by John Chidley-Hill
Booster Gold: 52 Pick Up is a refreshing change of pace that breaks from the malaise of today’s mainstream superhero comics that tell the same story over and over again.
It tells a fun, action packed story that is, above all else, original.
The last Alternavox issue discussed the problems of serialized narratives; how difficult it is to keep stories fresh for the audience.
Writers and artists of ongoing series can’t stray too far from a successful formula, but they still need to stay innovative to maintain reader interest in their work. In practice, this means that there have been very few truly original characters in mainstream comic books in nearly three decades.
Booster Gold is one of the few characters that have stayed crisp since his creation. He’s not an “Ultimate” version of another character. He’s not a grown up sidekick, a clone, a she-hero or a grim’n’gritty re-imagining. He’s not from 2009 and he’s definitely not a mutant. What he is, is an imaginative character.
Michael Jon Carter was a star football player with Gotham University in the far-flung future of the 25th century. Trying to pay off his family’s debts, he took to gambling and then throwing games to earn quick cash from mobsters. After he was caught and disgraced, he got a job as a night watchman at a museum stocked with artefacts from our modern age of heroes.
Hating his life, Carter stole a bunch of weapons from the displays and travels back in time to use his knowledge of history to become a superhero-for-profit.
As his fame in the 20th century grows, Booster gets sponsors and has ads placed on his uniform. He also makes sure to thank his corporate supporters every time a reporter interviews him after a heroic feat. In other words, Booster Gold couldn’t be more 80s if he was created by John Hughes or had an audio cassette pop out of his chest.
In the 80s and early 90s he was played as comic relief along with his best friend the Blue Beetle. As the superhero genre grew darker, Booster fell into disuse.
However, he’s recently returned to prominence with his own ongoing series. In his new series, collected as the 52 Pick-Up trade paperback, Booster has been made the guardian of the space/time continuum, and is doing a terrible job of it.
He gets drunk, decides to change history, and generally runs amok, staying true to his greedy roots.
There have been few characters introduced in the past twenty years that can sustain their own ongoing series. Booster Gold is one of the few and the proud, and definitely worth checking out.
Last 5 posts by John Hill
- FanExpo Coverage: J. Michael Straczynski - September 3rd, 2009
- Bing.com: Trying to keep up with the Big G - August 2nd, 2009
- Summertime is Perfect for Retro-Cartoon Watching - August 2nd, 2009
- Archie, Betty, Veronica and the Nature of Comic Book Promotion - June 15th, 2009
- Paradise Comics – A comic book lover’s heaven - May 16th, 2009
