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Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2007 12:08:59 GMT -5
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Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2007 12:12:12 GMT -5
Booster Gold
Issue #1: “Panning For Gold, Part One”
Written by Patrick J. Nestor, Jr.
Cover by Sylvain Swimer
Edited by Mark Bowers WRITER’S NOTE: The following series takes place after the events of the Powers, Inc. # 5 & 6. Some of it might seem a little confusing, but stick with it, I promise it will all make sense. |
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Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2007 12:13:45 GMT -5
NEW ORLEANS - SEPTEMBER 12th, 1879
Jonah Hex had seen his share of Shamans and self-proclaimed men of magic, but the figure that stood before him, dressed from head to toe in a mix of green and white, took the cake. The rambling man in front of him may have looked like a preening peacock, but had also managed to defeat an entire crowd of armed gunmen with just a wave of his hand. He hadn’t noticed Hex yet though… an advantage Jonah was about to press.
Chronos laughed out loud to himself. Wiping out the Sheriff and his pathetic little band of deputies was child’s play. There was no one who would be able to stand up to him in this time period. As it was, people hurried off the street, terrified of him. The blaster he had used to blow the lawmen away needed to be recharged, however. He pulled a time status rod from his belt in case someone was stupid enough to try and rush him again.
Chronos smiled as he looked over the street and the bright buildings. He’d spend a few weeks living it up as the King of New Orleans, then burn the entire place to the ground. That should make for some interesting reading in the history books when he returned to his own time.
He reached back and made an adjustment to his time platform. He wanted to make sure no one could fire off a random shot from a shotgun and damage it. He had learned his lesson from his second little foray into crime just a few months before, when the Atom stopped him from stealing a rare collection of historic Hungarian Clocks. Two schemes plotted, two schemes foiled - both in Ivy town and both by the Atom. Chronos figured he had had enough. He had spent the last six months on perfecting his time platform. After a quick little trip into the future, where he’d grabbed a few choice looking weapons and devices, Chronos was keen on the idea that he’d travel the past, enjoying himself and putting forth a total rewrite of some points of history… with himself in his proper role.
Hex moved carefully. The brightly-dressed maniac seemed more concerned with the machine he was tinkering with than watching out for attackers. He pulled out his six gun, took careful aim and leapt out.
Chronos chuckled to himself even as he pointed the time status rod to the side and pushed the button. The cowboy pointing the gun at him couldn’t have known, but the time platform’s main screen was set to show events 30 seconds in the future. Chronos saw Hex jumping out and shooting at him even before he actually did it.
Hex was suddenly frozen. He didn’t feel cold… didn’t feel anything in fact… but he was unable to move.
“Well, hello there!’ Chronos sang, stepping towards Hex’s frozen-in-time form, and slipping the time status rod into the back of his belt. “I’m sure you thought you’d get the drop on me, didn’t you?”
Hex, unable to move, could not reply.
“Yes, well, as you can quite tell… that’s not going to happen.” Chronos walked in a circle around Hex. “Yet, you will come in handy. I wound up frying the little posse, that tried to grab me, to nothing but a cloud of dust, so I don’t have any bodies left to sling up as a warning to others who might try and be… heroic.”
Neither Chronos, nor Hex, noticed the small glow coming from behind the time platform. Both were intent on the explanation of what was to become of Hex.
“So… I’m going to have to make an example of you my…ugly little friend,” Chronos told him gleefully. “I think I’ll start with snapping every bone in your body. That should make QUITE the impression… don’t you agree?”
Frozen as Hex was, he was forced to stare forward. Even his eyes were unable to follow Chronos as he walked in circles around his stuck form. With the ranting madman out of the way however, Hex could now see a gold-and-blue-colored figure who was now standing on the bizarre machine. The figure looked at Hex and smiled and put a finger to his lips to mime “quiet”; as if Hex had the ability or desire to say anything. A second later, the machine, with the golden figure on it, disappeared.
