Week Seven

Let’s get the nitty gritty out the way first. In this issue, Renee Montoya goes to a private party where she hopes to find some clues on the case they’ve been working on. At the party, she meets with an ex-girlfriend, named Kate Kane, whose family owns the warehouse on 520 Kane Street in the Harbor District where Montoya and the Question met the big monster with the crates of futuristic guns. Montoya asks for help, sexual tension, blah blah blah, help is granted, good-bye, see ya next week. Meanwhile, in space, on the paradise planet, Adam Strange is trying to fix up the zeta beam thingy, still, while the other two refugees are eating forbidden fruit and getting complacent. Finally, Starfire leaves Strange and Animal Man to “clear her head.” In the end, she’s confronted by a giant with a staff. That being said, let’s get to the real meat and potatoes, so to speak, of this issue.

Booster Gold and Ralph Dibny.

Ralph comes to Booster to ask him for help about the Cult of Conner, since he’s suspicious about the upside down Superman logo graffiti on his wife’s grave, etc. Booster blows him off, since Skeets keeps reminding him that they’re mere moments away from a disaster. It’s at this point that Ralph remembers that Booster and Skeets are from the future, and they should’ve been able to prevent his wife’s death. Booster explains that he’s a bad history student, they don’t teach that in school, etc, but Skeets remembers it all. Ralph is, justifiably, upset.

The scene switches, Booster saves the citizens of Metropolis from some stupid disaster, and Manthrax, the guy that Booster paid off to act as a supervillain last week, comes out and tells reporters that his check bounced, and Booster Gold is a fraud. Ralph, being on the scene, is singled out by Lois Lane, who asks him if Booster’s capable of this. Ralph says, “Absolutely.” He brings up Sue, again, and Booster’s long-time bff, Blue Beetle aka Ted Kord. Booster could’ve prevented all of that, but he didn’t, because he’s selfish and money hungry. The world is shocked, Booster is ruined.

This is unacceptable to me. Booster Gold is stupid, sure, and he should’ve been able to prevent Sue and Ted from dying, but, as we have seen in “52,” it’s Skeets that has the historical database. It’s Skeets that tells Booster whenever something is coming up. Without Skeets, Booster’s just like the rest of us. Who cares if he came from the 25th century? When he lived there, he was a jock cocksucker. We can’t possibly expect him to remember everything that happened back then, can we? Especially if this stuff isn’t common knowledge in the distant future. Who here remembers the Countdown to Infinite Crisis? Who remembers Booster, when he’d just been blown up in an explosion, trying to get out of his hospital bed with third degree burns over a quarter of his body? Why’d he do that? Not because he knew Ted was going to die. He did that because Ted Kord was his best friend he’d ever had. Calling that into question is wrong. Booster Gold, beneath that NASCAR advertising exterior is still a good man. A hero. A superhero. And I can’t wait for him to prove it to all of us.

See ya in seven.