October Picks: Booster Gold Dead Ted

I love October and there's a few comics I love reading around this time of year. I haven't read many horror comics so most of theses are superheroes choices.

This is probably the creepiest and darkest cover with these two. Blue and Gold were the class clowns of Justice League International that were in my opinion the heart of the team. Then Ted was murdered prompting Booster to become a better hero. While the two part "Dead Ted" is a tie in to Blackest Night it works really well on it's own. In fact it's one of my favorite Booster Gold stories.

Booster has been dealing with Ted's death for awhile and how frustrating it is for him as a time traveler to be unable to change his friends' fate. In this story he goes back to Ted's funeral and relives his past self being unable to speak due to his grief. This is actually a big clue to how distressed Booster was because he's always known for being the spokesman, the jokester, basically the guy that can always say something, His inability to express what he feels at the lost of such a friend has haunted him. While it's not even hinted at in the story keep in mind Booster never got the chance to properly grieve for his own mom. Like with his mother (as well as Michelle and Superman) he likely felt guilt for not being there.

There's also some great insight on how raw his emotional state was at the funeral and how he angrily viewed the others attending. I do like the appearances of Daniel and Rose (their last appearance I believe) and seeing how their trying to make their relationship work. I do wish Jurgens had more interest in them during the series so we could have seen the progression for ourselves. The only other complaint I'd have is some of Black Lantern Ted's dialogue feels very off. 

I don't think it's a coincidence that this arc also has Skeets questioning Rip's motives after scanning Black Beetle (no I don't think Rip is Black Beetle.) While that plot never went anywhere I do like that we see different people (or a robot in this case) in Booster's life worrying about him in their own way. This is a character that lost everything and went to the past in the attempt of a better life. He might not have gotten what he wanted (for long) but he made a life for himself.  

The heart of the story though is Booster finally accepting Ted's death and Jaime being seen as the successor to the Blue Beetle Legacy. In short it's Booster finding closure. The two face their best friend and idol respectively. A corrupt version of the person their trying to honor and what "Ted" says to them is disheartening. Yet the new Blue and Gold defeat the Black Lantern in a creative way. The sad thing is future writers totally ignored this story as Giffin/DeMatteis have Booster regress and suggest he'll never get over the death as he stalks the gravestone throughout time. Giffin/DeMatteis and Winick don't seem to realize Ted's body shouldn't even be at the grave site anymore.

Regardless this arc is more about grieving than horror although the Black Lantern Ted Kord is pretty creepy. A solid read for Booster Gold development.