Review: Convergence Booster Gold #2

by Max Eber
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Booster Gold slyly becomes a further lynchpin in Convergence: Booster Gold #2 written by Dan Jurgens, pencils by Alvaro Martinez, ink by Raul Fernandez, and color by Chris Sotomayor & Sotocolor.

Preboot Booster Gold is dying. Chronal energy has worn him out. And the Legion (and Superboy) are looConvergence - Booster Gold (2015) 002-007king for answers, and due to Booster, Rip and Michelle’s time hoping into the dome, their powers are back. There’s the natural squabble that’s been occurring in every issue but it makes a bit more sense here.

Preboot Booster, rapidly aging finds himself zapped in front of very much alive preboot Ted Kord around the time Parallax wreaked havoc. Ted is Ted and they have a close bonding moment, Ted being confused as to why Booster is so old. Obligatory flashback of Maxwell Lord murdering Ted (subtler than most flashbacks but like The Killing Joke DC won’t let these stories visually rest or try to call back to them with any form of subtlety). Booster has an episode and Ted is bent on helping his friend, taking him to his lab.

Meanwhile Superboy’s Legion and helmet-hair Braniac 5 confront Rip, Michelle and NuBooster and after a slightly skirmish and seeing that Superboy has his powers back, Rip zaps them away and seek out preboot Booster’s location. Once they do, Booster collapses continuing to age and so Rip orders NuBooster to take them to Vanishing Point. All head to Vanishing Point and they place the dying Preboot Booster in a Chronal Field Vault, where it can stabilize his rampant energies from across time that are tearing him apart (or something like that).Convergence - Booster Gold (2015) 002-018 The result? Preboot Booster Gold becomes more or less a god; Waverider (looking like a love child between Firestorm, Silver Surfer, and the literal 70s). He returns everyone to their proper place in time, calling the situation a crisis and sets out himself presumably to deal with Demios and will be appearing in Convergence #8

POSITIVES
The “new” young Booster who I’m guessing is the Booster we’ve been following since the reboot (right? Am I right?) is entertaining, slick and his banter with Skeets is well written. Writing on this is pretty good and has nice flow. It’s quite bittersweet to see a version of preboot Booster suffering rapid aging and illness the way he has as well as seeing his interactions with Ted Kord, unaware of his fate. Having him actually change into a new (old?) character and entity that will certainly be a big player in the finale and perhaps ultimately be the “Band-Aid” to the reboot’s failures in DC’s current narrative is also rather cool.

Convergence - Booster Gold (2015) 002-011
NEGATIVES
Not so much any negatives as there are slight quibbles. The Legion is more or less there to provide some conflict and a connection to Future’s End but has little other purpose. It would have been nice to see them a bit more utilized other than roadblock. But I suppose that is the archetypal role of antagonist. Art is good, on the higher end of mid-range; weighty and expressive, decently colored though I am always searching for more stylized palettes from people, I think it always looks cleaner and more fresh and modern. However, the end has rather trippy coloring that was sort of cool to look at. The flashback to Ted’s murder is, like the many flashbacks to The Killing Joke as mentioned earlier, was somewhat unoriginal. It’s like a bingo card space. Oop involves Ted Kord, put down a mark if they do a flash back!
VERDICT
I have a fondness for Booster Gold. I cannot say I am an expert on him nor is he my favorite per se but I am consistently impressed that no matter what DC does to the character there lies a senConvergence - Booster Gold (2015) 002-019se of strange “other” as he is both affected and unaffected by universal changes and reboots. His narrative somehow always seems to slide by on the smallest of opportunities, such as this, often threads disparate narratives together and then disappears for a while. Unlike a lot of the other one shots during this big “Band-Aid” event and DC’s move to California (rather bizarre as I’d peg DC’s sensibilities as extremely East Coast vs. Marvel’s West Coast vibes but hey Hollywood), these two Booster Gold issues are far more related to the main narrative of Convergence and even thread things to Future’s End and Vanishing Point. This is the deep reaching world building and continuity that used to make Donna Troy so appealing and metatexual and what made a lot of the preboot DCU fun to read.
Out of most of the books I would consider Booster Gold (and perhaps Blue Beetle) to be ancillary to the main event and makes the event feel actually real and not just an Elseworld’s Super Smash Bros to distract people. Is it quality? In large swaths no but meatier books like Convergence Booster Gold #2 make it a lot better.

5outof5

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