Booster Shots

Booster Gold #29

Booster’s sister Michelle is stuck in the past, living in Coast City, and finally remembering that the entire place is about to be destroyed by Mongul and the Cyborg Superman. Meanwhile, Booster and Rip Hunter have figured out that the renegade time traveler who tried to kill Hank Henshaw last issue is going to try to stop him from blowing up Coast City, no matter what damage may occur to the timestream. Booster reluctantly goes to stop her — he’d prefer to save Coast City, too — but it may already be too late. And our backup story focuses on Jaime Reyes, the Blue Beetle. The Scarab armor has gone bad and taken Jaime over — it’s planning on doing whatever it can to destroy the world, and only Paco, Brenda, Traci Thirteen, and Peacemaker have a chance to stop him.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The Booster story is fine, but I wanna talk about the Blue Beetle backup story. It ends well, of course — except that this is the final Blue Beetle backup story in the “Booster Gold” comic. This is rotten news — I’ve enjoyed most of the Booster stories, but the fact remains that the stories about Jaime, his friends, and family have generally been of higher quality. Jaime deserves a place in the DCU outside of occasional guest appearances or in the spectacularly awful “Teen Titans” comic. Hopefully, someone at DC will get smart and give him back a regular ongoing title again.

Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #20

It’s the current crop of Avengers — Captain America, the Vision, Iron Man, the Invisible Woman, Thor, Black Widow, and Nova — against Diablo, an immortal alchemist. Diablo beats Iron Man like a drum while the rest of the team is running around New York trying to locate them — and they’re being attacked by gigantic fire and stone elementals. Will the team be able to save Iron Man, stop Diablo, and discover who has been causing emotional freakouts all over the world?

Verdict: I’ll give it a thumbs up. Nothing entirely outstanding, but there was nothing seriously wrong with it either. There are a few really nice character moments in here, and Diablo makes a very threatening villain.

February 16, 2010 · Filed under Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Marvel Adventures

No Comments

  1. Maxo Said,

    February 16, 2010 @ 1:04 pm

    I’m with you on Blue Beetle. And I have to say, maybe I was just out of touch on this one, but the fact it was the last Blue Beetle feature caught me completely off guard. Beetle is apparently a popular character, and is definitely a great way to get new and younger readers, but the character just gets bounced from title to title. It really is a shame it doesn’t get more support, from DC and the readers.

  2. Bert Said,

    February 16, 2010 @ 3:19 pm

    Maybe the reason Blue Beetle bounces from title to title is to bring new readers?

    I remember liking Blue Beetle back in the day, but I had totally lost touch with comics until this blog started up.

    Thanks, Scott. Now I remember what I’m missing. 🙁

  3. Bert Said,

    February 16, 2010 @ 3:20 pm

    BTW, that was silly sarcasm. Love the blog and hope you can keep it up a long time.

  4. Scott Slemmons Said,

    February 16, 2010 @ 3:26 pm

    Oh, Bert, I don’t know whether to tell you, but the Blue Beetle you probably remember is dead… 🙁

  5. Bert Said,

    February 16, 2010 @ 5:32 pm

    I kind of gathered that from what you wrote. Outside of Batman, Superman, and the original X-Men, I think most of the comic heroes I remember are dead – and yes, I know Superman died, and the ‘reworking’ of Supes after the original CoIE saga was one of the reasons I quit spending my paycheck on comics. Now I’m happily a husband and father – unfortunately a broke husband and father or I’d get my kids hooked on comics and read theirs. 😉

  6. Scott Slemmons Said,

    February 16, 2010 @ 5:58 pm

    Well, a lot of formerly dead heroes have come back. Hal Jordan’s alive again, Barry Allen’s alive again, and I assume that most dead heroes, at both DC and Marvel, will be back pretty soon.