COMIC BOOK REVIEW - Blue And Gold
By The Masked Medic
It’s certainly been a while since I read a comic book and although I’ve been really excited about what some of the comic book companies have been releasing recently since I’m reading older comic books I was like this may take a while. But I decided that once in a while I should read something that doesn’t particularly fit in anywhere and is just a one-shot novel and so I settled on this one!
‘Blue And Gold’ starts with Michael Carter, aka, Booster Gold attempting to take on some aliens that have captured the Justice League. During the entire time, he’s live streaming his antics which he thinks is going to bring him some popularity. But during the mission, he begins to encounter some trouble and that’s when his old partner Ted Kord, aka, The original Blue Beetle steps in. The two manage to save the League and expect to be invited in, but when it appears that the League only want Kord, he makes the decision not to tell Booster and to decline the invitation. The two then set up their own little project where they claim that they’ll help people with the jobs that the Justice League won’t and soon they find that they have an entire line of people waiting. However, what the two don’t know is that in the line stands alien princess Omnizon who was responsible for attempting to capture the Justice League in the first place. She believes her people to have a claim on Earth as part of their galactic empire and she wants to take down the two heroes who stopped her from doing so. Despite putting up a decent fight, they are captured and ordered to fight each other to the death. A little help from Rip Hunter, the time traveller, soon gets them out of that pickle. The last few issues, see them go up against a villain known as Black Beetle, who the two of them have fought several times before. Initially, he captures, the new Blue Beetle, aka Jamie Reyes, but then decides that the best way to deal with Blue and Gold is to take over their futuristic robots. But just who is this mysterious villain and why does he know so much about them? Can Blue and Gold prove that they’re worthy of hero status?
I’m generally not a fan of characters like Booster Gold. There are certainly elements of his personality that harken to characters like Harley Quinn and Deadpool in the comics, who I despise. That being said, when partnered up with Blue Beetle the two make a good team. I know that Booster Gold is one of the characters being eyed for Chapter 1 of the DCU and I think it would work if it followed a story like ‘Blue and Gold’. That would allow for a small villain, maybe even the Black Beetle, to just allow these characters to shine on the big screen. I don’t know. It’s what I would do.
The artwork was decent, I don’t think I had any qualms from that front. I did like some of those covers but the one above was a clear favourite. Overall, I enjoyed this novel more than I thought I would and I’d like to see this story be the basis for the Booster Gold project in the DCU!
Favourite Panel:
This is definitely some breaking the 4th Wall kinda shit! Ahah, how does everyone know about Batman and all these Robins?
Favourite Character:
Okay, in a novel like this you can’t choose between the two protagonists! Both Booster Gold and Blue Beetle were awesome!
Rating:
Story Arc: ★★★½
Character Development: ★★★★
Artwork: ★★★
Enjoyability: ★★★
Re-readability: ★★½
Level: Intermediate