Batman #45

[history79]

Comments

[captainbellman]

I don't know, Booster, this plan seems to make as much sense as, say, ripping off an old Alan Moore idea for the umpteenth time...

[long_silence]

What the hell Booster? I know he doesn't intend to let the timeline permanently change but this is still either incredibly cruel or incredibly moronic. Probably both.

Definitely incongruous with his duties as a Time Master

[wizardru]

This also seems to go pretty much completely against Booster's own comic. There was an extended scene where he tried to prevent the Joker from crippling Barbara Gordon in the Killing Joke and failed over and over and over again, until it became obvious that he couldn't undo a pivotal time event.

The idea that he could undo Batman? This should run counter to everything he's done, more than most characters. I mean, he sent his best friend back in time TO DIE. Booster isn't always a deep thinker, but he had enough growth that this shouldn't be a story with him, IMHO.

[lieut_kettch]

I don’t know why he had to do that. Couldn’t he just find as parallel timeline where all three members of the Wayne family survived?

[endis_ni]

Todd-Tire-Taze is quite gloriously MagnaVolt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UPniOAMx94

[kalanyr]

I want to know how a Bruce who has never been Batman can wreck a robot (that can take bullets and grenades ) in 1 swing of an ordinary poker.

[miss_abnormal]

This is a... out-of-character Booster Gold. Wildly so, if I'm being honest. Sure, Booster can be selfish, can maybe yearn for fame and glory a bit too much, can sometimes make mistakes, but throughout all of that, he's still a genuinely good man. More so, he has matured over the years and knows about the potential consequences of his actions (and takes them seriously). Booster, as readers know him (including his recent time-travel adventure with Superman), would never be so tone-deaf and ignorant of what this might psychologically do to Bruce.

However, I'm going to wait for this story-arc to end. There might be a twist to all of this, for all I know. Maybe there's a larger plan behind this, something that Booster is struggling to deal with. Part of me even thinks that there might be some kind of coping-mechanism kind of situation with Booster, since he has seen a variety of traumatizing things over the years.

Or maybe not.

I'll wait and see what happens. However, if this is actually the Booster that Tom King thinks is accurate to the character, then... Tom King will need to do a lot of more research on Booster (and also the editor(s), since it should be their job to maintain accurate characterizations across all comic titles while at the same time letting there be room for character change/development).

[locuatico]

I will tell you the moment I felt he doesn't get Booster Gold.
In the first couple of pages.
We open with this world's version of Hal Jordan... "willing" his ring into killing him (IE, Hal kills himself because crazy), and booster Gold says "that was intense but, admittely, a little bit kind of... Awesome!"
what.

[beyondthefringe]

From an exchange on Twitter I saw:

"With all due respect, because I usually love your writing and Batman has been fantastic: did Booster Gold take idiot pills or something, because this is the least responsible, most harebrained, most juvenile he's been in -years-, and it sucks to see him backsliding. :("

"Ha. I don’t see it that way I guess. This is just what Clarence does in It’s a Wonderful Life every Christmas. That never seemed idiotic to me. It’s a kind of kindness. But it is kind of a messed up kindness."

I'm really not sure King understands that Booster has grown out of the joke-a-minute, immature JLI years, and that annoys me. I miss the time traveling "Secret hero" we got in Booster before the New 52.

[obsidianwolf]

Good grief that comparison really misses the mark. Clarence in Its a wonderful life gave a man who was convinced his life didn't matter at all and was actively wishing he'd never been born a glimpse that showed his life did matter.

That might halfway work as one if Batman was having an existential crisis and was convinced that nothing he did mattered and it would be better if he had never been Batman but no instead this Booster being an idiot about things for no good reason as a wedding gift. Not comparable at all.

[miss_abnormal]

Oh no...

The thing is, even JLI-era Booster wouldn't have done this (people seem to forget that Booster was actually the mature one of the Blue and Gold duo)*. Sure, he was young and a bit more impulsive and more into the fame and glory stuff, but he wouldn't have gone this far.

Because the situation in this issue is pretty much a sort of psychological horror for Bruce. This isn't just Booster trying to make Bruce happy but accidentally changing the timeline (or trying to change the timeline to make Bruce happy, which would be something Booster would probably do in his earlier years, since he tried to do something similar with Ted Kord and Barbara Gordon)--this is Booster changing the timeline where Bruce lives a happy life, then telling him that it's all basically a lie and that he will change it back by letting his parents get killed, and just acting so nonchalant about it, and doing all of this genuinely and on PURPOSE.

Booster, at any time in his life (including JLI, early "52", early volume 2 series, New 52)*, would never try to psychologically torture someone in this way, and he would never be ignorant enough to not realize that such an act is psychological torture. This is supervillain-level stuff or, if keeping with the "kindness" part of it, then the kind of thing that a character like Mister Mxyzptlk would do. But Booster? Nah.

*So, yes, there's the I Can't Believe It's the Justice League era, where Booster was... significantly dumbed down. Although it was funny at the time (I don't know if it has aged well overall, but sometimes I do cringe when thinking about some of the jokes and characterizations). It was also, I think, when there was a sort of role reversal with Blue Beetle and Booster (Ted being the mature one now, while Booster the immature one; I think the idea might have started off with Ted's characterization in Birds of Prey, but that's a discussion for another day). Unfortunately, I think some writers use that series as their main source material for Booster's characterization and just "bleed" that characterization into everything else Booster has done in his life--fortunately, that's a characterization that hasn't been done by most writers, overall. Anyway, that series is barely, if at all, canon in DC continuity. There are scattered references to it here and there, but in terms of the characterization it's just... not part of the DC Universe at this point (and barely even shortly after that series ended).

