by Michael DeLaney
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
Tom King recently announced that he has a “HUGE” Booster Gold story coming for DC sometime in the near future, which makes his latest Batman arc “The Gift” a dry run of sorts on the braggadocious time-traveler. Batman 47 closes out the arc with Booster undoing his foolish time alterations, leaving him a little shell-shocked. As entertaining as “The Gift” has been in its Flashpoint-y twists, it leaves a very mixed depiction of Booster Gold.
Booster Gold isn’t always the sharpest knife in the drawer but at the end of the day his heart is in the right place. King’s Booster has been alarmingly misguided in his intentions — almost to the point of insanity.
A Booster Gold that casually goes back in time to save Bruce Wayne’s parents does not jibe with the Booster Gold who recently stopped Superman from attempting to change Krypton’s fate in the pages of Dan Jurgens’ Action Comics. Different creators write characters differently; no surprise there. What seems particularly inconsistent is when and how Booster loses his devil-may-care pluck and feels the consequences of his actions.
After Booster travels back in time and undoes his mistake with the Waynes, the adult aberration Bruce Wayne kills himself — much to Booster’s horror.
Tony Daniel draws Bruce’s suicide as a reflection on Booster’s googles, blood splashed over his face. This is a nearly-identical page to the opening scene of Batman 45, where a Jokerized Green Lantern does much of the same:
The intention of course is to show that Booster has changed and realizes the consequences of his actions. He thought Green Lantern killing himself was awesome, yet is horrified by Bruce doing the same. However, Booster had been locked up in the (Bat)cave for a year and still was a joyful idiot. And while I do enjoy Booster’s big ego, his emotional growth here feels unbalanced and unearned.
The conversation doesn’t stop there. What do you wanna talk about from this issue?
Retcon Punch 
I’ve never cared for Tony Daniel’s art, just another examp,e of that DC house style that made everything look the same in increasingly boring ways that seemed to care more for striking appearances than storytelling while DC’s other artists did things worth looking at. But damn, those Booster close ups are awful. Like, almost as bad as Thnaos in Infinity War awful. Daniel was never the artist for any subtle emotional work, but Booster looks drugged. Completely out of it.
Say what you want about the Janin drawn issues of Batman, at least they are drawn well enough to make up for the godawfuk scripts. But King’s writing is lacking ispn any redeemable features and Daniel is not working hard to find something to save this garbage