Who's Who In The DCU 4.26.03

Archive

I have had a bad week, but I know others whose week was worse than mine, so why bother complaining? Let’s get on with the show. You guys are really asking some challenging questions. I would love for the DCU message board to have more posts than Marvel board (I guess that is just because I am a DC man.) I really do check the board. I am actually having to do research to get these answers which is why some still haven’t been answered. But they will be soon. Keep them coming.

Our first question comes from Jason Torres, from the end of his rope.

How did Lex Luthor get so rich?

See what happened was when Lex was a kid; he grew up on the rough side of town. So he had access to all sorts of shady characters. What Lex did was a three-step plan. 1) He took out a life insurance policy on his parents. 2) He tampered with the brakes on his parent s car (which resulted in their fatal car accident). 3) Lex paid off the mechanic so he agrees it was an accident. Of course Lex then invested the money, founded his company and eventually became President to the United States of the DCU.

MKick, on the oft-ignored Who’s Who in the DCU message board posted the next questions.

How did Superman come back to life in the Reign of Supermen?
What was the story behind Batman’s Contagion story arc?
On a more personal opinionated questions… what are the top five must read Trade Paperbacks of the DCU… in your opinion?

Superman fought Doomsday for a long time, and used all of his energy. You know how sometimes you feel dead tired? Well Supes was DEAD tired. Whereas you and I are like regular batteries, once we are out of energy, toss us in the trash; Kal is like a rechargeable battery. Sure he was out of energy, but he could be filled up good as new. He just needed some good old solar energy.
Contagion, from what I’ve seen wasn’t that great of a story. Basically a plague (think ebola or SARS) hits Gotham. The Bat crew has to find out what it is, who sent it, and how to stop it. Differences get put aside as everyone tries to find the answers. Poor Robin even comes down with it. I won’t spoil the end for you, just incase you decide to read it.

Here are my favorite out of continuity TPB’s
1) The Watchmen- This is classic material. I’m not even going to give anything away. But read it already.
2) Crisis on Infinite Earths- This was the first major company cross over, and the best. World and heroes die. The DCU will never be the same. Seriously.
3) Golden Age- The Elseworlds that should actually be in the regular DC canon. This superb JSA tale is a killer. All I’m saying is they saved Hitler’s brain.
4) JSA –The Liberty Files- Another killer JSA elseworlds. Tony Harris’s art is worth the price of the book. But the story is great as well.
5) Any Milestone TPB- I am pretty sure that only Icon and Static have trades out, but pick them up. There are some cool stories, amazing art, and interesting concepts and twists.

The next question comes Sgt. Michael J Fermin via email.
Whatever happened to the humans converted to immortals in the Millennium Mini Series?
As I mentioned last episode the Guardians of the Universe went on a vacation. One Guardian and his lovely lady popped into his dimension to see how things were going and to help in the creation of new immortals here on Earth. They picked a rag tag multicultural bunch of people and brought how their inherent gifts. One of these new immortals turned out to be a bad guy. Surprise, surprise it was the South African. He made some mutants or as he called them “neo hybrids.” He also kidnapped Tom Kalmaku (former sidekick to Hal Jordan), and threw him in the pit with the neo hybrids. Fortunately Tom survived. The New Guardians tried to save him but ended up under the control of Janwillem Kroef, the evil South African. Tom rallied the neo hybrids to battle the duped New Guardians. Tom and is crew won. Suddenly the Guardian and his woman came back and revealed “oops, our bad. The “real” New Guardians are actually the neo hybrids.” The New Guardians ended up hanging out the neo hybrids guiding them towards their destiny.
So where are they now? Who knows? This is like the series that never existed. The New Guardian Floro went back to the Green (it’s a Swamp Thing thing.) Tom was last seen as a washed up loser in the Legacy hardback. Another New Guardian, Ram, was seen as a casualty of Roulette’s games in JSA. But as far as the others I have no clue. The New Guardians didn’t really have any lasting effect on the DCU so it is kind of easy to dismiss or ignore. But it will always be fondly remembered by me as one of the first books I subscribed to, and I still have the autographed #1 to prove it.

The next question was posted by Hallsey, that cat rocking the sweet Reverse Flash tee.

My question for this week is whatever happened to Booster Gold, one of my favourite characters. I have the first 3 issues of his comic (from the 80s I think) and they are stellar but I don’t think that he lasted long. I remember he was in the JLA when they were battling Doomsday, but I haven’t seen him anywhere else. Is he still kicking around?

Booster Gold was a very cool book. It was also a very 80’s book. Premise was that this guy, Michael Jon Carter, was from the 25th century. He was like a super star college football quarterback. Unfortunately, his mom was sick and needed some kind of expensive operation. So in order to get the money for her operation, he began gambling even on games that he played in. No big deal, right. Well he kept on gambling even after his mother returned to her healthy self. Eventually he was found out and banned from college sports. Since the pros wouldn’t touch him, he ended up working as a janitor in the Space Museum, which had lots of exhibits of discoveries both scientific and technological.
Realizing that he had no future in the present, he decided to make a name for himself in the past, the 20th century. Fortunately the Space Museum had a working time machine. So he grabbed a bunch of stuff from other displays including, a super thin exoskeleton, a couple of power gauntlets, a Legion flight ring, some cool goggles, and a security robot named Skeets, hopped in his time machine and went back to the 20th century.
Once he arrived he saved the President (Reagan) from an assignation attempt. From there Booster Gold joined the JLI, got demolished by Doomsday and is due for an appearance in “Formerly Know As Justice League.”
However these is an interesting time travel conundrum. See the Legion flight ring (from the 30th Century) ended up in the Space Museum (in the 25th Century) was that some Legionarres traveled back to the 20th Century to team up with Booster to save the President. They left the ring in the 20th Century. But after Zero Hour (as my long time readers, or as I like to call them “Six-Weekers,” remember) that version of the Legion doesn’t exist. So how did the ring end up the Space Museum? “What is that Jimmy? What is that? I’m asking, I’m asking you that?

Well that does it for me. Keep the questions coming. “If Mary dropped my baby girl tonight, I would name her Rock and Roll.”