Funny Book Forensics 424 Booster Gold Season One

[00:00:05] Speaker A: What am I doing here? [00:00:07] Speaker B: Know what you're doing? [00:00:10] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:00:10] Speaker B: What are you doing? [00:00:11] Speaker A: It's early, it's confusing. I know things are happening. The listeners can actually see you if they watch you on video. Now what? [00:00:21] Speaker B: I know. [00:00:23] Speaker A: Great. [00:00:23] Speaker B: Bought a better camera. All because of one person. And they're never going to see me because they stop watching. They stop. Hey. And it's. [00:00:31] Speaker A: They would never watch the show. [00:00:33] Speaker B: Like podcasts. And that's great. You know, I'm, I, I did it for them. And, and everyone else benefits. That's what we do here at the Funny Book Forensics podcast. [00:00:45] Speaker A: We care. We care where we care. [00:00:52] Speaker B: And it goes a long way. [00:00:53] Speaker A: A lot. A lot. We care a lot. Yes, we care a lot. [00:00:56] Speaker B: Faith no more. Faith no more. [00:00:59] Speaker A: It's faith no more. Wow. [00:01:01] Speaker B: Yeah. We care a lot. [00:01:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Sorry, I'm. I missed that one big time. [00:01:07] Speaker B: I know, I know. [00:01:10] Speaker A: Well, we are back and we're excited because we're at the end of Booster Gold, season one. [00:01:18] Speaker B: Season one. Oh my gosh, what a great season we've been watching here at the. [00:01:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:24] Speaker B: Forensics. [00:01:26] Speaker A: When did comics sort of start this? I don't know. I don't know if you have a definitive answer for me, but you know, I guess because I read month to month as a kid, right. I didn't think about comics in like 12 issue series arcs, right? Oh, yeah, I just read them. I would think of them in like three to four issue series arcs, right? [00:01:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:50] Speaker A: Or two issue arcs or depending on the era, just sometimes a single issue. But when graphic novels started, right. And we were talking about the last couple weeks, we were talking about the sci fi graphic novels that DC did and the regular graphic novels. And Marvel was trying some too, and different things. And then I know as we went direct market, right. And we've been talking about the direct market a little bit through the Booster Gold coverage. So Booster Gold was a newsstand book, but as the direct market happens, creators were also starting to be told to place your book in a four issue arc. Right. So that gives you how many pages, Greg? [00:02:35] Speaker B: About 26, 27 pages. [00:02:40] Speaker A: Four times four. [00:02:43] Speaker B: All the. Well, yeah, I'm going by book. And then. Yeah. Like. [00:02:49] Speaker A: So if you do a five issue graphic novel or you do a four issue graphic novel, you get between 110, 30, 130 pages, right? [00:02:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:59] Speaker A: Ish. [00:03:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:01] Speaker A: And. And now the storytelling is indicative of that. I mean, if you pick up a comic book series, the story arcs are often. You got it. Four issues, five issues. Right. Like it's just. [00:03:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:13] Speaker A: So it's become. Now it's almost annoying in some ways because, you know, you know, we're starting a new story and that means you're like, okay, so this story is going to end in five months. And sometimes I feel like those stories don't need to. Right. Like some of my favorite stories are like two issue stories where. And I think Travis said it on the podcast, but you've mentioned it before too, but holding the A plot and the B plot and the C plot. Right. And you're. You do a two issue story and that's the A plot for that story, but the B plot is ready for the next issue and then you've got the C plot in the background ready for you to pull out at some point in the future. Right. [00:03:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And you always got that kind of like there's an underlying or overarching story that is the sinewy continuous piece that pulls it all together. [00:04:11] Speaker A: Well, I read a lot of team books, so, you know, you could tell the story a little bit differently. Right. Because with like a group like Legion, you could rotate characters in and out people. Right. So you didn't necessarily have to have the. The team was the sinewally, sine. Sinewy part. [00:04:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:28] Speaker A: That holds everything together. Right. And then you're, you know, you have, I feel like Paul Levitt sometimes had like D and E and F plots right back there, like, you know, and could pull them in and. And then that becomes like the next little story arc with that group of characters. I didn't read as many solo books, so I wasn't as familiar with that. What you're describing. Right. I just, that's not what I read as a kid and obviously read them later, but I didn't. And then a lot of solo books too now. And obviously I think we're seeing that with the Booster series. And I would say now but forever, we develop a supporting cast. Right. So to call them solo books was always a little bit of a misnomer. Right, Right. Because they weren't solo books. You always had have this supporting cast. I would almost argue, like, as far as solo superhero books were concerned, Spider man always had that supporting cast for when he was Peter. Right. But not when he was Spider Man. And they held onto that for a long time. [00:05:29] Speaker B: That's pretty true. I mean, he's a singular superhero without any support in a sense. Right. [00:05:36] Speaker A: You know, at least for the first hundred so or more issues of the book. [00:05:41] Speaker B: He's figuring out, figuring out his powers, figuring out Himself figuring out how he fits into doing things and, and whatnot, you know, and then going through his day to day as Peter. And then like you said, you get, you get all that support and stuff like that. But I think that's where he, he leaves the, the superhero Persona behind and steps back into himself when he, when he needs that and needs that kind of regulatory check in, if you will, and gets that from his, his friends, his family, Aunt May. And then, you know, gets, gets that, you know, that, that punch in the shoulder from, from Osborne and you know, they, they buddy up in their apartment and everything like that and then goes on with his life. [00:06:34] Speaker A: But then you also. And then in the future, so we'll get to Booster in a second. In the future. It seemed like team books became. I mean, the easiest example is just saying it's all like Team Arrow and Team Flash from the CW stuff. Right. That's how comic books became. Right. Like, and so, you know, you'd have a solo book, but in that solo book you have a collection of heroes to run around with the hero and you, and you had a collection of supporting cast to run around with them and their civilian identity. And some of those may cross, some of them may not cross. But you sort of had that solo titles became. Not solo titles. In my mind. They became team whatever. A lot of the time. Not all, not everybody's book. But I was saying a lot of the time it became that because you had five issues. Yeah. And if you're going to write a five issue story too, you can't just. If the story is always going to be 130 pages, it can't be. Well, it could be. It would be mighty boring. But it can't be 130 pages of that superhero's introspection. [00:07:45] Speaker B: I mean, you got that, you got that with Metallo. [00:07:53] Speaker A: Lex. Metallo. Yeah, yeah, that was all introduction. Mentala. Right? Wait, yeah, Metallo. Wait, yeah, I know Flex. I know Flex. I'm saying. But it was all Metallo's. But it was all this. What's the Superman villain's name? [00:08:13] Speaker B: Which, which Superman villain? [00:08:15] Speaker A: Is it? Metallo? [00:08:18] Speaker B: Pixelplix. [00:08:19] Speaker A: No. Anyway, it's Metallo. [00:08:24] Speaker B: But it's all. [00:08:25] Speaker A: We read the books. [00:08:26] Speaker B: But, but it's all, but it's all. [00:08:27] Speaker A: No, it's Mentalo. I was right. Men T A L L L But it's all. [00:08:33] Speaker B: But it's all interesting. [00:08:33] Speaker A: Metallo is a Superman villain. He's a robot. You're like, stop obsessing over the name. Let me make with Flex. [00:08:43] Speaker B: But with Flex, it's all introspection by themselves. [00:08:47] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's boring as well, people. [00:08:48] Speaker B: He's going, no, it's. It's actually. It's interesting. [00:08:53] Speaker A: And we had very different takes on that, Reid. [00:08:56] Speaker B: I know we did. [00:09:00] Speaker A: It got to be too much. Okay, so what I liked in that, not to rehash it, but I liked the visits of like the Silver age gold, you know, golden age. Silver