like this is that it puts Booster's status from that time period in the DCU front and center. We get an issue of folks who have low expectations of Booster Gold. We know through his role as a Time Master that his disguise is a buffoon, but we see enough of the heroic things that he does to know better. Those who aren't as familiar with the character already think that enough. I'd hate to see the great work that Geoff Jones and Dan Jurgens have done at establishing Booster as a real player who is on the ball disintegrate because two guys want to relive their glory days.

So anyway, they team up with Big Barda and Mr. M and follow the trail of the robber. Barda punches out a dragon. Pretty ho-hum stuff, but fairly effective filler - if this is a JLI book and not a Booster Gold book, but more on that in a second.

We finally meet our villain - Hieronymous the Underachiever. If you hated Brigadoom, you'll absolutely loathe this. The premise of this character is ridiculous, as is the demon who serves him (apparently a "grow your own demon" ad on a magazine). What the crap?

Next, we have the obligatory inner thoughts of Booster Gold - his talk about how he has changed, and how this isn't right, and how he should have listened to Skeets because he isn't the moron that he was back then. I said in the first Giffen/DeMatteis issue that this felt forced and I argue it again. If they think that they can send him through all the goofy bull crap that they want, but apologize for it by talking about how much he has changed once an issue, they are sorely mistaken.

Still, this is just one issue. Breathe, TGB, breathe!

Finally, Booster saves them from a rain of arrows with his force field, and an angry mob runs at them. Then, the issue kind of ...ends. This is the most questionable cliffhanger that I've ever seen. I'm not interested in the next part, nor do I feel that there is an insurmountable conflict coming up because of the lack of any closure to the issue.

The bigger problem is that Booster has very little to do in this issue. Last time I checked, this is called "Booster Gold," not "Super Buddies" or "Justice League International." Beetle has the plan, Mr. Miracle zaps them to the universe, Big Barda punches out the dragon... all Booster does is zap the arrows with his force field, and he does that by standing still. Troubling to me. The book was fun, and I enjoyed reading this middle material, but it just wasn't Booster Gold.

Ok, get ready. Let's move on to...

The Artwork:

I'm not the only one to take note of the issues here. Erin_Starlight mentions many of the same issues that I have in her blog, which I have already linked. Clearly something is amiss here. Walter of Boosteriffic asks:

"All of this outcry has to raise the question: how strong a role does art style play in the success of Booster Gold? Traditionally all super hero comics have been presented in naturalistic detail, and Booster Gold is no exception. Is Giffen's use of caricature such a dramatic departure from the norm as to be offensive to his audience? Or is it just too hard to maintain suspension of disbelief for a costumed melodrama when the adventures are rendered in a cartoonish style?"

I have two things to say to that: The first is that caricature, as I understand it, is when the drawing focuses on a particularly noticeable part of a character and exaggerates it. I don't recall anything about Rani resembling a young Rosie O'donnell with bad hair, about Michelle looking like a skinny whore, about Rip hunter looking different in every panel - and looking like a Geico commercial (time travel - so easy a caveman can do it!), or about Booster's eyes being able to move up and down his head at will. Though, that would be a rather astounding yet completely useless characteristic.

The second point that he poses - "is it just too hard to maintain suspension of disbelief for a costumed melodrama when the adventures are rendered in a cartoonish style?" - this is, I think, the answer.

I'm 24, and I don't think I'm anything like the stereotypical comic book reader. If I want cartoons, I'll wake up on Saturdays; I'm looking for something a little less mindless that looks a lot better. I'm already reading about people in tight, form fitting costumes that are colored like a bag of Skittles. Of COURSE what I'm reading is fantastical, but it maintains a degree of grounding by making the characters look familiar and relatable. If comic readers didn't value that, the days of Rob Liefeld's ammo pouches and impossible body proportions wouldn't be looked back upon with scorn. There is so much disbelief to suspend in a super hero yarn as it is without the artwork looking cartoony and inconsistent.

How bad was it? I've read everything Booster gold that I can find - all of Volume 1, all of Volume 2, poured over everything I can get my hands on for JLI (I was only 3 or 4 when it started)... and still, for all of that fandom, I was ready to stop reading this issue. I couldn't even focus on the words it was so distracting.

Over the first 31 issues, Booster has been established as a more serious character - though obviously one where humor is not a foreign object - who is doing serious work. Now, its like he's doing things just for the hell of it. I was pleased with the first two issues of this run, but I'm worried for the future after this issue.

Keith Giffen, stick to breakdowns. And both authors, please remember that the name of the book is BOOSTER GOLD, and we're reading it to watch him do stuff, not everyone else BUT him.