Chronos, oblivious to this, had stopped circling and was now concentrating on Hex’s face.
“Ugh… what happened to your face? I think I’ll be doing you a favor by ending your life. After the bones, I think I’ll feed parts of you to a few starving horses. That should teach any other possible heroes a lesson. How does that sound? Hmmm? What? Nothing to say?” Chronos laughed in the face of the frozen bounty hunter. He was enjoying himself immensely. So much in fact, that he never saw the little golden round flying thing with fins… or felt it slip the time status rod from the back of his belt. A second later, the little flying thing disappeared,
“Well… let me get a choice of tools from my time platform and we’ll begin!” Chronos tapped Hex on the head, almost with affection, and turned to march to the time platform to grab one or two little torture devices he had lifted from the 22nd century.
He stopped flat in his tracks.
“W…wh…where did my platform go?” he stammered. His hand reached down for his time status rod. It came up empty.
Chronos heard the click of a pulled-back gun hammer and felt the cold steel of the barrel pressed against the back of his neck. He could feel the cold even through the fabric of his mask.
“Now I reckon I could use a body for an example myself…” Hex growled.
Chronos gulped.
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Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2007 12:19:55 GMT -5
RIP HUNTER’S LAB
Rip Hunter frowned. He sat with his arms crossed, staring right at the empty area that he knew Booster would appear at in three… two…one…
A quick glow grew from nothing and was gone as quick as it came. In its place was a strange-looking time machine on a flat platform-like base. Booster Gold was standing on it and laughing heartily.
“Did you see the look on his face when he noticed the time platform was gone?” Booster was guffawing to the flying golden sphere hovering in the air next to him.
“Perplexed… to say the least, Michael,” Skeets replied, a hint of metallic amusement in his tone.
“Why did you leave Chronos there?” Rip demanded, breaking into the pair’s conversation. “The idea was to get in and out and limit the damage to the timestream as much as possible!”
“What’s the problem, Rip?” Booster asked, tossing Chronos’ time status rod to Hunter as he stepped from the platform. “You seem unhappy.”
Rip caught the rod and dropped it onto the workbench next to him. He shook his head and ran a hand over his forehead as if trying to ward off a headache.
“Booster… you left Chronos back in 1879. Need I remind you that he’s NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THERE?” Rip yelled.
“He’s not?” Booster asked, sounding confused. Rip just stared at him.
Booster burst out laughing and clapped Hunter on the back. “I know… I know… I’ll go back for him over night. I just thought he could use a little ‘old west justice’. Maybe it’ll cure him of traveling into the past and playing tin-plated tyrant.”
“Actually, Michael, David Clinton… who you know of as Chronos… will travel into the past on twelve… or perhaps thirteen... different occasions after this with the idea of taking over some sort of event,” Skeets interjected. “He will even be successful in one occasion to the point that we will…”
“Thank you, Mr. Spock,” Booster cut him off. “That’s just a problem for another time.”
“Time, as you should know by now, Booster,” Rip replied dryly,“is always relative.”
An hour later, Booster sat in a chair, looking at a computer screen. He was surfing the internet and still amazed at how slow and clunky it was compared to the Vid-reality screens from his own time.
If Blue Beetle or Power Girl had seen him sitting there, they might have joked about Booster actually thinking and being able to ‘smell the smoke’. Well… Beetle would have been kidding… Power Girl… maybe not as much.
Booster was deep in thought. He was thinking about how he came to be sitting in an underground laboratory bunker that actual shifted its location in time on rotating shifts. To exit and enter the lab you had to actually step through a time portal. Rip had added the time portal technology to Booster’s suit. Of course that was after he had actually come to him in the first place with his offer.
That was after Booster lost an entire year as well as being thought of as dead by his friends*. Upon the realization he was alive, and being found by Looker and Blue Beetle, Booster seemed totally normal when he ‘came back’. He was a good actor.
