Booster Gold #16 (DC - Jergens / Rapmund)
Part 2 of the 4-part “Reality Lost” arc continues in this “Faces of Evil”issue as Booster Gold finds himself stranded in the midst of the battlefields of World War I and comes face-to-face with the infamous Hans von Hammer, a.k.a. Enemy Ace! Meanwhile, Goldstar and Skeets continue their search for the missing Rip Hunter!
Booster is being dragged through time, not unlike quantum Leap, trying to set everything right in his search for the missing time-knife. This issue seemed like a real throw-away in the sense that DC wanted something to fit the “Faces of Evil” theme this month and wanted to put Enemy Ace on a cover and then built a story around that. Don’t get wrong, I’m a huge Dan Jergens fan and I think he will bring a lot to the Booster Gold series… but in this issue nothing really happened in the overall plot. This wasn’t really Dan’s fault, he was probably handed some concrete bullet points and did the best of it.
Booster gets thrown into Nazi Germany where he and a young American soldier gets captured by the nefarious Enemy Ace. It turns out that the Nazi Ace isn’t as diabolical as his reputation states, and he gives Booster the time-knife allowing him and the young soldier to escape… huh? Ace captures them and then sneaks them out. Some pretty bizarre story action. The only real twist is that the young soldier who Booster saves is Max Lord’s grandfather and Booster certainly has some mixed emotion about that. The end of the issue also finds a glowing figure showing up to help Skeets and Goldstar. From previews, I am pretty sure this is a future-self of Booster.
The ;last few issues, I was excited when they brought Ralph in, this book provides and excellent chance for a writer to bring in any character they want, but alas Ralph was readily dismissed at the beginning of #16. In my opinion this series seems to do better when you have Booster bouncing off and interacting someone else, whether it is Ralph, Bats, even Blue Beetle. Without that interaction to counter Booster’s ignorance and arrogance this book will just spiral down. If BG is going to be around for another 16 issues, it will need to stick to “The Brave and the Bold – time travel edition” format.
Issue Grade: C
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