[siamesa]

This. I like a lot of what’s going on here Bruce-wise, but warping Booster’s character like this bugs me immensely.

[lieut_kettch]

I think Time Master Booster would still try to attempt to give Bruce a similar gift, but in a totally different way. He’d look for a parallel timeline where Bruce and his parents survived rather than create one himself.

[tsunamiwombat]

Cripes. This is dumb. Ho hum, another "THE WORLD WOULD EXPLODE WITHOUT BATMAN". Seems like something in really bad taste to send to the man who can never get over his parents death, by the way. In really bad taste.

[caivu]

I hate, hate, hate that Bruce has morphed into a figure of such cosmic importance.

[beardedjellybean]

Booster, you literally brought Crazy Steve into being. You have fucked up immensely this time.

[nyadnar17]

I am just going to assume this is another King swerve.Because this can't be right, and King has fooled me so, so, so many times before.

[thanekos]

It's funny how his Batman arcs've tended to be like that- the first parts make you go " What? No, that's not how that- ", and then by the last part, you're going " .. ohhh, that's why- OK, I get it now. "

[shakalooloo]

Todd-Tire-Taze? I'd buy that for a dollar.

[thanekos]

In the bad timeline, Jason's the happiest.

[janegray]

I honestly don't know how I feel about that.

[roxas832]

So Booster decides to create an alternate timeline where the Joker isn't just one guy, but an entire gang of Jokes....


Great Plan! Except, if you wanted to give Bruce a gift, maybe you could have shown him Thomas and Martha's wedding? Instead of this filler story?

[icon_uk]

That would have been kind of awesome. I remember Booster gave Dick a present by taking him back in time to see his parents again during the Dick!Bat era.

[obsidianwolf]

You know these character shilling the world goes to hell without (insert character here) are bad enough without the entire thing being done by a character who should damn well know better doing something out of character for a stupid reason.

You know what I'd really love to see instead of a Batman is so important the world needs him so much or it all goes to hell story. I'd love to see a Batman story where he saw a world without him and it was doing just fine. Different for sure but not no batman equels instant hell scape and instead just different. Maybe show his friends and family in various situations some having beter livers and some having worse and then end the thing with BAtman clearly knowing he isn't fundementally important to the sanity of the world.

Then have him choose to keep being batman because he feels it is the right thing and it is his choice not because he's so important and vital but because he chooses to help others and Batman is his way of doing that.

[lego_joker]

I'd love to see this too, but it's probably not feasible as long as Ra's remains an iconic part of the Bat-mythos.

This is probably the main reason I hate Ra's, now that I think about it. As soon as he stepped into the game, Batman stopped being just a Concerned Citizen Adventurer whose existence may OR MAY NOT be a good thing for Gotham in the long run, and started being a capital-S Superhero literally the entire world owe their lives to. It's a Grade-A nuance-killer in multiple directions, ESPECIALLY "World without Batman" yarns.

[obsidianwolf]

I'm not sure I buy that. Frankly the idea that only Batman can contain and stop RA's is a ridiculous idea to begin with. If Ra's was really such a game breaker then he'd have achieved his goals centuries ago but he hasn't. The only reason Ra's is used as such a unstoppable threat in these things is it is useful to push the Batman is so awesome narrative.

I mean really in universe Batman has been around 13 or so years and we're supposed to assume that just these thirteen are the critical ones for a several hundred year old master of a huge order of assasins it is a joke.

So either Ra's has to be a typical comic book super villain that other heroes could stop in different ways or he's a lazy plot device meant to make another character look more awesome because only they in their thirteen years of heroecs can stop.

[tcampbell1000]

I'm not sure WHAT to make of this timeline, because it honestly feels more like a fever dream than a what-if story. I mean, how does Bruce never ever being Batman lead to Dick becoming homicidal gun-toting Batman, let alone the Joker swarm? It's not like "Batman" is such an obvious crimefighting idea that anyone in Gotham would think of it. I mean, sure, MAYBE Cobblepot and Ra's get more power with no Bruce to oppose them, but there's such an absence of logic to the rest of it that I'm not sure I'm meant to look for logic in the first place.

But I do like this bro-y, dumb version of Booster. Yes, I do, yes, I do. He tried to do something nice for someone he may consider one of his few real friends, and it has MASSIVELY backfired, and Booster spends the story trying like hell not to admit that to himself or anyone else until it all comes crashing down on him. That's pretty relatable, and gives him a lot in common with King's Vision and Mister Miracle, under the surface.

Yeah, I recognize he acts less like he did in his last comics series and more like he's the guy from the Justice League Action cartoon, but who's to say this is "our" most recent Booster? What if he's a version from those earlier, more feckless days, shortly after he met Batman and Blue Beetle, when his immaturity was at its zenith but there was still a spark of decency looking for expression? Flashing forward to the point in Batman's life when this "gift" seemed most appropriate would be as in keeping with that early Booster as anything. (He only developed into Beetle's straight man after a year or two when they were more or less equally immature.)

In any case... yeah, it's weird and I'm not sure it makes sense, but I'm still on board.