In trying to warn his teammates and others about an invasion, Booster had entered the timestream and was stopped by the Time Police Force known as the Linear Men. One of its members was the aforementioned Rip Hunter, who basically lived up to his name by ripping Booster a new rear-end.
It seemed that Booster’s jumping through time had caused some major timestream problems. Hunter had pretty much dressed him down before taking a year away from Booster as punishment.
To Booster, that year passed in a blink of an eye. At first.
The weight of the knowledge of what he had done however… stayed with him. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was not only a failure, but was worse. He was a person who had caused others misery.
In reality, the “lesson” that Rip Hunter had looked to teach him had taken root in Booster. It was a little hard to go back to the overbearing person he had been, caring only about fame, fortune and women, and using his (or more to the point, Skeets’) knowledge of history to acquire all three. Of course, that was the point, wasn’t it? Rip’s little lesson was supposed to show Booster the folly of his ways… and had it ever.
Not only that, but the problems that Powers, Inc. suffered from an alien invasion had left Booster without a team also. Since it occurred in Booster’s “lost” year, he wasn’t there to help. He came back to a wrecked HQ and a team in flux.
Despite the best intentions of Josha Powers and the rest of Powers, Inc, the team did not rise back from the ashes as quickly as everyone thought they would.
So what was a man from the future, who no longer knew what he should be, to do?
He crashed at his friend Ted Kord’s place for a while. Kord, better known as the Blue Beetle to the world, was Booster’s best friend. Why Booster deserved such a good friend he wasn’t sure. Lord knew he hadn’t been the best guy to be around when Ted had joined Powers, Inc. Kord had lost his home himself before he had joined Powers, Inc… but it had been rebuilt.
So Booster had stayed there and tried to figure out what to do. He and Beetle would go out and stop the occasional crime, but Booster’s heart wasn’t in it. For the first time in a long time, he lacked direction. The words that Rip hunter had delivered, harshly he might add, still rang in his ears.
“You are no superhero. You no longer exist. You are banned. I should just erase you right now.”
Ouch.
So how surprised was Booster when three weeks after his ‘return’ he was visited by Hunter.
* See Powers, Inc. #5 and #6 for details
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Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2007 12:23:49 GMT -5
FLASHBACK: KORD RESIDENCE - CENTRAL CITY – OCTOBER 21st, 2006
Booster tossed the controls to the PS2 down in disgust.
“I miss video games where you don’t have to use your hands,” he lamented.
Booster looked at the clock. It was 1 PM. Ted wouldn’t be back for another day. He was in Star City helping Green Arrow out with some sort of a problem. Booster had been invited to go, but felt weird about it and stayed behind.
Even Skeets wasn’t there. S.T.A.R. Labs had asked to use Skeets in testing a new metal alloy. Booster didn’t understand what Skeets was even doing, but he hadn’t felt like joining him either.
He walked into the kitchen and almost screamed when he came upon a figure standing at the refrigerator drinking a can of Sodar Cola.
“Wow. Hard to believe how long it’s been since I had a can of cola,” the figure remarked, seemingly to himself. “Hello, Booster.”
Booster blinked twice and stared. He recognized the man. It was Mr. Time Cop himself, Rip Hunter.
“What in BLAZES are you doing here, Hunter?” Booster demanded, hissing through clenched teeth. “Looking to take a few more weeks from me?”
Rip looked a little confused for a second, but shook his head. “Looks to me that you’re doing a fine job of losing time on your own. You haven’t done a single thing in over a week, have you?”
Booster tried to think of a retort, but came up blank.
“What do you want?” is all he could muster.
“Listen, Carter…” Rip began, placing the now-empty can on the counter. “I know you’re feeling like you don’t know what to do with yourself… but I can help you.”
“Help me?” Booster repeated, almost sounding amused. “Great! How about you take away the next year of my life? Oh wait… been there… done that.”