Age, modern age in the kind of comic book thing. But I didn't find the book to be particularly appealing. [00:09:16] Speaker B: What about. What about when we're reading Dusk? [00:09:21] Speaker A: I think Dusk is a film noir, so that's a different. And it's an intended to be miniseries piece. You don't have to go anywhere with it later. I liked it. Yeah. And I'm not saying all books are this way, but that's not a superhero book either. [00:09:36] Speaker B: I know it's not a superhero book, but it's. I mean it. I. Okay, well, take a look at you've got with Human Target. It's introspective. He's on his own. He has a cast of people that he could lean on, but he doesn't necessarily. [00:09:54] Speaker A: That was a unique series though, because there was constant interaction every. No, there was a pair up every. It's not unique. I don't say it's a. No, I think it fits the model because there's a pair up every issue and the overarching group. His team was the. The Justice League International. [00:10:13] Speaker B: I don't think his team was the Justice League International. He was working with. [00:10:16] Speaker A: He was working cast. [00:10:20] Speaker B: Well, you could see it that way from one from. From one view, but I think all together he was working on his own to solve the crime. They just happened to be part of it. [00:10:33] Speaker A: But the two things you both picked were basically PI stories. One a superhero PI story and the other one a PI story. [00:10:42] Speaker B: Well, you asked. [00:10:43] Speaker A: Human Target is very film noir too. [00:10:46] Speaker B: Well, you asked. You. I. I'm just pulling references from things that we've. We've covered. [00:10:54] Speaker A: Well, I'm just. Is there something besides a film noir piece that fits this? I'm sure there's. I mean there's. I'm sure there's a billion examples. Right. Like I'm just saying. But the, the trope. Incredible Hulk become this. Which ver the 70s or the now Incredible Hulks? I don't read them. [00:11:12] Speaker B: The 70s through the 80s. [00:11:14] Speaker A: The 70s was all team Hulk. Right. I mean, he went around by himself, but you always had Rick and Samson. And when he was at the Hulk. And. Well, he would. But he would only be the Hulk for, like, five pages. [00:11:32] Speaker B: But when he was the Hulk, he had no one but himself. Dan. [00:11:38] Speaker A: Smash. Hulk smash. Yeah, she's the Hulk. [00:11:45] Speaker B: You can say the same about Wolverine. I mean, yeah, he's on a team, but he's really all about himself. [00:11:50] Speaker A: Wolverine. Yeah. Wolverine Solo books are not great. I mean, again, haven't been in the current ones, so I don't know. All right, well, anyway, Booster Gold. Yeah, gets. Gets it because he's not a mask superhero. Right. [00:12:09] Speaker B: This shoe. [00:12:10] Speaker A: He's. [00:12:10] Speaker B: He's a public figure. He's. He's out there, everyone. [00:12:14] Speaker A: Team Gold, so to speak. Yeah. Gets to be that whether he's masked or not. So. And they start him with a supporting cast from the beginning. Yeah. [00:12:24] Speaker B: Which is. Which is cool because you get. You get to see him in a heat. Like, even though he's got the Persona, he kind of like, lets the veil down a bit with Trixie and he's like, oh, yeah. So this is who I am now. [00:12:38] Speaker A: I will say, out of the first 11 issues here and 12 and this one too, I found. I. I think we've talked about this a lot. Right. I think one Barbara Randall slash Barbara Kiesel now editing this book, it's going to take a sharp turn for the better. In my mind. I think one of the weaknesses in the book was the. Not the supporting cast, per se, but the villains he's fighting. [00:13:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:12] Speaker A: And so, you know, we had the. And. And we mentioned to you the crossover issues didn't help, but. Or the special guest appearance issues didn't help, but one character I really liked that appeared was Thorn. And nowhere to be seen as he goes back to fight the 1000. So I felt like maybe he wasn't allowed to use Rosenthorne anymore. Maybe. But that seemed like a logical bring back here to tie up the story. And we don't get any. Anything there. We also get. But the. I said. Because I'm thinking these villains were not good, Right? Like Blackguard, not great. Mind Dancer, a little bit better. The Twister is a terrible villain. Whoever the space alien people were not great. The Chiller is absurdly awful, both in character visual design and character conceptual design. It's just not like I freeze my face in a position with this spray, and that's why I'm called the Chiller. Like, it just not great. [00:14:25] Speaker B: But they drive. But they drive the story. That's what they do. [00:14:29] Speaker A: They do. Yeah. It's not good. And that's, I think the cool thing, if you keep reading past issue 12, is you start to get really cool supporting characters and some really interesting, like, crossovers coming up. And I think the other thing about this, too, is I. I don't know. I think it was an interesting choice to pick the 100, the 10 slash, the 1000, to be the villain group moving through these stories. And you go back to the original. It's originally a Jack Kirby concept, right. Right back from those books we were reading. I know it showed up in Black Lightning because I read those books. And then it shows up here. I feel like we got something that had been recycled twice and failed the first two times. I mean, try it again. [00:15:22] Speaker B: I think. I think sometimes you need. You need a familiar face or a faceless to be there, to be the bad. And the 10, the 100, the 1,000, fit the bill, if you will. [00:15:44] Speaker A: But with the original Jack Kirby stuff. Sorry, I cut you off, I was gonna say. [00:15:49] Speaker B: And they give Booster someone to fight against, but also someone to dislike. Booster, who's a likable guy. [00:16:03] Speaker A: I don't think he's that likable of a guy. I think there's a lot of reasons that you could dislike him. [00:16:09] Speaker B: There's a lot of reasons to dislike him. But at the same point, I mean, the person that he projects is somebody that's likable to an extent. [00:16:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And I. I get that he can't. [00:16:23] Speaker B: Drive a car and he doesn't know his words really well. [00:16:28] Speaker A: And we got an origin story. Right. Because he makes the director mad right away because he foils his plot to become president. But, yeah, it's just. I think this overarching first 12 issues just. The villains are not super strong. We do get a moving storyline. We do have the MacGuffin come in out of sort of nowhere of his suit losing power. I mean, all of a sudden in issue 10, it's like, oh, we just now noticed this. [00:17:03] Speaker B: His batteries aren't charging. [00:17:05] Speaker A: And. And I think that that that hint probably could have been dropped more successfully through the first 10 issues. So it's not just a. Oh, here's a convenient plot point. Right. To make him weaker for the final boss. [00:17:21] Speaker B: Maybe. But, I mean, at the same point, I mean, we don't. I mean, we don't know how his. How is powers. Like. Like, I mean, we know how his powers work, but we don't know how they work. Does he. Does he plug into a USB C and charge overnight, or does he know. [00:17:37] Speaker A: I think they had usbc. [00:17:39] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:17:40] Speaker A: So, I mean, like, they Maybe lost the power adapter. It's like remember back in 80s when you had a different size little hook in from early everything and so you had to have like. In fact, you probably still have. I do. [00:17:55] Speaker B: I have a box of them power. [00:17:57] Speaker A: Supplies that you have. [00:17:58] Speaker B: It comes in. It comes in handy all the time because weird things arrive at the house and I'm like, oh, hold on a second, let me get one of those things. And I pull it out and it's like, oh, I saved the day. [00:18:07] Speaker A: You do own a retro store though. [00:18:09] Speaker B: Yeah, so it saves the day. [00:18:12] Speaker A: Well, we should probably get into this. You are correct. It is a cool cover. Action comics number 584 is coming. It says. [00:18:20] Speaker B: Oh, shoot, I'm reading the wrong book. [00:18:22] Speaker A: Should we look up what happened in Action Comics 584? [00:18:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:18:27] Speaker A: I'm curious. I love how they advertise it and it gets me distracted every time. [00:18:32] Speaker B: Oh, no. [00:18:33] Speaker A: I probably should lick this up before the podcast. Action Comics Volume 1 584. Are you ready for this? [00:18:41] Speaker B: Yes. [00:18:42] Speaker A: Oh, oh, oh. This is a super famous cover, actually. Yeah, it's the one where Superman is holding Donna Troy by the neck and tore Cyborg's arm off. It's a John Byrne cover, I believe. Yeah, it's a very famous. It's a very famous cover. So it's the first new. All