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Dude! I'm definitely putting that on my next In-Stock trades order! I wish they had one for New Teen Titans...

Spoiler-free!

Just read Booster Gold One Million. It was a really, really nice coda to the Johns/Katz run and contained several nice surprises in it, two in particular.

I'm definitely staying onboard this title for the forseeable future to give [whoever the new regular writer will be] a chance. The last page was a preview of the next year's worth of stories like was done earlier in the series (and in JSA), and it looks like we're in for some fun stories, including one that may be of particular interest to fans from this site.

The most important thing is that the book's concept and overall lighthearted tone will apparently remain consistent with what Johns has established. And, hopefully, Jurgens will be around for a good while longer. I know Geoff is hard to replace, but I hope everyone who's been enjoying the book and the character will give the new writer a chance.

anything happens to Brainiac 5?

"Not in the story proper," he says cryptically.

GOLDSTAR's BAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!! Yes!!!!!!!!!

surprise revelation on Rip Hunter's "connection" to Booster Gold. Interesting!

Just want to drop one little spoiler - that's it. good read by the way.

Forgot to post that Dan was announced by Geoff to be taking up the writing chores (as well as continuing on art), as I'd hoped. YAY--I'm stoked!

Nice article today at CBR.

I finally got to read BG 1,000,000 today. Excellent as always. I had the Rip reveal spoiled for me elsewhere, but there were a lot of other nice surprises, Batman's guest spot being my favorite.

Thanks for the link to that article, Lardy. Two 2-issue guest writing stops by Dixon and Remender, then we get Jurgens running the whole show? I can live with that...

#11 was a fun time-travel adventure. I'm looking forward to the next issue. BG as Batman? That should be worth a read.

Well, the end of John's run was magnificent. His brief Booster run is some of the best work he's ever done, right down to his last(?) adventure with Ted, Goldstar's return, Rip's revelation, Batman's scene with Booster and all around just setting up a Booster Gold ongoing that could potentially be as cool and important to the DCU as Flash or Green Lantern.

And Dixon's two-parter has thus far been pretty awesome. As always, Dixon delivers a solid story that is fun, interesting and enjoyable.

And Jurgen's art hasn't looked this good since the mid-90's.

A fun, smart strait-up super-hero comic? With time-travel? People have asked for years and well, here it is.

So, post Johns for about a year now, and I've got to say, I'm pretty impressed by what Dan Jurgens has done thus far! Its the best writing he's done in ages, and the artwork remains consistently great.

The Booster / Rip / Skeets / Goldstar dynamic remains a very tight core to the series and a fun read. And the adventures remain quirky and unique enough from everything else on the market.

Regarding the latest issues:

#20 - Keith Giffen drops by for a really great one-off story with Booster in 1952 with the original Task Force X / Suicide Squad. Pat Oliffe provides the art, and he's been excellent since 52, specifically with Keith guiding him. The story contains Giffen's usual witty and funny dialogue but is not an outright comical story. Really cool to see Keith further explore the DCU of the 1950's with Task Force X. Some fans may not realize that the Frank Rock post-WWII is not actually SGT Rock. SGT Rock died in WWII...this Frank Rock is the Unknown Soldier pretending to be SGT Rock and infiltrating the US spy world at the highest levels.

#21 - Jurgens and Rapmund do a nice job of having Booster meet the new Batman, and also continue to build on the mystery of Black Beetle from John's run.

#21 Blue Beetle Back-up - provides a pretty good way to introduce Jamie to new readers but its not exactly the most exciting story in the world. I wonder if adding Blue Beetle as a back-up to Booster Gold will help either series? Only time will tell, I guess.

I think I somehow missed #20. I'll have to check and see if I accidentally bagged and filed it without reading... ). No danger of me dropping it as long as Jurgens stays with Booster, but I'm just sayin...

Read #22 earlier today and again I'm impressed by another Jurgens outing. I think Jurgens has hit his stride here on Booster and the title has remained as good as it was under Geoff. You wouldn't know Geoff was no longer here by the quality.

Here Booster deals with the classic Deathstroke / Teen Titans first meeting from Teen Titans #2, which is a lot of fun. It also continues the mystery of Black Beetle, whom I'm finding to be a good nemesis for Booster. No word on Goldstar yet, so that plotline is still perculating, but Skeets is awesome as usual and Rip is doing something that we'll see play out next issue.

The art is fantastic--Jurgens is dong a great job and when he's teamed with Rapmund on inks, who has worked with him in the past, the end result is usually A+.

The Blue Beetle back-up is a little better in the second outing but writer Matt Sturges still can't seem to grasp using the back-up format. He's writing as if it was a single issue broken up over the course of a few; instead he should be approaching it as several short periodicals. We do get some additional scenes with Paco and Brenda, and there is definately a Harry Potter-esque vibe going on with Jamie caught in the middle of his two best friends who are now dating. That's welcome, and they should have more of that rather than Blue Beetle fighting some nameless flying robots / thugs / etc. that no one cares about.

