THE GOOD
Dan Jurgens knows what he's doing so well, he really makes it look effortless. There's plenty of eye candy with the opening splash pages he use (and I'll compliment the hi-fi coloring, too), but, to my pleasant surprise, there are actually portions of this that are genuinely moving. You can really sympathize with Booster's recognition that he's not one of the DCU's big guns and, though he means well, he's really in over his head most of the time. I especially liked the sub-plot with family's dog getting killed in the crossfire and him trying to a find a way to fix his mistake. And I'll give a big thumbs up to clues Jurgens sprinkles throughout the background leading up to the surprise about a third of the way through. He didn't cheat!
THE BAD
The panels of Rip Hunter hiding in the foreground while Booster was having his heart to heart with Goldstar came off a lot more humorously than they probably were intended to be. Maybe it was the panel of him tearing up, or the fact that he was only about 10 feet away from them, but I was rolling my eyes a little.
THE VERDICT
When people talk about good, old fashion superhero stories, this is the kind of thing I lean to. Jurgens isn't trying to reinvent the wheel here, just give you a good 22 pages of action and emotion with characters you've grown to love over the years. This issue manages to be part of a longer story arc while still delivering a complete plot with a beginning, middle, end and character arc in one-shot. I'd say this is the best of the books I've read this week.
4/5
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