new issue. So this. We're full into the John Byrne Superman universe here, Wyatt. Yeah, so it is. It is a. They were. They were correct. This was one. They pushed mighty hard. So there you go. So they were onto that. And this is by Dan jurgens with Mike DeCarlo inking. We've already mentioned that new editor Barbara has taken the book over completely from Mr. From other Mr. Gold and Gene D' Angelo on colors and Augustin Moss on letters. Augustine Moss. See if they rotated the letters in and out of this book too. I will say, like, I do think, all the criticism aside at the start, I do think that Dan Jurgens did a phenomenal job holding this book together and the concept through a couple of editors. Right. And then also changed. Constant changes in. It's obviously him doing the art, but constant changes in letters. Right. You know, this was clearly treated as a third tier book by dc. Right. They weren't giving it consistency, but I feel like they did give it the help, like letting Superman come in, letting Allegiant come in. So they did try. [00:20:25] Speaker B: It's like, oh, hey, we'll give you helped. Yeah, we'll give you these. These powerhouses to to play with for a while and a couple. Couple issues to. To, you know, boost Booster. [00:20:40] Speaker A: Why couldn't they just give him some better? Maybe Dan Jurgens wanted to create all new villains, but, like, even this last Shockwave is awful. [00:20:49] Speaker B: Well, I mean, yes. [00:20:50] Speaker A: Clearly just there to destroy the building. I mean, that's. [00:20:53] Speaker B: I. I feel like if you've got. You've got a hero like Booster who's not anybody else you've ever seen, you got to give him all the. The F Troop villains. [00:21:09] Speaker A: Right. [00:21:10] Speaker B: All the. All the villains that. That are not. They're. They're not even like. They're. They're not. They're not your farm team. They're, like, worse than the farm. They're worse than the farm team, Dan. They're like. They're not even. They don't even. They. They. They couldn't even be the replacement villains. [00:21:28] Speaker A: A lot of these villains, though, were created for this series, right? [00:21:32] Speaker B: I know, I know. [00:21:33] Speaker A: And that's Blackguard. [00:21:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:37] Speaker A: And so I. I wonder how many appearances the Twister made. [00:21:43] Speaker B: Imagine one. This book. This. [00:21:47] Speaker A: This says Mr. Twister had one appearance. Yes. On New Earth. [00:21:52] Speaker B: That was it. Yeah. He looked cool for a minute, and then that was it. [00:21:58] Speaker A: Major blood. [00:22:00] Speaker B: Yeah, major blood. [00:22:03] Speaker A: So, yeah. I mean, and then, you know, black art, obviously, is now just a punchline in Suicide Squad. [00:22:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:12] Speaker A: Buying Dancer. Yeah. Okay. I'll quit picking on all the villains and stuff. But just to say that. Yeah, it's. I think that was the weakness there. Now, before we get into issue 12, we kept reading. [00:22:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:29] Speaker A: And so obviously, I'm. This is. This is what we do on this show. Like, sorry, I don't want to be. We're going to get into the upside of this in a second. [00:22:37] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll get there. [00:22:38] Speaker A: Yeah. We analyze comics and so this was. There were parts of it that weren't my favorite and were a little bit of a slog to read, but I kept reading, and I'm telling you, we're going to keep going, because issue 13. Really good. [00:22:55] Speaker B: Really good. [00:22:56] Speaker A: It is. [00:22:57] Speaker B: You heard it from Dan the Man himself. He said it was Good. [00:23:01] Speaker A: Well, issue 13 has a spoiler, because I started to spoil it last time. [00:23:05] Speaker B: Oh, man. [00:23:06] Speaker A: Issue 13 has. And this is why I can't figure out why this book isn't worth more money. It is the. It's not the real. It's not the first appearance, but it's the first post crisis appearance of Rip Hunter, as everybody knows Rip Hunter to be. [00:23:19] Speaker B: Oh, okay. That makes sense. [00:23:22] Speaker A: And so, yeah, Rip Hunter was A very different character in the Silver Age. So nobody credits it as Rip Hunter's first appearance, but Rip Hunter hadn't been like appeared at all. [00:23:32] Speaker B: Not been around. [00:23:32] Speaker A: And then they re. You know, this is like the. The redux. It's even credited in the DC fandom.com as Rip Hunter's first appearance. [00:23:43] Speaker B: There. [00:23:43] Speaker A: There is a very different than the original Rip Hunter. Anyway, we'll get into this. We are in the aftershocks. [00:23:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:55] Speaker A: After aftershocks. [00:23:58] Speaker B: Yeah. After shocks of his. [00:24:02] Speaker A: Shock waves in his Hardy boxer still. [00:24:05] Speaker B: Yep. [00:24:07] Speaker A: With his. That's an interesting costume choice too. Like that goes with his Shockwave suit. He's basically got a harness on. Metal harness on top. And boxers on the bot. Generally, that's not the combination. I think the metal jock strap would have gone with the metal harness on top. [00:24:24] Speaker B: Well, you know, he's. He's all about comfort Dan. He's a. He's a comfort king, apparently. [00:24:34] Speaker A: Well, the media is. Is horrified by this because a building just fell down. So that does make sense. [00:24:39] Speaker B: What are you going to do about this? [00:24:41] Speaker A: Yeah, you got to fix this right now. The fix it all. The police are complaining about how heavy Shockwave's armor is. And Booster standing there in the rubble saying, that's the story, Stone. I managed to troun Shocky, but not before he did a waltz on the roof of the. And caved in the place. And I think. I feel like Booster's narrative here is. His is very similar to what we might see in the media now when you're recounting it. Yes. Yeah, I won. See, just the entire building fell down. I lost my entire headquarters. I am losing my power, and my boss's or associate's daughter is missing and my best friend is missing. But. But that's a win for me. That's a win. Just call that a win in my book. [00:25:39] Speaker B: Chalk it up. [00:25:39] Speaker A: That is a win. Winning, Winning, winning. Don't look at me. Me. [00:25:43] Speaker B: Don't look at all the. Don't look at all the bad things. The good thing. [00:25:46] Speaker A: Yeah, it just sounds like a win. So. Well, the media is like your reps really on the line on this one. Cowboy. I was calling him Cowboy. [00:26:00] Speaker B: Cowboy. Because he's. He's. He's running around like a cowboy. [00:26:04] Speaker A: Well, and then in the background, we have a whole bunch of people in the background yelling, no more heroes. No more heroes. And they're protesting. Ah, let's test Greg's history of the DC Universe. What series is about to happen in DC Comics that they're referencing There. [00:26:36] Speaker B: Don't know. [00:26:37] Speaker A: Don't know. Well, I'll give you a hint. Now, crisis is over, Greg. Crisis is ending. [00:26:45] Speaker B: Oh, oh, give me a hint. [00:26:48] Speaker A: I'll give you a hint. Remember your favorite Mr. Miracle character, glorious Godfrey? Yeah. He was the villain in this miniseries. [00:27:03] Speaker B: Still don't know. [00:27:04] Speaker A: It's called Legends. [00:27:06] Speaker B: Okay. [00:27:07] Speaker A: And Glorious Godfrey was turning all of the Earth's people against the superhero, against superheroes at Darkseid's behest. So there are all these protests. [00:27:18] Speaker B: I see. [00:27:19] Speaker A: It's the first time Jason Todd got really beat up. No, not blown up. That's later. [00:27:27] Speaker B: Just beat up real bad. [00:27:28] Speaker A: Yeah. And people. The problem is though, beating up Jason Todd and hurting Jason Todd doesn't really, like, you know, help you get any sympathy. [00:27:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:40] Speaker A: So I don't know if that was the best strategy. We also start to get some of the ripples of the John Byrne Superman office coming out of this storyline. You get. That's where you start to get the Legion is cosmic. Boy goes back in time and he can't figure out why time is so different. And that's where you start to figure out. Yeah, it's because they didn't know. Superman doesn't know him when he sees him. You'll notice in this book, and this was called out in the letter column, Superman didn't know what the Legion flight ring was that Booster was wearing. [00:28:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:28:18] Speaker A: Because he had never met the Legion of superheroes. Ah, again, bold choices. Take your second best selling book from a couple years ago and then basically editorial it out. It's brilliant. Well, Boucher is giving us a recap that was happening all this time during Crisis as we led up to this time. And he goes through all the