I'm actually enjoying the Blue Beetle backup quite a bit, even though I've had very little exposure to Jaime's character. It's fun and well-drawn and well-written, a perfect companion to Booster Gold.

As for issue 22, I couldn't help but wonder how close the story followed how TT #2 was written, since I've never read that comic (nor most of the classic Wolfman/Perez run ). Did Grant attack Cyborg first before attacking the rest at the Dayton mansion? If anyone feels like filling me in on the beats of the original comic, I'd appreciate it! That's one pitfall Jurgens fell into with a reader like me unfamiliar with the original: wondering if the story's more enjoyable to someone who's read the original or not.

In any case it's great to see classic Titans characters and costumnes, and Dan drew a jaw-droppingly gorgeous Kory in a bikini! The concept of the series gives Dan unlimited opportunities to indulge our nostalgia for bygone eras. A continued healthy mix between those stories and more progressive ones will keep this on my pull list.

Well, I didn't buy Blue Beetle with Jamie, so I just have the three issues to go on, but I have the original Booster run and I have to say that I am enjoying this run.

Unfortunately, the sales figures aren't great, so please, talk the book up folks, if you care to. Jurgens has been dong some great stuff. They are getting to visit all the high points of DC over the last few decades.

I would love to see him hitting some real high points, though. A visit to the beginning of time and Hal facing off against Krona. Even the biggie of biggie's, Superman's arrival on earth or his leaving of Krypton.

Having just read the second part of the BN tie-in, something hit me as I read it: this story was really unnecessary! Don't get me wrong--it makes perfect sense for Booster to be confronted by the Black Lantern Ted Kord. But, really, the whole thing amounted to an extended eulogy of Ted.

The problem with this is we already got this last year with the extended "Blue and Gold" storyline that ended Geoff Johns's run on this title. Seriously! Isn't that the main thing that story accomplished? This one felt like a retread with the added twist that Ted's body was reanimated to confront Booster and pals. Yeah, Jurgens had the plot point in there that Booster had been hiding out in time and hadn't been aware of the BN crisis and so was off balance early in the encounter. But once that was out of the way, this Black Lantern was dispatched rather easily.

Then, we're left with an extended Ted tribute at the end with the time portal flashbacks and putting Ted back to rest. It was kinda nice, yeah, but what was nicer was seeing Ted face his fate a year ago when he realized he had to die. Much nicer and more moving than anything in the past two issues.

Not that anything here was offensive; it was just unnecessary. I can see the value of heroes confronting their beloved dead in many other titles, but here it wasn't needed. If he was shown among the JLAer Black Lanterns that attacked current JLAers in the main series and Booster was among those fighting them (like Zatara/Zatanna, Vibe/Gypsy, etc.) those few panels in a larger story would have sufficed. Two thirty page issues a year after a superior story appeared were just overkill.

But I guess there were LOADS of people who picked up these issues who never bothered with that first year of this series, so I guess it was more for them than for us. In that vein I guess I can forgive what I deem unecessary.

(Of course there's the matter of one panel calling back something we saw at the end of Johns's run in addition to rampant specualtion about mass resurrections at BN's conclusion that makes this eulogy seem particularly excessive--but I digress..... )

Giffen & DeMatteis Back to BOOSTER GOLD; ft. Ted Kord?

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/Giffen-DeMatteis-Booster-Gold-100114.html

Should be interesting. Might get me back on this book...although I have to catch up on the issues I missed.

I've really loved Booster Gold post-Johns so in a way I'm dissapointed that Jurgens is leaving the title. While Geoff really did a great job, Jurgens kept the title's quality just as high and without all the praise Geoff got.

On the other hand, Giffen & DeMatteis have always been great and the artist will be Chris Batista, whom I love. I hope its less humor oriented though than what you'd expect and keeps the level of adventure up.

Having caught up on the latest Booster Gold story, in which Jurgens has Booster revisit the Cyborg Superman/Destruction of Coast City era, and I have to say: I think I've actually liked and preferred Dan Jurgens extended run more than Geoff John's initial, more brief run. Jurgens has really done a terrific job on this title. With Jurgens leaving the title soon, its nice to look back at his run in hindsight and see all he did with Booster over the course of the last two years. Booster Gold has been one of the most entertaining, solid comic book series by any company for quite awhile now.

I'm actually going to miss Jurgen's touch here and am fearful for what Giffen has planned. I truly hope this does not revert to a comedy-driven title; that would be a real disappointment to me. In Jurgen's hands, he took what Johns started and helped establish Booster Gold as a sort-of "Fringe" like series dealing with time-travel issues, while including heavy doses of super-heroics. Rip, Skeets and Michelle helped round out the series to give it a team book feel while ensuring Booster was the lead.

