Booster Gold #27 - DC

How do you make a time-traveling hero, and the stories that surround him more annoying and confusing? Throw in a Black Lantern, who happens to be his deceased dead buddy. I've said over and over again how time-travel stories give me a headache . . to much to think about, to many possibilities and variable, but with the Blue Beetle involved . . er, I guess I should say the Black & Blue Beetle . . things just seem to get more out of hand. However, that being said . . I really, really like this book and Booster's character. Which to me . . is just a testament of the fantastic job that Dan Jurgens is doing here. Yes the time-travel stories are still bothersome . . at least to me, but . . he's made the character likeable, the reader's become bought in, and the 'themes' of the stories have been exciting and heroic. I just loved the lesson that Booster had to learn by trying to save Barbara Gordon, over and over and over and over and over again. Anyways, after recently coming back from visiting Ted's funeral, again . . for who knows how many times, he's confronted by this twisted version of him as soon as he returns. He wasn't back yet when Black Ted came looking for him, so he attacked Daniel and Rose instead . . his closest family. Daniel don's the Supernova costume, but . . I don't really know why. It's not like it gained him much of an advantage or anything. Also Jaime shows up to help in the fight. Because of that, there's no back-up story. It's just all mixed into one . . 30 pages of art. Half of which are done by Mike Norton, with Dan doing the rest. Anyways, after going after Ted again and again, they realize that they can defeat him by sheer force. They're going to have to get creative. Rip has received the message from the Flash and relayed it to Michael. Together they come up with a plan. They go back in time and retrieve a gun from Ted's 'Beetle-cave'. It's a light weapon, and Skeets programs it to approximate the colors of the emotional spectrum. Booster also uses it to his advantage that the Black Beetle has trouble seeing mechanical things. So Skeets, essentially is invisible to him. After they separate the ring from it's host, Booster scoops up Ted's body and takes it to the one place where the Black Ring won't be able to find it . . Vanishing Point . . 'immune from the flow of time'. So now Ted's body is buried there. Seeing that this is a time-travel story, and everything seems to affect everything . . could this be the beginning of the Black Beetle? Maybe somewhere else along the line somebody else returns to Vanishing Point and brings Ted back again. The Black Beetle does seem to think of this place as his home. And . . you just know that's not the end of the story. It's wrapped up like it is, but . . I don't think so. Anyways, Michael and Jaime have a nice heart-to-heart conversation before they leave, and on the final page we see that Michelle has been displaced in time. She's hooked up with some guy named Drew and they're about to travel into Coast City . . before the destruction by Green Lantern, the Cyborg Superman and Parallax. That can't be good. From the previews it looks like the next story-arc is going to be about Booster concentrating his efforts on trying to find her. But it looks like her travels through time, and the time she spent at Vanishing Point, are going to change her somehow. I think it's going to be an interesting couple of months for Booster. Overall I like this book. The concept and basis of the stories irks me, but . . to me, the character himself more than makes up for any short-comings. I think Booster is a great character with huge potential. And I'm glad that somebody has finally realized that and is doing something about it. Thanks, Dan.