Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Booster Gold

Big news. Booster Gold mentioned Jersey City last week. I read a few DC Titles. Booster Gold hasn’t been as good as some of the others, but it is still fun. Booster Gold is actually from the future, the 25th Century, returned to the 20th, a-hem, I mean, 21st century to make fortune and fame and his super powers, which are flight and energy rays, are actually 25th century tech. He struggles with his greed and arrogance as he does good as a super hero. Recently, he’s been time traveling to set the universe right by cleaning up the time-line, which is just a contrivance to give him an excuse to revisit famous DC comic book stories. In this one, he is in the 30th century during the Great Darkness Saga, a famous Legion of Super Heroes story from the 80s. The “Contact Lens” is a glib reference to the Emerald Eyed, a super-powered floating Eye that is the main weapon of the Emerald Princess, a member of the Fatal Five and villain for the teen hero team 1,000 years in the future. So, there’s the background. The art is great in the magazine, although the writing tends toward the “fan boy.” The Jersey City reference I didn’t like only because it seemed forced. I felt the writer was making an inside joke. I bet he or one of his close friends live here. It just didn’t seem to be a natural turn of phrase, a replacement for kingdom come, as in, from here to kingdom come. Oshkosh is often used. Jersey City – what was the point in using Jersey City? Any earth city is as far from the planet where this particular adventure is set. The idea that Jersey City is so out of the way as to imply far, it just isn’t so. Anyway, some clunky writing there, in my opinion. I don’t read Marvel (although I see the films), so I can’t compare, but DC sometimes does this sort of thing, gets too inside jokey. So, I can’t quite recommend Booster Gold, although I will still buy the title for now. Usually the humor works much better. But, since this is the only comic book reference I’ve seen for our city, thought it was worth posting.





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