great villains he thought fought. The Chiller, Blackguard, the robots, Mind Dancer, Shockwave. [00:28:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:49] Speaker A: Notice he doesn't mention Jason Redfern. [00:28:54] Speaker B: Well, he wasn't a villain. [00:28:56] Speaker A: Well, he could have mentioned the short guy. Short alien space alien guy. [00:29:00] Speaker B: Yeah, he could have. He could have mentioned that. But that didn't happen on Earth. [00:29:05] Speaker A: Which also really tells me those two Superman issues, they don't even make the recap. [00:29:11] Speaker B: They don't make the recap. [00:29:12] Speaker A: This is the first season recap. And. [00:29:17] Speaker B: No, he doesn't talk about Legion, really. Just. [00:29:20] Speaker A: Well, he talks about the Chiller, though. So the Legion. The Legion story is referenced. [00:29:25] Speaker B: Referenced. [00:29:26] Speaker A: But Superman story isn't even referenced. [00:29:29] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. [00:29:32] Speaker A: Again, leading to that whole thesis of why was that there? Where does that fit? Who told him he had to do a Superman story and throw it in there. Or Maybe they said, Mr. Jorgens, you get a Superman story. Make one. He's like, I get Superman for a couple issues. Done. Cool. We'll fit it in. [00:29:48] Speaker B: Let's do it. [00:29:50] Speaker A: But anyway, we get our recap and Booster's kind of slinking away from everybody. And then again he says, shazam. [00:30:02] Speaker B: Flies away. [00:30:04] Speaker A: What's going on these days? That crowd is absolutely hostile. They hate me. And for a guy that is his whole universe is being adored by the public. That's got to be rough. [00:30:16] Speaker B: Gotta sting a little bit. Yeah. [00:30:19] Speaker A: And then he's talking to Skeets about his power loss. It's like, not so good. [00:30:24] Speaker B: It doesn't feel right. [00:30:26] Speaker A: Now, the bad part about this is, Skeets, is like my scanner show the power levels of your force field, our force shield booster shots and entire power suit at only 17.3%. [00:30:38] Speaker B: Oh, no, that's pretty low. But charge up. [00:30:41] Speaker A: And it is interesting later too, that they will even rewrite. And I was actually going through the who's who in the DC Mayfair Games universe the other day. [00:30:54] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:30:55] Speaker A: But even. Yeah, they'll. They'll quickly try to even write out sort of the flight ring and the force shield belt too, when they. After Crisis. So they'll eventually try to write that out. They bring it back later because it's convenient later on, 20 years later for him to have those things. Right. But they even sort of try to like, minimize that as well as you go through, so. Because, you know, editorial that Mr. Byrne. Can't have it. Can't have Superman connecting to the future in any way, man. No Supergirl future stuff. No Supergirl. Ah, well, Supergirl dead. [00:31:36] Speaker B: Terrible. Supergirl not dead. Yeah, Supergirl was dead. I mean, not in my heart. Oh. [00:31:47] Speaker A: Because you. You had the Helen Slater movie, which. [00:31:50] Speaker B: Yeah. So good. Hey, we can differ. [00:32:00] Speaker A: Oh, I even. I so tried to like that as a kid. I wanted it to be good. Anyway, anyway, we. After all that, Dirk walks away. He's calling the press a leech. There's an impending storm coming, apparently. [00:32:19] Speaker B: We don't know. [00:32:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And we get back to the Millennium Shipping warehouse, bruise an evil storm of its own. No. And we've got. They managed to dress up Trixie. And is her name Sarah? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, we talked about that last time you said any book with a character named Sarah. [00:32:39] Speaker B: It's a good book. [00:32:40] Speaker A: So my book, the first thing they do is give Sarah some implements to take. Start using her powers. [00:32:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:32:54] Speaker A: Well, anyway, they're wandering through security complex. Dr. Shocker Shacker, who doesn't appear to shock people. [00:33:03] Speaker B: Natalie doesn't. [00:33:04] Speaker A: It's kind of. That's the other thing with the villains. Like, why do all the villains have names that don't apply to their powers whatsoever? [00:33:10] Speaker B: Maybe it's just. Just because he's shocking. That's why I'm Dr. Shaka. I'll shock you with my shocking. [00:33:19] Speaker A: In previous podcasts, we've discussed at length what his powers might. Could be. I don't want to go through that discussion again. [00:33:26] Speaker B: I mean, we could not do it. [00:33:29] Speaker A: But she looks in and she sees that Senator Ballard is a hostage. Wait, I thought the director was Senator Ballard. [00:33:39] Speaker B: No, he's been. He's been taken hostage. Dan, maybe that's. Maybe Senator Ballard isn't who you think he is. [00:33:48] Speaker A: Well, maybe the director isn't. [00:33:51] Speaker B: Maybe that's really the shock. Maybe. Oh, my gosh. Maybe what we don't know is he's chilling also. [00:34:05] Speaker A: Just gonna say what? I'm just going over your joke on the chilling Shocker. Shocking. [00:34:12] Speaker B: Chill. Yeah. [00:34:13] Speaker A: Or do you feel a chill after? Anyway, so I will say one of the. You can tell this is a wrap up book too, because my God, there is a lot of words on these pages. [00:34:28] Speaker B: It's so many words. If I was a kid reading this, I would have given up because it's too many words. [00:34:34] Speaker A: It is a lot of words. [00:34:36] Speaker B: This is like, this is almost Wonder Woman. This is like Perez. Wonder Woman words. [00:34:42] Speaker A: Captain America. Captain America level words. [00:34:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I like, as a child, I wouldn't have, I would have given up. I. Yeah, it's been like, okay, what can I, what can I get out of this book without having to read so much? And it's not, it's just because when I was a kid, I hated to read, but I love reading now. But as a kid it was like. [00:35:01] Speaker A: Well, and I would in the opposite. I would have sat there and analyzed every word as a kid. But it's. This book would have taken me to get 30, 40 minutes to read. [00:35:09] Speaker B: I mean, I. [00:35:11] Speaker A: Let me walk that back. [00:35:12] Speaker B: I like to read as a kid, but also like if I'm reading a comic at some point and I'm like, it's just too much. Like, what am I getting out of this? [00:35:22] Speaker A: What are they saying? Well, we're going to not read it all, but Booster flies are the. To the, to the warehouse talking to Dr. Shocker slash skeets the entire time. And, and he's shocking because Skeets has. [00:35:40] Speaker B: Been hacked by doctor Shockers. That's the Shocking thing. [00:35:44] Speaker A: And see the, the important thing out of here is I was afraid of that we might have a big problem on our hands. It's 25th century energy cells aren't exactly available at the corner drugstore. So figured out the problem why he's losing his power and he lands. And that trader Flippa Dipa and his. [00:36:04] Speaker B: Pals, I know he's got all his buddies there and they're just like, they're, they're waiting for him. Laying in wait. They crawl out of the, the wall. [00:36:14] Speaker A: When did he turn to the, to the 10? I would think as a good newsboy legionnaire, he would have not. They come to the dark side. [00:36:22] Speaker B: It's all, it's all that gear. Look at all that cool gear, man. He got the promises. [00:36:28] Speaker A: Think he mass produced it. Did his dad help him? [00:36:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And they said, and what happened is like they, they're like, hey, why be part of the Newsboy Legion when you can have your own crew of nothing but Flipper, Flipper Dipper subordinates and you could be the big boss. [00:36:46] Speaker A: This is a fairly deep cut, by the way. If you're listening. It is this podcast for the first time. I'm sor. We're going back to when we covered Jimmy Olsen books. Some, some early Jack Kirby D.C. stuff. So we, we take a, we took a, we went a ways back for Anya, but we, we jumped. But yeah, if you go back and this, this character was called Flippadpa. It was a Newsboy Legion character they brought in to try to update the Newsboy Legion and yeah, give them a little bit of diversity. And if you go Back to episode 388, you can start there, go through 388 through 394ish and learn all about Jack Kirby, Jimmy Olsen Newsboy Legion. Crazy stuff. [00:37:44] Speaker B: We'll just put it this. The Newsboy Legion, a bunch of, a bunch of kids who wear normal clothes, flip a Dipper, their scuba diving friend wears his scuba gear all the time. [00:37:57] Speaker A: All the time. All the time. Would have made his cohorts very prepared to attack Booster Gold right here. [00:38:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So I mean like right now, I can