Rayboy's Review: Booster Gold #28 (DC Comics)

I wasn't happy to hear that writers Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis and penciler Chris Batista would be taking over DC Comics Booster Gold series in a few months. I figured "if it ain't broke, why fix it?' I guess they're just "going ape shit"! Fortunately I managed to locate an interview with Booster Gold creator Dan Jurgens, that revealed that Jurgens is merely going on a temporary hiatus to unwind and tackle another project. Jurgens will be back on Booster, and not too soon for me.

Still, even with only a precious handful of issues remaining before the creative switch gets thrown, Booster Gold #28, which features Part 1 of “The Tomorrow Memory”, disappointed me a bit. The story isn't bad, with Rip Hunter sending Booster & Skeets back to the moments just before Coast City got nuked in the wake of the Death of Superman, in order to prevent the assassination of Hank Henshaw. You may remember that Henshaw was the astronaut who became the Cyborg-Superman (and the very culprit behind the destruction of Coast City and the deaths of its citizens). The new time traveler who appears from the future to kill Henshaw vanishes, through no fault of Booster's, just as he arrives to put the kibosh on that effort.

Apparently with the titles involvement in Blackest Night, Jurgens and Norm Rapmund needed a little assist completing the art for this issue, and despite their steady hand being apparent in the layouts, John Stanisci gets the credit for finished art. At the very least, I would have to say that the end result is so-so. I really don't look forward to the creative team swapping out, and would have preferred that another artist be tasked with taking up the reins from Jurgens. They could have limited Giffin & DeMatteis to their upcoming "Generation Lost-style" revisitation of Justice League International too, but whatever.

Bwah-hah-ha; here we come again!

The Blue Beetle back-up feature takes the politically-correct version of the character into new territory. The rebooted reveal that the scarab that has bonded itself to Jaime Reyes is a mechanism of an alien race known as the Reach, left on Earth in ages past to help invade the planet, serves as the impetus for this story. It seems that Jaime has been drawn back to the middle eastern country of Bialya, where Dan Garrett (two "Beetles" ago) originally found the scarab that eventually gave both of them their superpowers. Perhaps the latest Beetle should have paid more heed to his worried friends, who have noticed the changes he's been going through recently, because the Reach programming reasserts its influence over the new Blue Beetle transforming him into full conqueror mode by tales end.

Sorry, while this seems interesting and all, I'm a Ted Kord kinda guy, so "nuts" to the new Beetle - maybe some other hero will take him out permanently.