Booster Gold #14 (DC – Remender / Olliffe / Ordway)
Starro the Conqueror has used Rip Hunter to spread his mind-possessing spores across history. To make matters worse, Starro has gathered all of his body-snatched population for the ultimate battle royale, with hero vs. hero and villain vs. villain
Booster Gold, as a series, has finally found it’s target readers… Fanboys that are looking for a good old-fashioned “good guy” family-friendly comic, borderline pulp-ish, that runs in 2 to 4 part arcs that involve other characters but don’t necessarily relate to a whatever bigger event is going on (i.e., Final Crisis).
Okay, so this reads a lot like Quantum Leap, but you know what? I liked Quantum leap!
The classic DC starfish villain Starro returns as he decides to take over the Time Masters, specifically Rip Hunter, to help him conquer all humanity all at once (talk about a one-trick pony). Not that bad of a plan, except Booster gets some help from baddies the Chronos Twins and they are able to stop Starro’s plans before it begins. I enjoyed these two issues much more than I thought I would given that I think Starro is far and away one of the worse villains ever thought up. Hopefully Booster doesn’t turn into a gorilla anytime soon.
Between Dan Jurgens and Rick Remender, Booster is in really good hands. These two writers (and artist in Jurgens’ case) are industry standards and are able to take a reasonably interesting character like Booster and his endless possibilities and make something worth reading out of it. Booster Gold has a solid place on my pull list.
Yes, the general theme will be… time is messed up, Booster goes back in time and after a few crinkles, fixes it… but it is enjoyable in that way watching a re-run of your favorite TV show is. And the writers are throwing wonderful little bits that worth more than a giggle, this issue saw Booster in need of an “Ice” weapon to battle the evil starfish, so he plunges his arms through time and takes Mr. Freeze’s weapon away from him in the middle a battle with Batman, Bats then thanks the “magic hands”.
Fun, entertaining, enjoyable… and yes predictable. But that what makes this a great choice for the young comic reader.
Issue Grade: B
