History Cannot Be Changed

     Booster Gold’s journey back to one of the worst events in DC Universe history continues with Booster Gold #30.  Mongul has already begun launching the explosives that will spell Coast City’s doom, and although Booster’s conscience tells him that he must help, he knows what Rip Hunter would tell him.  Sondra Crain berates him for letting people die, and Skeets tries to keep him from violating his mission.  Booster and Sondra rescue a little girl, and Sondra finally convinces Booster to fight.  Skeets notices that neither Sondra nor the little girl are supposed to die at this time, and he sends them back through time.  Booster tries to fight Mongul’s ship, but he gets zapped by Hank Henshaw.  Skeets follows one of two remaining unidentified chronal signatures and finds Goldstar.  Booster gets attacked by some mysterious person and bumps into Goldstar, her boyfriend, and Skeets.  Skeets continues to try to preserve the timeline, stating that Goldstar’s boyfriend does not survive that day, but Booster is insistent on staying.  He activates a time portal to get Goldstar and her boyfriend out of there, but that same mysterious person attacks him again, knocking him into the platform and knocking the boyfriend out.  Booster, Goldstar, and Skeets arrive in the present day in Rip’s lab, and Goldstar is, needless to say, unhappy.  Booster isn’t exactly thrilled either and flies off to reevaluate what he’s doing.  Rip meets with the mysterious man from before, who turns out to be Booster from the future with a mullet.  He was just helping himself in the past do the right thing.  He and Rip catch up on father-son stuff and deliver some thinly veiled foreshadowing before older Booster goes off to return to his family.

     Now once again, here is Booster Gold done right.  Since the whole Coast City destruction storyline was a Dan Jurgens storyline, it’s not as intrusive to have Jurgens insert Booster into it.  That’s not to say that Jurgens and future Booster Gold writers should only put Booster in their own storylines from the past, but it is easier, and other storylines have to be dealt with delicately, more delicately than Jurgens did with the Teen Titans storyline.  Booster’s whole crisis of conscience is finally building to a head, and I think that Jurgens last issue on this title will see us get some resolution with this ongoing subplot.  It was also nice to see Rip and older Booster interact, especially since Rip normally seems like nothing but an uncaring ass.  Obviously, Sondra and that child will be popping up again in the future, so it’s nice to see the seeds of later stories being planted.  Even if that whole “upcoming conflict” thing was rather unsubtle.  Jurgens of course delivers his trademark, consistently solid artwork, and for once, Jerry Ordway’s stuff isn’t that jarring a shift.  The only slip-up with Ordway was when, in one panel, Goldstar doesn’t have lips anymore, and she suddenly looks more manly.  That’s a bit of a problem with comic book art in general, that it relies often too much on little cues like lips and eyelashes to distinguish sexes.  But whatever.  Jurgens gets to finish his run very soon, and I’ll be sad to see him go.  Still, Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, the men behind Justice League International, will be taking over.  Hopefully, that will insert some rather needed levity into this book.

Plot: 8.7      Art: 8.9      Dialogue: 8.9      Overall: 8.8