tell you this, it is if you're, if you're, if you're running around with like a wetsuit with a tank on your back and you got, and you, you got fin feet on, that's hard to fight. It is. I, I, I have, I have run around in that gear before and it is not easy to maneuver because your tank is heavy. You're probably wearing a weight belt. You Got. It's just not comfortable with. [00:38:37] Speaker A: Well, these guys don't have fin feet at least, but. [00:38:40] Speaker B: Wow. [00:38:41] Speaker A: And I also am wondering why you were wandering around in that gear and what kind of event you brought. [00:38:47] Speaker B: Well, I, I, my, we, I did it in scouts. And then my uncle had gear and stuff like that, so I went a couple times. But is it like a rave or. Yeah, no, yeah, once I went, I, I, I, I did. I did underwater exploration here and there. I haven't. I still have a tank in my, in my garage. It's, well, really outdated. I need to get rid of it. [00:39:16] Speaker A: It's not. Well, Booster takes out the dispatches of them fairly quickly with Skeets help. And he starts to go inside the thousands headquarters. And then Skeets gets the crazy I'm evil glowing eyes in the background. [00:39:34] Speaker B: Oh, no. [00:39:36] Speaker A: Notices that Skeets is being sarcastic. [00:39:39] Speaker B: Oh, Skeets, you've turned to the dark side. [00:39:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:43] Speaker B: Millennium Bug. [00:39:45] Speaker A: You know when the jokes. Yeah, all the jokes and the sarcasm happen. That's when Lore appears. No. [00:39:55] Speaker B: Oh, no. [00:39:57] Speaker A: It's, it's his two sons. Man. One was always a disappointment. Do you think the Crystalline Entity would show up here? Because if that happened. [00:40:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:10] Speaker A: And Boosters at low power. That could be dangerous. [00:40:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, that would be very dangerous. Oh, so dangerous. [00:40:17] Speaker A: Well, we have Dirk out wandering the streets in his car looking for his daughter, being sad. [00:40:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:27] Speaker A: In one panel. And then we get back to Diamond Director. Diamond Director, but not Diamond Director because they're not diamonds anymore. [00:40:36] Speaker B: There. It's a. Yeah, it's, it's a. I. [00:40:40] Speaker A: Don'T know, what do we call a diamond? [00:40:42] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's just something, It's a. [00:40:44] Speaker A: It'S a batarang face. [00:40:46] Speaker B: Batarang face. Yeah, he's like Zartan. [00:40:49] Speaker A: He's like Zartan. He's gone from Cobra Commander to Zartan. That's probably why he loses. [00:40:54] Speaker B: Oh, he's a man of many personalities. We can't read his file card anymore because it's very disturbing. [00:41:02] Speaker A: Well, Dr. Shocker notes that the Scuba Squad was defeated easily. What? [00:41:10] Speaker B: He laid ways to dispatch them all. [00:41:13] Speaker A: It was no problem. And so, and the Shocker's like, I can just simply press a button and have his mechanical robot attack him. Master. He's like, soon, Shocker. But let me do these other things that make no sense first. Now he's gonna fight the synth. Synthezoid. Synthezoids. Synthezoids. Stint Synthazoids. [00:41:41] Speaker B: Synthezoids. So he's got, he's, he's got subhumans in. In the box. [00:41:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Basically. It looks like that episode. [00:41:53] Speaker B: He's got a bunch of church. [00:41:54] Speaker A: It looks like the Next Generation episode where, like, Jordy and evolve. Devolved. Wasn't it? Dr. Crusher and. And Deanna all devolved. That is a terrible episode. It's a seventh season episode. It is not a good episode. [00:42:11] Speaker B: Not a good episode. [00:42:13] Speaker A: That's. They kind of. I don't know. This. This actually kind of does look like a Jack Kirby creation, though. [00:42:18] Speaker B: It does. Kirby colors the. Yeah. The way that the light pops and everything like that. [00:42:24] Speaker A: It's. [00:42:24] Speaker B: It's a lot of stuff going on. [00:42:26] Speaker A: I think it's a nice tribute. [00:42:29] Speaker B: The design. Their. Their characters. Their character design is disturbing and interesting. [00:42:37] Speaker A: They're also Kirby esque in so far of types of villains I would expect to appear in a warehouse. As you went through the levels. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's fine. [00:42:48] Speaker B: Yeah, it's kind of. [00:42:49] Speaker A: It's. [00:42:50] Speaker B: It's like. It's almost like boosters on a really bad DND campaign where he. He's meeting up with different people at every turn. And, you know, he's like, oh, man, I rolled poorly. Okay. I got. Hey, I ran into this group and now. Now I got these. What are these things? I don't know. [00:43:14] Speaker A: I just thought Bishop was on horrendous amounts of acid. [00:43:18] Speaker B: Oh. Oh, that could be. And there's just normal people and he's just. He's. He's fighting all these, like, unhoused people inside this. This warehouse. [00:43:28] Speaker A: Yeah, like in the. All the text you were kind of glazing over at the beginning, you missed the part where Skeets handed him a little square to eat. [00:43:35] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. And he's. And. And he really has no powers at all, but he feels like he has a lot of power. And he's like. [00:43:45] Speaker A: Well, it's okay because he's about to murder all the synthoids. Synthesoids. [00:43:50] Speaker B: Yeah, he is. [00:43:53] Speaker A: He's running out of power. So he finds a gasoline barrel just sitting down in the middle of the warehouse, shoots it, murders all synthoids. They burn up Seth's. [00:44:01] Speaker B: Yeah, he's like, dying of fire, everybody. And burns them to death. It's like, that's some terrible way to kill all these synthoids. [00:44:10] Speaker A: Well, Dirk makes it to the Millennium shipping house, that 20. And you're like, not 20. I'm like, I'm already on. Like, Dirk makes it there. He's like, I've got to get my girl out alive. So he. Now I'm Sure. Dirk Jerk Face is going to be the pinnacle of this story. He's going to get in here and take care of everything. We're still going up the levels. And lasers start ripping Booster apart, and they start zapping through his force field. I'm just going to tell you right now that Brainiac 5's force field belt. [00:44:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:45] Speaker A: Is amazing. And. [00:44:48] Speaker B: Oh, totally. [00:44:49] Speaker A: All of a sudden, we don't see the force field belt anymore. In the uniform, you'll notice that it's gone. [00:44:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it's gone. [00:44:56] Speaker A: And now it's getting. Now his. His uniform is getting ripped to shreds. This is bad. His uniform is his power, right? [00:45:05] Speaker B: Yeah. He's getting blasted. [00:45:07] Speaker A: And what is Skeets doing? Skeet's just flying around talking. He's not stunning anybody. He's not zapping things. He's not telling Booster that there's a trap ahead. [00:45:16] Speaker B: Oh, he's not doing nothing. And he's not getting shot by nothing, either. Booster's like. Booster's taking all the hits. He's taking all the hit points. He's taking all the damage. [00:45:28] Speaker A: If Dr. Shocker's trying to make it look like Skeets is a villain, he's sure doing a good job. [00:45:35] Speaker B: Well, I mean, maybe all these lasers are shocking Booster. Maybe that's the shock. [00:45:44] Speaker A: Well, then we get to the next thing, and Booster says, luckily, though, my flight ring has its own power source and isn't affected. So he does acknowledge the flight ring, but the force shield should also have its own power source and not be affected, because those both came from the 30th century, right? [00:46:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:46:03] Speaker A: So starting to rewrite that history as we go. Okay. [00:46:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:46:10] Speaker A: Booster bounces down to the next level. Going down, he finds Trixie and Sarah. He's like, I'm gonna rescue you guys. And Trixie's like, you can't, because there's another prisoner. Senator Ballard's here. We got to take care of that. And then he's like, well, Trixie, here, you take the flight ring. The thing we just said was the only thing that works. And it was nice enough to. For SK to suggest it. SK Said, hey, you should give the flight ring away. So he gives up the flight. [00:46:49] Speaker B: He's like the worst helper right now. He's like, hey, Booster, give up all your goods to get them. I mean, that's. That's great. [00:46:58] Speaker A: That's. That's. [00:46:59] Speaker B: That's. That's. That's very thoughtful, very mindful, very demore. But at the same point, it. It's not helpful. [00:47:08] Speaker A: And then Booster says, well, that's it. Call me Booster