King using Booster again?

Keep it mind it's not confirmed yet although it makes me what to say something. Apparently this looks like a set up by King for his other book.



If this is true it means King not only never bothered to write Booster in character but now he's using the excuse that he's insane to justify his current portrayal. There's a lot of things wrong with this thought process. The butchering of a character. The way this change wasn't done organically. How would Booster Gold Time Master talk about about his secret mission in present day?

I'm just so frustrated with this unneeded story and more bad characterization for Booster. The potential for more of this is terrifying as a Booster fan. Giffin and DeMatteis briefly touched on trauma in their Booster Gold run with the Rani storyline. Even their jail story showed a traumatized Booster. And while I'm not a fan of their run they did better written stories that were respectful of mental scarring.

We got to see the aftermath of people being slaughtered in front of Rani. The woman with her committed suicide when Booster returned. Rani was a kid that was mostly in shock but when a super villain attacked later on in the series she had a panic attack. A future version of Booster had lost it in a later arc and while I loathe said arc do you know what it had in common with the Rani arc? What King 's treatment of Booster doesn't have?

Giffin and DeMatteis treated trauma seriously and didn't play it or the people affected off as jokes. Yes, the duo known for being comedy writers were more respectful towards mental illnesses. (*1) The fact King can't separate the concept of Booster being funny (or his version of funny) and trauma tells me two things.

One: He doesn't get the character in the first place if he doesn't understand the layers.

Two: I don't want to read further stories he writes on mental illness if this is how he does it.

I know comics in general struggle to write characters with such problems. I remember there being some experts studying Batman's rogues galley based on how they were written. Do you know what they said that shocked people? That Joker wouldn't be in Arkham because his behavior led them to believe he's not legally insane. Which a few writers actually have touched upon. This isn't a subject that should be treated lightly especially with the stigma people in real life have.





 *1 At least in regards to the main characters in Boosters' series, I haven't read all their work. The worst thing I can recall in terms of trauma/Booster was their inability to read other runs and realize Booster had accepted Ted's death. Which in turn made them handle it poorly. That said it still wasn't written humorously. Sadly they had a poorly thought out running prison assault joke issue but that's mentioned in another entry.