Booster Gold #20 Review

This book has been like a roller coaster ride. The original team did a great job. The fill-ins by Dixon saw a big drop off in quality. Rick Remender put it back on track. Dan Jurgens is settling in as the new regular writer but this issue features another fill-in.

Creative Team
Writer: Keith Giffin
Art Team 1: Dan Jurgens and Rodney Ramos
Art Team 2: Pat Oliffe and Norm Rapmund

Story Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 6.5 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: Rip Hunter’s time sphere has stalled in the 1950s. As usual, Booster is driving Rip crazy. Rip assures Booster that the Fonz was a fictional character and the 50’s were not as good as Booster thinks. Booster leaves to explore.

Booster ends up at a military base. Following a road he flies to the nearest town. While checking a map at a store, the owner wants to know about his costume. Booster says he is part of a circus.

A woman enters the store. She does not believe Booster. She leads him to a version of the Suicide Squad. The Squad needs help with a plot that involves a manned rocket launch and a Russian scientist.

In the end, Booster stops the launch. It prevents 4 people (who resemble the Fantastic Four) from taking off.

Rip has to explain to Booster how this led to the creation of the Rocket Reds.

Rip lets Booster go to a soda shop and recreate the Fonz’s famous entrance. He hits the juke box and it plays.

The Good: The cover was awesome. Booster firing the machine gun while standing in front of the Communist flag was poster worthy.

Jurgens turned in his usual great art.

Giffin’s script contained some nice touches. It was interesting to see the Fantastic Four being stopped from their take-off. Working the Rocket Reds into this story was another good idea.

The Bad: I thought this was a step backwards for the character of Booster. He seemed less intelligent and more like a clown than usual.

Normally, I like the art of Pat Oliffe. This must have been one of his off-days. The people all seemed to be standing around. Usually his art flows. This time it seemed very stiff. When inked by Rapmund, the art became less detailed. Pat’s previous art on Booster was very good. It seemed like this job was rushed.

Overall: The issue was okay for some of the ideas but disappointing overall. Hopefully, Jurgens can free up the time so he can do all of the issues. Because of the quality of the series, I will be back next time for “Back to the Batcave”.

1 thought on “Booster Gold #20 Review

  1. LOL…That was definitely a homage to the Fantastic Four, right down to Johnny Storm/Human Torch saying “that really burns me up”.

    I definitely think that Booster Gold took a hit since Johns left the title. Although Jurgens is a great writer, especially since he created Booster, I think Johns wrote him better. I know this issue was not by Jurgens, but some of the past Jurgens issues weren’t as great as Johns run. I kind of get annoyed with DC and Johns. He left some great titles in the middle of what could be great runs, Booster Gold, Teen Titans, and now the Justice Society.

    Sucks! But I love what he is doing with Green Lantern and the Flash.

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