Joe. Ordinary, powerless guy. [00:47:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:17] Speaker A: He would have gone with Bazooka Joe. I would have been happier. [00:47:20] Speaker B: No, but he's fighting. He's fighting Director Commander, and now he's Booster Joe. Booster Joe. [00:47:29] Speaker A: But if he would have gone with Bazooka Joe, he could have chewed a whole bunch of bubble gum and then blown a giant bubble. Entrapped. [00:47:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:38] Speaker A: Diamond Director in the gumbo. [00:47:40] Speaker B: He could have. [00:47:40] Speaker A: Or. [00:47:41] Speaker B: Or he could have. He could have pulled out a. A little comic strip from his back pocket, and they could have had a moment together where he. He read him a little funny, and then there was a little. A little. A little thing on the bottom that was like a. Like a fortune or something. [00:47:58] Speaker A: That's true. [00:47:59] Speaker B: They could have had a moment. And then. And then Booster could have said, ha ha, and put his arm around him. And Commander Director would have been like, ah, you fool. And then they would have been best friends. [00:48:12] Speaker A: I would also say that Bazooka Joe never would have gotten out of the shockers. Dr. Shocker's hair, that would have been there for life. [00:48:22] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Now that. That. That hair would have taken a hit for sure. [00:48:28] Speaker A: Well, this is where the Shocker gets a little bit irrational, and he's like, we're equals at last. Shocker, sound the alarm. Evacuate the complex. And Dr. Shocker's like, sir. He's like, evacuate the complex. Now what? [00:48:44] Speaker B: Quack. Yeah. [00:48:46] Speaker A: Destro is leaving, and Cobra Commander stays there to fight. It's all different scenario. [00:48:52] Speaker B: I know. [00:48:53] Speaker A: He thinks he's gonna win. He thinks got the advantage. Well, outside the fire's happening from where Booster murdered the synthezoids. [00:49:01] Speaker B: They're all crispy critters now. [00:49:04] Speaker A: And Trixie's trying to figure out how to use the flight ring. And she's telling it. She wants to land. Trixie, the flight rings are based on will. You just will it to land. It's. You just have to believe. Do it. [00:49:14] Speaker B: Yeah, gotta believe. [00:49:16] Speaker A: Tell it anything. [00:49:17] Speaker B: Kick, punch. It's all in your mind. [00:49:20] Speaker A: Well, anyway, he says, Trixie was right. Senator Ballard is captured. Ah, now we know what Diamond Director's up to. He didn't want Dr. Shocker to know the secret. [00:49:33] Speaker B: Oh, what's the secret? [00:49:36] Speaker A: That. [00:49:36] Speaker B: That he had. That he had Senator Ballard tied up all along. [00:49:40] Speaker A: Oh. Oh, Senator Ballot said, those glasses, I can't imagine what they want. They've made no demands. Booster's like, they probably thought your sunny disposition would brighten up the place. Oh, and then Senator Ballard Hits a button, says, Booster. I. Sorry. And he zaps Booster in the chest. Ow. Skeets falls down, damaged, because he let out all of his power to zap Booster at the speed of Senator Ballard. We turn the page, Skeets. And before we can continue, we have an advertisement for the start of the Legends crossovers. Oh. So we have the end of Justice League Detroit. We have a Phantom Stranger story and Secret Origins. And we have Firestorm fighting Brimstone with Cosmic Boy laying at Firestorm's feet. And I'm going to tell you right now, I just think I still have never bought that book, and I think we just found a Legion appearance that I don't own. [00:50:59] Speaker B: Oh, well, then you better get on it. [00:51:02] Speaker A: I've read that book, but I don't think that I actually have it. Yeah, just one of those I never bothered to get. [00:51:10] Speaker B: Maybe you need to now. [00:51:11] Speaker A: I may need it. I probably have it. I'm gonna look after the podcast. I'm definitely gonna look after the podcast. I may look during the podcast, see how distracted you can't look during the podcast. [00:51:21] Speaker B: Oh, no, Dan, don't do it. [00:51:24] Speaker A: While Senator Ballard tears off his suit. [00:51:29] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. It's Magic Mike all over again. He. He's. [00:51:34] Speaker A: He's like. [00:51:34] Speaker B: Pony kicks on. He starts doing the thing. He's like. He's like, wa. Wa. And he's like. He's. [00:51:41] Speaker A: No, he's not gyrating. He's singing Pink Pony Club. [00:51:45] Speaker B: Oh, he's singing Pink Pony Club this time. Oh, my gosh. And then he's like. He's doing. He's. He's got the stank leg going a little bit, and then he. He drops it down. [00:51:56] Speaker A: Where did he keep his cape? Under that. And when did he have a. [00:51:59] Speaker B: That's a. It's a good question. I don't know. He unfurls it from his neck wrap. It's like a. Like in the back of one of those members only jackets where the. The hood is wrapped up inside the. Up inside the. The neck, you know, and you unzip it, and it's got a little bit of a hood that you can pull up over your head when it's raining, if you want to. And then he unfurls it, and it's a giant ass cape. [00:52:24] Speaker A: Well, we get a lot of monologuing. [00:52:27] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. He pulls out a giant scepter. It's like one of those things where it's like a magician's one that just, like, boom. It turns into a scepter. [00:52:36] Speaker A: That wasn't the kind of monologue I was thinking of. [00:52:38] Speaker B: He doesn't have one of those. [00:52:40] Speaker A: Oh, no, he has that giant. [00:52:41] Speaker B: It's a gun. [00:52:42] Speaker A: It's a. [00:52:43] Speaker B: He's got a damn dirty, hairy pistol. [00:52:47] Speaker A: And he's like, booster, you cost me the ultimate power, the presidency. And, boy, how he would predict the future. [00:52:55] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. [00:52:56] Speaker A: The presidency is the ultimate power. Apparently. It allows you to just do anything you want. [00:53:02] Speaker B: Why does it look like when he puts on the hood, he looks like a Klansman anyway? [00:53:08] Speaker A: Yeah, why. Why does he look like the current president? Yeah. [00:53:13] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:53:15] Speaker A: I know. It was Foretold the future. [00:53:18] Speaker B: Oh, boy. Yeah, that. That one panel is a very. Not great there, actually. [00:53:27] Speaker A: I thought. I think it is very great, actually. Yeah, no, it's a. It's a very telling panel. [00:53:33] Speaker B: It's a. Yeah, it's very. It gives you the ick. It's a very disturbing. [00:53:38] Speaker A: Well. And he's gonna shoot Booster in the head with a bullet. [00:53:40] Speaker B: Yeah, he's. He's like. He's like, ah. One bullet, that's all I need. [00:53:44] Speaker A: And then Skeets wakes back up, shoots his hand. Skeets is back. Skeets used his last little bit of power to shoot his hand. That gives Booster a chance to do a leg sweep. [00:54:00] Speaker B: Sweep the leg, put him in a. [00:54:02] Speaker A: Bag, knock him down. He starts heading out of there, and Cobra Commander Ballard is like, never turn your back on an opponent gold. It can be costly. He's like, my arm. He grabs it, slams him into a computer bank. Oh, this is very similar to the classic Kirk fight style. Oh, yeah, Specifically the fight against one Khan Noonian Singh in the original episode where they slammed him into panels and stuff. And Kirk tried to his vaunted double axe handle, remember? And it didn't work. And then Khan starts winning. He has to get equipment and stuff and start hitting him. Yeah. Because he had to use foreign objects to defeat Khan. It was terrible. Well, in this case, the director's trying to use all the equipment, fight him, kick him, move him around. And Booster's like, my arm's gone. My ribs are cracked. