Gold Exchange Booster Gold # 38
For the full text go here:
The Gold Exchange: This issue retains something that Dan Jurgens had done at the start of his run-once you get to a certain depth chasing a MacGuffin, there comes a point where it’s OK to just start the new issue with the story over with. What drove that in terms of Booster’s quest for the Almost-But-Not-Quite-Book of Destiny.
J.M. DeMatteis: Honestly, I think it was just time to jump into the next story. We’d pushed the Book about as far as we could. I thought Keith’s idea to wrap it up so simply, and so quickly, was great.
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The difference between Jurgens time knife and the sorta-cliffnotes-of-Destiny is that Jurgens had his MacGuffin play a major part of the storyline. We saw or heard what it could do: pull a person through time, suck up energy, act as a key, disrupt Rexs' new form and with enough energy it could restore a dead body to life. We even saw it's origin. The book? We're told someone copied it from what little they could gleam from the real book. Somehow the Underachiever could figure out a few things even though he couldn't understand it an issue before. Skeets had it, somehow the queen got it, the Darkstars took it and then Booster grabbed it back. It didn't do anything but provide a flimsy excuse for Blue and Gold antics so I'm not sure how it was "pushed" to it's full potential.
And you'd really expect it to be more given what it is and what Booster is hoping to achieve. He can "cheat" by skipping ahead of time but he won't read something that might be able to provide answers to his problem? What was the point of having it the first place if it's just filler like they rest of the story? I can appreciate the constraints they have due to mandates that require them to tie into the plot from Gen Lost. But if they had to do it surely it could have been done differently. Winick manage to do it nicely in Power Girl. It just makes Booster look like he's goofing off with no real idea what he's doing and doesn't fit with how he's being written in JLGL anyway.
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GX: Is the Vatican really the best place for these things? I mean, comparable to holding it at Rip’s lab or whatever happens next to Vanishing Point or Oa or something?
JMD: It’s their Book. They hired Beetle and Booster to get it back. Booster can’t just steal it and give it to Rip. (Plus, who wants to piss off the Pope?)
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Why not? Ted had no problem lying to a priest when they got the job. They acknowledged it was too dangerous in other hands so would they really be upset that it was destroyed or taken to a safer location? Unless they beefed up security it's just going to get taken again.
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GX: Wow-Michelle’s kind of a raving, raging bitch here. Are you giving her kind of the J’Onn/Captain Marvel/Oberon role, in terms of being the designated character to just spend her time being sick of Booster?
JMD: She’ll certainly fulfill that function…but there’s much more to her and to the relationship with Booster than that.
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Captain Marvel? Has he ever acted like this around any of the members of JLI other than Superbuddies and his sorta childish reaction to Batman saying he wasn't experienced? Don't really care for that term but it's very fitting here. Glad that Russ is calling attention to it as this was a glaring issue.
Sorta like to see the other side of her especially since this is the first time she lost it like this. And not like with Barda admitting she's fond of Booster then going back to her old ways after the moment has past.
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GX: Max’s family has been all over the World Wars in this title, and always in close proximity to old DC characters! No wonder the dude has a complex about superheroes later in life.
JMD: Well, it’s the DC Universe. In the end, EVERYBODY ends up in close proximity to DC characters!
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Ain't that the truth? Although they used to keep Rip out of the mainstream superhero cameos. Yes that has no relevance but I found that interesting when I read it. :P
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GX: Is this the first time we’ve actually seen Ernie? I don’t remember having seen him before.
JMD: Nope. We saw Ernie-well, one of the Ernies, anyway, not this particular one-back in the JLA days, both in flashback and as an adult.
GX: That said, I’m glad you gave him a happy ending! Superheroes so rarely get that, and when they do it’s often taken away from them by the next writer (or, in the case of Wally West, by the same writer after a major lapse in creative judgment).
JMD: Nothing beats a chiropractor/peace activist in my book…and I can’t imagine there’ll be any writers trying to undo this one!
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Good memory, I think they implied that it's actually the first Ernie too. So at least he got out of the mental hospital at some point. (Not sure if Russ is mentioning the Barry Allen take over or Johns killing the twins then bringing them back.) Sounds like a challenge to me JMD!
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GX: Apparently strange and possibly magical people appearing from nowhere to tell her that her son, Max, is a horrible bastard doesn’t stop Naomi from naming her kid Max?
JMD: I don’t think Naomi saw Rani as “strange and magical”: just a little girl who’d been traumatized by war. And if her gazillionaire husband wanted his son to take his name, there was no reason for Naomi to object.
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Was Max 3 a gazillonaire? I thought he was a writer, teacher or something and Max made his money instead of being born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
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GX: I like the tortured logic at the end of the story, but can we really just assume that General Glory came out of everything OK just becuase we’ve seen him at some indeterminate point in the future?
JMD: “Some indeterminate point”? He was a well-documented member of the JLI and had a long career-and a good life.
GX: It’s funny-I wonder, since as far as I can remember this Time Sphere is ultimately “the same” one that Booster ultimately uses to come back from the future, how many times it’ll be demolished and repaired before the end of it all!
JMD: I sure there are many more repairs to come!
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Was it ever said that it was the same one? I know they used different ones during Johns run, RR had Rip making another one, etc. I recall Jurgens implying that the uniforms weren't so different though.
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GX: “…if I’d known this is where it would end up…” -ahh, but there’s the rub! How can he be sure that without his and Ted’s involvement it would have ended up there? Even Ted remembers this adventure, after all, so it’s clear it was meant to happen! (Time travel is fun)
JMD: The brain can push the time travel paradoxes just so far before it implodes. And, really, since no one’s done it yet-that we know of, anyway-whatever we say the rules are…they are!
GX: Speaking of-the recently-released solicitations for upcoming product imply that you and Keith are moving away from the time-travel element of the book’s premise. Any reason for that?
JMD: We’re not moving away from time travel. At the same time (no pun intended), every story doesn’t have to be about time travel.
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This should be interesting since JLGL is still going on. At least with time travel it sorta makes sense if you don't think about it.