Booster Gold #45 with Dan Jurgens
So, I decided to take the last week or two off from comics. I didn't miss anything, did I?
The story so far: Booster Gold has found himself in the strange new world of Flashpoint, DC's big summer event where everything is different and the only traditional DCU heroes who are there, and remember anything, are Booster and Barry Allen (The Flash). Given what we know, of course, it's possible that when all is said and done even they won't remember what things were like a couple of months ago. That said, Booster ventured out into the world of Flashpoint last issue, only to find himself immediately besieged by US military forces who mistook him for an Atlantean invader (I guess he didn't look enough like an Amazon?) and, after failing to take him out by bombing Coast City, they sent a secret weapon after him-the creature known in the DC Universe as Doomsday.
A move, apparently, that they didn't think through...
The Gold Exchange: "Maiden voyage," eh? So they hadn't even attempted to control Doomsday like this before. Any particular reason you wanted to establish that, as opposed to just saying that he'd been their weapon for a while?
Dan Jurgens: Some of that will be addressed next issue. Remember though, that in times of war, many weapons have been rolled out on the battlefield without a lot of testing. Lots of pressure to get those weapons into the theater of operations and this is, after all, a world at war.
GX: Aside from Adam, are any of the rest of the operatives at the military installation meant to be recognizable? Colonel Conner, the black scientist, etc.?
DJ: I felt that throwing too many recognizable people in would have pushed the "coincidence" level a bit too far. With that in mind, I focused on Nate Adam.
GX: Laura Morley (@ejne7 on Twitter) asks: Will any of Booster's regular support cast show up during this Flashpoint tie-in? It ain't the same without 'em.
DJ: As there is no Rip Hunter in that timeline, because no Michael Carter ever came back through time... that'd be tough to do!
GX: So...we don't get to meet Rip's mom before the universe ends, but Booster just hops right into bed with this Alexandra woman?
DJ: Hops into bed? Whoa! Not quite sure I'd use that exact terminology. It was so innocent, after all.
GX: How did she not hear the massive, wall-crumbling battle that was happening in her apartment? She woke up when Booster jumped on the bed?
DJ: She's a sound sleeper! Seriously, she was probably waking up a bit. But from the time Doomsday knocked Booster into her apartment to the time he was slammed into her bedroom was less than a minute.
GX: Certainly his instincts in grabbing Alexandra out of the way, and his skills a bit later with the computer really do show off what he can do if he has to. During the first volume, Booster's entire supporting cast kind of relied on him to be the man. Do you think having a network of capable, heroic family and friends has made it hard sometimes to see what Michael has accomplished? After all-in a pinch this time around he's always been able to fall back on Rip and a much more experienced Skeets.
DJ: I think there's a bit of truth to what you say. Certainly, we've seen Booster on the path to being a better, more enlightened person. More of a hero.
But others, particularly Rip, were sort of paving the way for him. Booster's on his own here, and acting accordingly.
GX: Does Alexandra have something to HIDE in that apartment? She seemed more concerned with "What are you doing here?" than with the fact that someone was waging a war on her bed, and then as he was blasting at Doomsday, her response was just "get out, get out" a whole lot.
DJ: Nothing to hide, per se. Though you'll see a bit more of what she's protecting next issue.
Still, this was all about complete and immediate fear for her personal safety.
GX: Speaking of-I didn't find anything with a few Google searches but that doesn't mean I couldn't have missed anything. Is this someone who has a DC Universe counterpart or a new character?
DJ: Completely new character. Someone to add a bit of a different dynamic to the book.
GX: I can't help but think of Doomsday's "parents" from his origin story in Hunter/Prey when we have that POV shot of him looking at Nathaniel Adam while Adam pontificates about him being stupid and harmless. And if they're any indication, this story will not end well for him...!
DJ: Ha! You think?
There's a bit of the old Frankenstein monster aspect to what's happening here.
GX: The "history of the World of Flashpoint" splash page was one of those stories that I think readers probably expected last month. Was there just too much to get in, setting up the story, before you could get to this point or was there another reason you let us cool our heels on that for a bit?
DJ: Not too much to get in. More a matter of not wanting to tip off too much too early. We thought it was better for more of the Flashpoint world to be revealed to readers in general, AND we wanted to have the story unfold accordingly for Booster. I didn't want him to have all the answers in #44.
GX: I like that Booster puts two and two together on Zoom pretty quickly-but it's interesting that the only temporal anomaly he finds is Barry. Is that to indicate Zoom is off the board or just a play to get Doomsday into Gotham where he can smash up some more iconic DC Universe architecture?
DJ: Neither. It's to get a couple of elements in that will apply to the story as a whole. And it may be an element that applies to that particular moment.
GX: As an aside, I love the fact that in the world of Flashpoint where superheroes don't have Superman setting the standard and so heroes and villains may not all have flashy, exciting codenames Alexandra's first response to "Professor Zoom" is that he's a teacher at some college.
DJ: Either that or some kind of trendy, fast food restaurant.
GX: I love Alexandra's motivation here; in most Booster Gold stories, she would be an adversary to he and Rip-somebody who wants to undo time as she knows it in order to prevent a perceived tragedy. But it gives the character a legitimate reason to get behind Booster. Will the particulars of her father's death come into play at some point or was that really the endgame, to get her on the "team"?
DJ: Not a 100% sure I get your question here.
I wanted to establish that not only is this a different timeline, it's a more tragic timeline. The consequences of this timeline have go far, far beyond some of the personal points of tragedy, like Thomas Wayne being Batman instead of Bruce.
GX: If he can track chronal energy using the defense department computers, I've got to wonder: can he see the Speed Force? And if so, does the fact that he didn't cross-reference that with chronal residue to find Zoom indicate that the Speed Force maybe doesn't work the same way here?
DJ: Booster has the equipment that can certainly detect and isolate the chronal residue within the speed force, particularly if someone isn't working to hide it.
GX: The way Alexandra does the whole "you seem so sincere" thing, and then follows Booster without his knowledge, it's clear that she's not 100% on the up-and-up, but she acts to save him later. Is she playing Booster or is her motivation pretty much what you see on the page?
DJ: Oh, Alexandra is on the up and up. But she'll address some of this more in #46.
GX: Here's a question that didn't occur to me at the opening of the story: Is it even remotely possible that Adam and his crew have an idea of what they've let loose here? I mean, certainly they know Doomsday is powerful and that his mind isn't all that advanced-but do they have any idea the kind of destruction he can bring to bear when set loose in Gotham?
DJ: Without giving too much away, there's no way they'd have any real comprehension of what Doomsday is or what he can do. They really haven't seen him in action beyond him being controlled by Nate Adam. Talk about sowing the seeds of your own destruction!
GX: Aside from Flashpoint in particular, are you having fun with your return to Booster Gold?
DJ: We're all having a great time. It's great to be back on the book where we can really focus on Booster. It's nice to see the book having success as well. Not only did we go back to press on Booster Gold #44, we're doing so on #45 as well!
Russell Burlingame is a journalist and columnist living and working in New York City. In high school, Russell interviewed Elliot S. Maggin for a review of the Kingdom Come novelization, and since then has worked consistently in and around the comics industry. He interned for Wizard magazine, and has freelanced for Wizard and Newsarama, in addition to a number of non-comics publications, Russell is currently working on a graphic novel based on Cap'n Internet, the comic strip that ran in his college newspaper.
Currently, in addition to his freelance work and his comics projects, Russell writes a number of columns for ComicRelated, including Conscientious Sequentials, The Gold Exchange, What's Perhappenin', Closing Statements, Reflecting 'Pool and To See or Not To See.
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