Monday, January 11, 2016

The Greatest Hero Never Known

"Booster Gold Beyond"
Following the events of "Justice League: Checkmate", Michael Carter/Booster Gold has been more of a nuisance than a hero, drunkenly failing every attempt to help people around Hub City. His ancestor Daniel Carter/Supernova has become one of the few heroes the US government approves of, more so, the now rich and famous Daniel Carter has kicked Booster Gold out of his house and Booster is alone. His best friend is dead, his sister is gone, his robot friend is nowhere to be found and The JL has been disbanded.
With nowhere else to go, Booster tries to find the time traveler Rip Hunter, who-as he sees it-triggered all the disasters in his life. Booster can't think of a way to find Rip, but he knows Rip has been watching him as Rip swore to protect the rest of the Carter Family. So, Booster attempts to kill himself by flying headfirst into a mountain. He is intercepted by Skeets, who flies into Booster and causes them both to crash into the woods. Skeets has been redesigned after becoming slave to Maxwell Lord's mind-controlling worms. Skeets brings Booster to Rip Hunter, who had sent Skeets to stop Booster's "cry for help". Booster wants nothing to do with Rip and only wants Skeets back, but before he can leave Rip explains that the tear in time formed by Booster's first time jump and his sister's time jump has been sealed, but that another time traveler has used the time tear to distract Rip and make alterations in the timeline. Alterations that will become permanent if they don't act fast. When Booster refuses, Rip admits that Booster's sister didn't die and that Rip simply plucked her back to the future to make it seem like she died during "Booster Gold: World's Finest". Booster sucker punches Rip and points out that this is why he could never work with him, because there is always something he is keeping secret. When Rip asks again, Booster says he'll only help fix the timeline if Rip will let Booster save Ted Kord from his death afterwards. Though he is hesitant, Rip agrees.
At Daniel's penthouse, a knock is heard at the door and he thinks it's Booster trying to get back in, but it is actually a man draped in shadows who stabs Daniel in the chest and steals the Supernova suit.
On his first time mission, Booster has to fix the Green Lantern lineage. The "time criminal" Rip is chasing went back in time and convinced Sinestro (former Green Lantern, current Yellow Lantern) to go to Earth and make a man named Guy Gardner his apprentice. In the main timeline, the first human Green Lantern was Hal Jordan, chosen by a dying Lantern. Guy Gardner was only ever meant to be Hal's high school bully. When Booster goes back in time to Coast City, he fights Sinestro and tricks Sinestro into believing the man who told him to find Guy was trying to sabotage Sinestro's "successful future". As he is dressed in yellow, Booster claims he is from "The Sinestro Corps" in the future, playing to Sinestro's ego and making the correction in the timeline. Booster also decides to find Guy in Coast City and convince him to spend the day with his dying father, who's death is recorded to be on this day.
When Booster and Skeets return, Rip shows them Daniel in the hospital and without his suit. They deduce that the time criminal must have acquired an ally.
The next time mission is to save Superman. The time criminal had gone back in time and killed the descendent of Jonathan Kent. Without him, Superman-as baby Kal-El-would have been found by the Luthor Family and corrupted by Lex Luthor's influence. Booster is sent to 1872, the Wild West, where he asks some locals the location of Mr Kent. The only person who knows where Kent lives is a bounty hunter named Jonah Hex. Booster and Jonah have a drinking contest until Hex drunkenly reveals where Kent lives. When he gets there-still drunk-Booster is met by the mysterious man who stole the Supernova suit. They fight, but Booster is outmatched. Luckily, the evil Supernova is pulled out as he failed to kill Kent.
Rip, Booster and Skeets use their time travel vehicle to chase another vehicle through the time-stream, the same vehicle that picked up Supernova. They follow the two time criminals, who have gone to the past and prepared a lightning rod to prevent Barry Allen's transformation into The Flash. Our heroes get to that day and find out the time criminal is Rex Hunter, a former Time Master like Rip who betrayed the rules of time travel and was banished by Rip's superiors. After the tear in time, Rex escaped and decided to rid the world of superheroes. Booster has another fight with Supernova, and it turns out Supernova is Jonar Carter, Booster's father.
Booster/Michael recalls how he placed bets on all his high school football games to support his mother's operation, but his father Jonar pressured him into continuing these bets until Michael served jail time and was kicked off his team. Jonar's bullying of Michael extended to his sister and his mother too, and Jonar died of a heart attack just before Michael became Booster Gold and went back in time. Rex Hunter went into the future and recruited Jonar, telling him that his son was going to ignore his death and be a hero, so Jonar stole the Supernova suit and joined Rex. Booster Gold and Supernova fight it out again, until Skeets' reminds Booster of the mission. While Booster helps grant Barry his powers, Supernova destroys Skeets and kills Rex Hunter by mistake before vanishing.
After that ordeal Skeets' mind uploads into Booster's suit so that Skeets can stick around while his body is in repair. This upgrade makes Booster's energy reserves and reactions accelerated. Booster stresses his desire to save Blue Beetle, but Rip claims Supernova made one last change in the timeline. He convinced The Joker to cripple Barbara Gordon.
Booster and Skeets go back in time to the night The Joker knocked on the Gordon Family home. For as many times as he tries and fails, Booster cannot stop The Joker. After many tries, Rip explains to Booster that some moments in time are cemented, unchanged and meant to happen. These "fixed points" are permanent to development the universe and the people who populate it. If The Joker hadn't crippled Barbara Gordon, The Oracle would have never established the covert operations superhero team-The Birds of Prey-and if Ted Kord had not died, Maxwell Lord would have continued to live and reign further chaos with Brother Eye. Booster knocks Rip out and travels to the night Blue Beetle found Maxwell Lord's secret warehouse.
At that time, Booster Gold watches from above as Blue Beetle sneaks into the warehouse. He is about to follow, but Supernova shows up and fights Booster. Booster gets the chance to either knock his father out or go save Blue Beetle, but upon looking at his father Booster realizes if he manipulates time to get what he wants, he'd be cheating. Cheating, just like he did all those years ago. Booster knocks Supernova out and leaves this time, saying goodbye to his soon-to-be-dead friend for good.
Rip builds another new body for Skeets and Booster apologizes for his actions, Rip does the same and promises to deal with time threats on his own from now on. Michael decides to leave Skeets, the Supernova suit and the Booster Gold suit in Rip's hands, retiring from the hero game for a little while and finding his place in the modern world. But first...
Booster Gold delivers Jonar Carter to a hospital in the far future. He tells the doctors there that Jonar will suffer from a heart attack as soon as he regains consciousness and to alert his family. When the doctors ask who Booster Gold is and Booster asks if they have heard of him in this time, they say no. This leaves Booster with a cold, but contempt smile.
Rip drops Michael-with civilian clothes and some cash-in Smallville, Kansas. Rip tells Michael to meet a kid in Texas who needs his guidance, the rest is up to him. Michael and Skeets say their goodbyes for now and Michael walks beside the road, thinking about the friends he has made and lost in his career as Booster Gold. As the credits role and he keeps walking, Michael whistles the classic theme song from the Richard Donner "Superman" movies.
After the credits, a group called Intergang successfully rob a warehouse belonging to Kord Industries. As they open the box, they see only a small blue scarab. They try to activate the scarab, only for their car to explode and the scarab to wash down the nearby river which leads to El Paso, Texas.
Thank you for reading.
"Blue Beetle" is born again, next.

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