“What are y-” Rip started. He stopped and shook his head. “Carter, I know you’ve made mistakes, but I also know you want to do the right thing. I can help you do that, and in return you can become what you want to be.”
“What are you talking about?” Booster asked, surprised.
“I’m talking about helping me fix the timestream,” Rip explained. “I’m talking about being a real hero.”
“Fixing the timestream… What about the Linear Men?” Booster asked.
“The Linear Men… Well… things are different right now,” Rip told him. “I’ve been working on my own and I can’t keep it up by myself. I need agents… I need you.”
“Why me?” Booster replied sarcastically. “I’m no hero right?”
Rip put his face in his right hand and sighed.
“Can you get past your little insecurity problem and look at the big picture?” he pleaded. “Whatever I… said to you… It’s in the… past.”
Booster was shocked. This was no joke. Rip honestly seemed to want his help. Maybe this was what Booster needed. If someone like Rip Hunter thought he could do some good after the total disdain he had shown for Booster in the past, maybe this was the perfect thing for him.
“Well… “ Booster began.
“Why don’t you ask Skeets what he thinks?” Rip interrupted him.
“Huh?’ Booster reacted. “Skeets isn’t here. Besides…”
“He will be…” Rip looked at his watch.
“What? Listen, Hunter, I don’t know what you-” Booster stopped as Skeets flew into the room.
“Hello, Michael,” he said, hovering between him and Rip. “Hello, Mr. Hunter.”
“Skeets!?” Booster burst out. “What the heck… HEY! How do you know this guy?”
“Actually, Booster, Mr. Hunter is-” Skeets began.
“Ut, ut, UT!!!” Rip interrupted. “Cool it.”
“My apologies, Mr. Hunter, “Skeets replied. “Michael, it’s very important that you listen. I cannot stress how important it is.”
“Wait a minute, how did you know to just come back here now?” Booster demanded. “What is going on here, Skeets?”
“I knew Mr. Hunter would be here at this time. Just like I know that you have to accept his proposal,” Skeets explained.
“No you don’t,” Booster replied. “Ted wiped your memory banks of past knowledge. You shouldn’t know anything of history.” Booster was referring to the fact that Ted Kord had wiped Skeets’ history memory banks at Booster’s request to force him to rely less on Skeets’ knowledge of the past and more on himself.
“Ted is very smart, Michael,” Skeets told him, “but he isn’t from the 24th century. He didn’t get everything.”
Booster didn’t know what to say. Things seemed too incredible for him to follow.
“What is this all about, Skeets?” he asked.
“Michael, I’m asking you to trust us,” Skeets replied. “As time goes by, I’ll explain more. You yourself have learned that knowing too much about the past and the future is problematic. Please, we need to do this. Do you trust me?”
Booster thought for a minute. Despite the fact he felt like he had no idea what he was getting into, he felt a fire that had been missing for the last few weeks.
“Yeah, Skeets…” he said. “I do. How do we begin?”
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Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2007 12:24:28 GMT -5
RIP HUNTER’S LAB
Booster frowned as he remembered that day’s events. He had never really thought about it before, but Rip had seemed confused by Booster’s recollections of their first meeting in the timestream.
Since that day, Rip had explained some things. He explained that he needed an outside force that would have just enough information to fix certain points that were being altered through time, but not too much information that would cause a problem. He explained that he needed someone used to time travel and who had shown the ability to roll with it.
“Absolute knowledge is like absolute power, Booster,” Rip had told him. “It can corrupt.”
Despite the fact they hadn’t really talked about it, Booster knew that Skeets had more information than he should have. One of these days… maybe even soon, they were going to have to discuss it. In any case, Booster felt good about things. He had learned a lot and had been doing a lot of good. Even Rip had lightened up on him. Booster’s gaze drifted back to the computer screen.
Skeets flew into the room and hovered behind Booster silently.
“You know it creeps me out when you just fly there and stare, right, Skeets?” Booster said after a minute, not turning around.