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna stand up and I'm gonna do one giant uppercut. I'm gonna do a spinning back fist. Spinning back fist. That was early for that. I don't think people knew about spinning back fist. We have a spinning back fist. We have an uppercut and we have a knocked out diamond director. Oh, man, what a wuss. He takes him out he had every advantage. And now Booster Gold looks over and goes, oh, my God, there's a fire. Matt Wagner is bringing the Demon to dc. Four issues this fall. [00:55:35] Speaker B: Boom. [00:55:36] Speaker A: Cut back to the. Back to the action. There's fire everywhere. Everybody's looking sad because they knew Booster's in there. And Booster comes walking out with Skeets. Just falls over like a. [00:55:49] Speaker B: Like a football player. Just like he. Just like his future past self. [00:55:54] Speaker A: He's finally down. [00:55:55] Speaker B: Getting that yardage. Yeah, he's getting that yardage. He's going, oh, he finally didn't drop the ball. [00:56:01] Speaker A: That's the metaphor. He didn't drop the ball this time. And he just passes out on the dock. [00:56:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:09] Speaker A: All burnt up and injured. [00:56:12] Speaker B: Naked. [00:56:13] Speaker A: Skeets is damaged. [00:56:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:18] Speaker A: And that's. And that's the end of season one. [00:56:22] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. It ends in such a. It is. It is. It is a hard. That last panel. If, if, like, I mean, if I, like, if I was reading this as a kid, I would have been devastated. [00:56:37] Speaker A: I mean, I really. [00:56:38] Speaker B: As an adult. As an adult, I'm devastated. [00:56:41] Speaker A: I was devastated as an adult. I wanted to see the next issue. That's why I kept reading. [00:56:46] Speaker B: You don't want to see Booster like that. You don't want to see Skeets like that. I mean, Skeets is just destroyed. His little fins are busted up. The. I mean, all the flippa Dippers were all like, giving him a tough time about fins being out of style. And now his fins are all messed up and. And now he's like, his face is broken and everything like that. Booster's just a hulking, massive, burned up meat. [00:57:13] Speaker A: And where's diamond director? [00:57:16] Speaker B: We don't know. [00:57:18] Speaker A: Did boost in a fire? In a fire? No, but all seriousness, these last three issues, the robot issue, the issue, the Shockwave issue was a little bit weaker, I think. I thought the robot issue was pretty good. Shockwave issue a little bit weaker, but it advanced the plot than this issue. And then I kept reading, like, I read like four more after this because they hooked me back in and good writer, good editor, good, great art by Dan Jurgens. I would love. I'm sure somebody, a Booster Gold fanboy, already has this page, but if this page was available for under 500 bucks, I would buy it in a heartbeat. Buy it. If it's available for under a thousand, I might buy it still. I mean, it is a fantastic piece of art. [00:58:06] Speaker B: It's a great piece. I think. To your point about the Shockwave book, I want to say sometimes you need a book like that to break up the serious tone of what happened with the robots and what we know that we learned with Dr. Shocker and Diamond Director and their plan. So then you throw in a little bit of comic relief with Shockwave and his randomness or his silliness, I guess, his dancing on the rooftop and smashing the building, and it just seems so. Just absurd. Right. It's just, it's, it's. It's absolutely bonkers that that would happen, but it, it makes sense in the Booster Gold world. And then you have this book that is so. Just takes you. It takes you from zero to 60, you know, all the way through it. And then at the end, you're just. [00:59:14] Speaker A: Like, well, let's think plot points. We had during the first 12 issues to end a store, to end a flood, to end a single issue, Right. So we had. If you're going back, we had, he beats Blackguard, but then Mind Dancer comes in, so he gets zapped. Right. Yeah. That leaves you kind of wanting to know what's next. We had the whole going through. We had the Rosenthorne thing, like, who is Rosenthorne? We had the tax collector showing up, which I think is one of the weaker ones, probably. We had the holdover, what's going to happen on the planet. Right. With Superman and Fearne. We had, will the president's president and the vice president survive? [00:59:57] Speaker B: Yeah, will they survive? [00:59:59] Speaker A: Which honestly, to me isn't much of a cliffhanger because I don't think they're going to kill the president in a comic book with the comics code authority on it. But. [01:00:05] Speaker B: No, but at the same point, it's, will Booster and the Legion work together to do this, or are they going to battle it out? And, you know, they finally do work together. [01:00:18] Speaker A: But I'll just say by far, the last through three sequentials. Right. The. Hey, what's happening to Booster's power next? We just destroyed his home. What's he going to do? And, and, you know, he declares, I'm going to go get them. And then this one where he falls at the end of the battle. I mean, as far as compelling, like, getting me to want to grab the next issue. [01:00:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:44] Speaker A: We're getting much more effective at that. And I'm thinking, too, I'm sure the editorial decision had something to do with that. [01:00:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And I know, like, how you feel about Dirk. You don't. He is. He's a dirt bag. But you do feel compelled to kind of care a bit because you see that he does care about his daughter, you know, I mean, on a human, on a human level, right? You're like, oh, okay, he cares about his kid. But then you also have the compellingness that Trixie's been taken hostage to. You want to see a resolution in that situation. You want to see her saved and all because her sweet aunt is so worried. [01:01:27] Speaker A: I'm just going to say that I, actually, for me, my opinion about Dirk doesn't change at all. I'm not going to spoil the next few issues, but I will say that the next couple issues probably reinforce my opinion about Dirk. [01:01:43] Speaker B: Oh yeah. I mean, I, I, I feel like he's, he's, he's a jerk through and through. But you, you care about his kid. [01:01:53] Speaker A: Kind of. I felt, I felt, I, I, I, I didn't, the kid part didn't help me. Okay. It felt just like a plot device to me. It didn't feel like, I mean it definitely was, but it, to me it's just a plot device. It didn't feel, I felt like the Trixie thing was more impactful and I think you could have done the whole thing without, without the kid. I mean it gave you a little bit more build up. So it gave you the kid thing, gave you the C plot build up in the background right as we got there. Yeah. So I mean, I'm not saying we should take it out, but I'm just saying like you could have done it with just Trixie or a different device. Right? He could have been. [01:02:40] Speaker B: Dirk wouldn't have done any of that stuff if Trixie got taken. He wouldn't have tried to, he wouldn't have gone the distance to, to help the thousand and, and screw Dirk over, to screw Booster over with any of that stuff. If it was just Trixie, it had to be his kid. [01:03:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:01] Speaker B: So yes, plot device with a reason. You, as much as you don't like, had to be his kid. [01:03:10] Speaker A: Well, if we want to keep Dirk. [01:03:11] Speaker B: In there, yeah, but I mean, but you need, if you're going to go the route of Dirk giving up the goods on the computer, Dirk doing this and giving the information and stuff like that. If you don't have him doing any of those things, then sure, yeah, you don't, then don't do that. Don't have that as part of the story. But I mean as it's part of the story, he needs something to compel him to want to do that. He's not going to do it to save Trixie. He doesn't, he's not that kind of caring person. [01:03:46] Speaker A: Well, I do want to read a letter. All right. From the Gold Exchange. This is from one Larry Schultz of 52 Woodward Avenue, Springville, New York, 1414-114141-14141. You can send your hate mail to him. Dear Dan, Booster has reminded me why I don't watch professional sports anymore. Who cares about a bunch of egotistical millionaires? Dan, you haven't given me any reason to care about Booster. Now that I have been introduced to Booster, I can honestly say that I despise him. Booster is not a hero. He's a giant golden cockroach. He may clean up the crumbs, but he's still vermin. Dan, as an artist, you're terrific. One of the top 20 pencilers working today. As a writer, you're boring. The characters in BG are vile, especially Booster. The idea for him was intriguing at first, but after seeing it, I know now that it was a too shaky a foundation to build a series on. I was going to read this title for a full year before I decided to stick with it or drop it. I can't wait that long. I'm dropping it. Larry Schultz. [01:05:00] Speaker B: Oh, man, he's gonna miss out. [01:05:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. He did miss out. And then Dan Jurgen says, well, I hope one of Larry's friends tells him to at least pick up this issue so he can see his letter in print. And maybe, just maybe, he'll even see Booster Gold that he likes a little better. [01:05:17] Speaker B: It's kind of like the guy that got me to get a. Get a better camera. [01:05:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Nag, nag, nag. And then disappear when the. When the payoff comes. I will say, though. I will say that some. Some of my issue. The issues, though, I like. I disagree with Larry Schultz's characterization of everybody we've been talking about, Dirk. I do think there are some likable characters in the book, but I do understand, too, we've been talking about the progression. Right. And how the story just, you know, in some ways didn't progress