And the artwork by Jurgens has been nothing short of spectacular, probably his best in years. The series has been colorful, and with clean pencils and inks, and it's just been a real visual pleasure.

Booster Gold doesn't seem to get a lot of praise and isn't as trendy as Flash and GL are these days, but it ranks right up there with a solid sci-fi superhero series. I wish it could continue indefinitely.

As for the Blue Beetle back-up, I think its another case of the writers not using the limited page count to their advantage. The last few installments saw them finally kind of get a sense of the pacing they needed to keep but it wasn't really enough. It all seemed kind of cutsey and beside the point with no real tension. That's too bad, as it could have been a nice compliment to Booster's series if the sci-fi / space connections were played up more.

I think of every single "new" series DC has launched or relaunched within the past 5 years the biggest success since GL has been Booster Gold from a quality perspective. It flies below many people's radars yet is as good if not better than almost all other superhero series out there.

Last night I read the first issue of the ‘new era’ of Booster Gold, following Jurgen’s exit and the entrance of Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis, whose usage of the character redefined him the first time Jurgens left Booster. On the art is Chris Batista who Legion fans know well.

I’ll begin with what I liked and work backwards.

First, Legion fans into AR appearances will absolutely have to pick this up as it takes place on Daxam during the Great Darkness Saga! I was actually pretty surprised by that and thought it was cool. Even more, the Emerald Empress is revealed to be there, and she’s pretty damn vicious as well.

Second, Chris Batista is an artist I liked a lot on the Legion but really fell in love with his work on 52, which showcased his incredible talent. Giffen obviously had an influence on him (and still does), as he’s become a much more dynamic penciller & inker in terms of composition, action and pacing. Really well done.

In terms of the new writing team, I have to admit, I’m not totally into yet. I really liked what Geoff did and I really thought Jurgens was able to build on that and keep Booster an “A” level quality comic book (despite not getting the accolades that Geoff got). To see a new team come on and shift the ‘spirit’ of the comic is a little disconcerting. Now, I admit, that after only one issue, I can’t really make that judgment. But I’m wary. The Booster bwahahahaha era was great and I loved it, but the character has moved on and I really don’t want to retread old territory. I want a terrific little sci-fi superhero comic with a focus on time travel. Hopefully it will be exactly that, as its not really clear yet.

Giff & DeMatteis do inject some humor into the dialogue and I don’t mind it so much as I like humor as much as the rest. Booster’s snappy dialogue with the other characters was great. I did think the girl having to go to the bathroom bit though was a bit of a yawner though—like when a comedian bombs and you hear crickets in the audience. Man, I hope we don’t get ‘forced’ humor, but let it be natural, which I assume will happen give these two creators (whose solo work is often deadly serious).

All in all though, the new team still has Booster time traveling, Rip Hunter up to important, secret missions, Skeets being awesome and other things from the earlier two runs that I’m glad are continuing. I realized that now I’m going to really miss Goldstar and the series will be lacking something without her. Hopefully another supporting character can fill the void; the little girl Booster saved looks like she could but I have to say, so far I find her annoying. (Digression: you’d think as a new parent I’d be glad to see kids in comics but between her and Damien in Batman, and Wally’s kids as well, I’m rolling my eyes at them all).

To summarize: first issue was a solid effort and worth the purchase. While it didn’t prove to be as rough as I thought it’d be, I’m still wary. I’m hoping the thin line they walked in this issue continues to be walked throughout and we see more adventure focused stories supplemented by some humor and witty dialogue than the other way around.

I’m curious as to what others thought. I realize if I hated the run prior to Giff & J.M. taking over, I probably would be ecstatic right now with their arrival. But alas, that is not the case.

Giff and De-M are on BOOSTER GOLD now?!?!?

And BATISTA on art!?!?!?!?!?

WHY was I not pre-informed!!!

You were in the shower! You need a copy ASAP!

Sure do... hope the CBS still has one Weds.

Sounds like you're not jumping for joy yet OR overly worried about their first issue, Cobie...

I'll be honest... I liked BG under Johns and still enjoyed it under Jurgens, but a couple issues into the $4 price jump, I bailed.

BG will have to provide me no less than 2 LOL moments and 1 solid smile for me to justify the $4 price. I figure Giff/Dematteis are good for that. We'll see...

hmmm... the girl having to go to the bathroom bit sounds like my own "Tiffany Spiffany eats at the space-truckstop and gets bad gas" joke in MEL:TS, which I thought would be funny but wasn't.

I got # 32 today! LOVED the cover, of course.

Added it to my pull based on my love of the Giff/Dematteis team, and the price now being $2.99 again certainly did NOT hurt.

Looking forward to reading it!

"I came to Daxam for a singles retreat! The food was awful, the men were all gay... and now THIS?"