“Sorry, Michael,” Skeets replied, honestly sounding contrite. Amazingly, despite the fact he was a machine, Skeets sounded extremely human. “What are you doing?”
“Just getting directions. I’m going to meet Ted for lunch,” he answered. “You?”
“Rip is going over some files. He could use assistance,” Skeets replied. “Tell Theodore I said hello.”
“Heh… Theodore.” Booster chuckled. “I will.” He hesitated.
“Hey, Skeets?”
“Yes, Michael?”
“That day… when Rip came to offer this job to me,” Booster began, “and you said you knew it would happen. How much else do you know?”
“I know just enough,” Skeets told him, “to know you’re what you wanted to be, Michael; A hero. My memory banks are incomplete and I’m not the fountain of knowledge I used to be, but I know enough. The rest will come out in proper time. Go have your lunch. Enjoy.”
Booster smiled after his robot buddy as Skeets flew away. It was like having a friend, teacher and father all in one. Booster headed for his room to get changed.
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Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2007 12:25:40 GMT -5
SUNDIAL COFFEHOUSE, CENTRAL CITY – APRIL 4th, 2007
“And you left him in the old west?” Ted Kord asked incredulously. “BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That’s PRICELESS!”
“I thought you’d get a kick out of that.” Booster smiled back. “I have to get him out a little later. A few hours in a western clink might do him some good. Of course, it doesn’t matter when I go for him… I’ll just pluck him out.”
“He’s the Chronos from the past though, isn’t he?” Ted asked. “From before we tangled with him?”
“Yeah, at this… or THAT point in his life, I mean… he hadn’t met you or me...” Booster agreed. “Yet.”
“Nice.” Ted smiled. “So we know he didn’t learn a frigging thing.”
“True.” Booster laughed. “I think that was what Rip’s point was too.”
“Glad to hear you’re actually getting along with Rip these days,” Ted remarked as he sipped his double-latte.
“I wouldn’t call it getting along with as much as he tolerates me, I think, sometimes,” Booster replied. “But even he has to admit that I’ve been doing a lot of good lately. Sometimes though I think he can’t get past how I used to be.”
“Lord knows that you certainly are different from the guy that first drove me nuts back when I joined Powers, Inc.” Ted smirked. “In fact, that guy would never be sitting in a Sundial without his costume on, trying to just fit in and be normal. He’d be hovering above the table in full Booster Gold regalia, trumpeting to all of the single… and maybe even married… women in the place that he was here and ready to please.”
“Yeah well…” Booster tried to think of a smart reply… but gave up right away. “I don’t think anyone misses that guy.”
Ted looked at his friend and grinned. “That guy wasn’t so bad, Booster, old buddy. He just needed to tone it down. And he has.” Ted downed the rest of his drink and tossed the empty container over his shoulder into a wastebasket. “Besides, think of all the personal growth that guy has done in the last nine months.”
“Yeah, well… doing things like keeping Caesar from being kidnapped by the Lord of Time and making sure the Roman Empire evolved the way it should or keeping the Young All-Stars from accidentally preventing the assassination of Abraham Lincoln can do that for you,” Booster told him. “Not to mention the loads of crap going on in the multi…” Booster stopped. He couldn’t tell too much of what he knew.
“So… what’s next on the agenda for you?” Ted asked, pretending like he didn’t notice Booster’s trailing off.
“I’m not sure. Rip doesn’t tell me a lot in advance. Something about ‘knowing too much could cause as much of a problem as the ones we look to solve’…” Booster sighed. “Playing time-cop isn’t always wine and roses, Ted.”
“Ah, but think of the adoration you get,” Ted replied.
“Heh… sure.” Booster snorted. “No one even is allowed to know what I’m doing. Hell… YOU shouldn’t know.”
Ted stopped and looked up.
“I shouldn’t?” he asked.
Booster looked uncomfortable. “Um… well…”
Ted shook his head and sighed. “You’re not supposed to tell anyone about anything you do at all… are you? Time paradoxes and the like?”