in a way that would hook readers in some respects. In here we have. Yeah. Somebody saying that it's an honest opinion. [01:05:56] Speaker B: I mean, it's. It's. It's what they. [01:05:59] Speaker A: It's. [01:05:59] Speaker B: It's their opinion of the character of the book that they were reading and how they felt about it. And. And that's fair. I mean, if you're. It'd be like if you're, you know, your opinion, Dan, of what you had read up to that point. If you had only got to Book eight. You were like, why am I reading this? If you hadn't had the ability to read forward, you would have said, why are we reading this? [01:06:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. I mean, if I hadn't gotten to the conclusion, I would have said we had a couple crossovers. It seems like. It seems like we got a book. It started failing. They did the crossovers and it's still mid. Yeah, it's just. Well, and I think too. But there are enough. The thing about. I do think he gives us enough things. For me, I probably would have kept reading if I'd started reading this as a kid because there was enough feature references that I would have kept going. [01:06:56] Speaker B: Right. [01:06:56] Speaker A: And I will say, like, there's another letter in here. I just want to read part of it. It says, I was very impressed with the origin of the advertised Avenger. And I must. I love that line, by the way. I must admit that I had noticed the time conflicts at first. Anyway. Now I know at first. My theory was if you live in the future and the book took them to the past and between 1986 and 2462, Booster lost them and the space museum gained possession of them. That would have been the flight ring and the. And the force field belt. That's how we had Brainiac 5 stuff. Then that paradox could work. And he's like, I hate paradoxes. But I, I like it too. And I. I would say too. Next issue. Spoiler. [01:07:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:07:47] Speaker A: We may start getting into potential time travel. Oh, and this is where I think the book can be a lot of fun because I think a Booster Gold that's a little bit goofy, but also has that science fiction part of it. I feel like that's part of the element that maybe was missing a little bit in the first 12 issues because it should be a little bit of a sci fi book. Well, yeah, stuff should happen. [01:08:17] Speaker B: Well, it's like you gotta it without the weird stuff. It's almost like he just pre toasted the bagel to begin with. [01:08:25] Speaker A: And then. I agree. [01:08:26] Speaker B: You got the bagel. It was just pre toasted and it was ready. It was. It was ready. And we, we don't want that. We want. [01:08:34] Speaker A: We. [01:08:35] Speaker B: We want the bagel and then we want to toast it. We don't want it pre toasted. [01:08:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:40] Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean, I think we're gonna get. We're gonna get more. More bagel goodness in the next portion of this. The story. [01:08:51] Speaker A: Well, and I did. And I. And I honestly, you bring that up and I was going to apologize to you this week. Oh, yeah, Because I think you're correct. [01:09:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:02] Speaker A: This is the first time. This is a. The very first time in the history of funny book forensics or Dan has said. I think Greg is correct. I think there are pre toasted bagels. [01:09:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:18] Speaker A: Yes. I think they are bagel crisps. Some of the most vile, terrible things that exist in the universe. [01:09:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:27] Speaker A: But you are correct. They do exist. [01:09:29] Speaker B: They're pre toasted. [01:09:30] Speaker A: They are pre toasted and they're crunchy and gross and the opposite of what a bagel should be. But. You were right. There are pre toasted bagels and that's why his bagel shop was going out of business. Because if you went in to get a bagel and then it was all crunchy, you would have been like, this. [01:09:55] Speaker B: Is not what I want, but it might be what you want in the future or the past. [01:10:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. If you had a bagel crisp with some, like, cheese and stuff on it, well, that might be okay. But it's. They should never call them bagel crisps. One that's just not bagels. Yeah, it's. [01:10:12] Speaker B: What if it was like. What if it was like a bagel crisp inside a. Inside of a Cardetto's bag? Like, you know, they. [01:10:19] Speaker A: No, those are rye crisps, first off. [01:10:21] Speaker B: No, no, no. What if they got rid of the Rikers and just put the bagel crisp in? [01:10:25] Speaker A: That would be terrible. The rye crisps are the best part of Gardettos by a lot. [01:10:30] Speaker B: I. I disagree because I can't eat them, but. [01:10:33] Speaker A: Well, then I can't. What are you disagreeing with me about? Yeah, the, the rye crisps are the best part. As you will recall, when I used to get Gardettos, I would eat all the rye crisp out of the bag and give you the rest of the bag. [01:10:45] Speaker B: I know. And then I'd be like, where's the good stuff? I've already ate it. [01:10:50] Speaker A: I don't like the pretzels. Yeah. So. [01:10:55] Speaker B: You leave me with the pretzels and those, like, little weird cracker things that look like a, like a little Russian doll. [01:11:02] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I would eat the good parts. I paid for them. So anyway. Well, I am excited. We're gonna. We are spending way too much time on Booster Gold. Maybe if the listeners are tired of us doing Booster Gold, message us. But we're going to do at least two more issues. [01:11:21] Speaker B: More issues. [01:11:22] Speaker A: Because I want to get to the good stuff more. [01:11:25] Speaker B: Yeah, get to the good stuff. [01:11:26] Speaker A: But we do probably need to start doing something else too, so. [01:11:29] Speaker B: Oh, we will. We will. [01:11:31] Speaker A: But for now, next issue, Booster Gold number 13. And we haven't. We haven't spent a lot of time talking about it. We stayed on task. It's kind of crazy, I know. For the most part. So I didn't talk about Jiu Jitsu. Lawyer Paul, who can represent. Represent. You represent. You represent. You represent people with. Yeah, all sorts of legal things, including employment law, contract law. If you need help, you can reach out to Jiu Jitsu. Jiu Jitsu. Jiu Jitsu. Jiu Jitsu. I can say words. Words are my friend. [01:12:09] Speaker B: Words tastes like peaches. [01:12:11] Speaker A: Why am I messing this up? Also, you'll find a link in our podcast to a future thing. Yeah, that might happen. I understand. It's Raining Alex. It's the new graphic novel by Travis Webb. [01:12:29] Speaker B: It's Raining Alex. [01:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:12:32] Speaker B: Hallelujah. [01:12:33] Speaker A: Eventually, we'll launch. I. I have no idea. I keep putting up a link so Watching can be launched to the Watching. [01:12:43] Speaker B: Maybe we'll do a live. We'll do not a live interview, but an interview with Travis to find out more. [01:12:52] Speaker A: It'd be weird in the future. I should do that. It's Raining Alex. Remember, watch out for that on Kickstarter. Yes, and also Retro Emporium. I've heard of that place. Oh, yeah, it's in Kent, Washington. [01:13:06] Speaker B: It is. [01:13:07] Speaker A: It's where your childhood comes back to life. And it's where Greg goes to spend all of his evenings. [01:13:13] Speaker B: Most. Yes, most. Most evenings, like a. Like an old 90 cell phone plan. Nights and weekends. You'll find me there. Moving boxes or other things. Last night, I was moving. Well, last night we weren't open, but I was moving boxes of VHS cassettes because we are getting our media section back to dead media. [01:13:37] Speaker A: There you go. [01:13:39] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. It felt like I was at Video Update again. Working is insane. [01:13:46] Speaker A: Sounds awful. [01:13:48] Speaker B: No, it was great. It was great. So many. So many movies I remember putting on the shelves. [01:13:55] Speaker A: Well, come back next week. Yeah, we will update you on Video Update. We will. But if you come back, you're going to see the first modern age appearance of one Rip Hunter. Spoiler Rip Hunter. We get some time travel. Maybe we get more Booster Gold. We get to the exciting parts, and you know what? What? You get us. And what can be better than that? [01:14:27] Speaker B: I don't know. I. I mean, I. I hear. I hear marshmallows are pretty good. They're. They're pretty delicious and tasty, but I. I hear we come in a pretty good second. [01:14:42] Speaker A: Marshmallows are disgusting and vile. [01:14:45] Speaker B: What? [01:14:46] Speaker A: Well, that's a good another episode that thanks for another episode of funny book Forensics. Just remember, always shoot the Stay puff Marshmallow man. Bye Bye.