Booster shrugged his shoulders. “Something like that. Wowzer. I’ve saved the stupid world five times alone this past month… and no one is allowed to even know about it. Tell me THAT doesn’t suck.”
Ted stared at his friend, all wide-eyed.
Booster looked back. “What?” he asked. Ted kept staring.
“WHAT?” Booster repeated. “What, it’s so hard to believe I saved the world so many times?”
“No…” Ted answered him, getting up and suppressing a grin. “I can’t believe after all of this time in the present you keep saying ‘wowzer’.”
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Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2007 12:26:20 GMT -5
RIP HUNTER’S LAB
Rip Hunter stared at his computer screen and frowned. If Booster had been there, he would have remarked that Rip wore that frown more constantly than anything. rechecked his figures, then checked them again. He suddenly slammed his fist onto the computer keyboard in frustration.
‘It’s starting, isn’t it?” a metallic voice behind him asked.
Rip turned and faced Skeets. He let out a long and loud sigh.
“Yes. Just as we feared,” Rip replied. “I thought we had more time.” Rip smiled wistfully at his own play on words. Time indeed. He looked at the screen again and shook his head.
“He’s not ready for this yet, Skeets,” Rip said.
“You’d be surprised,” Skeets replied. “Michael has come a long way.”
“I know… it’s just…” Rip broke off and stood up. He made his way towards a large chalkboard and started erasing everything on it. “Not this though… if we only had another few months…”
“Time, as you so fondly like to remind Michael,” Skeets interjected, “is relative.”
“And fleeting,” Rip countered. He started to gather up papers and shoved them into a folder. After a minute of doing so, he slammed them down and faced Skeets.
“We don’t have a choice, do we?” he asked the flying robot.
“Not that we have been able to deduce, no,” Skeets answered. “I fear that the only play we have is the one we came up with all those months ago… that... and we pray.”
“Can a machine pray, Skeets?” Rip inquired, digging through a box.
“I guess we’ll find out,” Skeet replied.
Rip took a few items out of the box and threw them onto a cart. He stopped and looked at Skeets.
“Get me the tachyon modifier will you?” he requested.
“Of course,” Skeets replied and flew out of the room to a storage area. Skeets used a miniature tractor beam to select the device from a shelf… but before he could return with the item, a loud explosion ripped through the lab. Skeets was thrown into the wall.
“NO!” Skeets shouted. “It shouldn’t have happened yet!” Skeets sped into the main lab at full speed. As he flew into the room, Skeets stopped in mid-air.
“RIP!!” Skeets yelled. Before he could do anything though, a finger pressed a button and Skeets fell to the ground, deactivated.
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Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2007 12:26:56 GMT -5
TWENTY MINUTES LATER
Booster Gold stepped through the timelock into Rip’s lab. The second he entered, he could smell the smoke.
“What in the blue blazes?” he exclaimed.
Booster rushed into the main hub of the lab and was shocked to see the place in ruins. Smoldering wreckage filled the lab.
“What the heck happened in here?” he asked out loud. “Rip!? Skeets!?”
Booster moved around the lab, tossing hunks of metal and blasted machinery around, looking for some clue as to what could have happened. On the ground he then spied a familiar shape.
“SKEETS!” Booster shot over to where his metallic friend lay. Skeets seemed to have been turned off. “Skeets! What happened… Who did this?”
“That’s what I’d like to know…” a voice sounded from behind him, “and since you’re the only one here, you’re suspect number one!’
Booster whirled around and got the shock of his life.
Standing there was none other than… himself.
“Oh Wowzer!” the other Booster Gold exclaimed. “It’s gonna be one of THOSE days!”
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Post by Admin on Aug 14, 2007 18:08:38 GMT -5
To Be Continued!
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Post by mockingbird on Jul 26, 2011 21:34:50 GMT -5
To let us know what you think of this issue, please visit the letters page here!
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