The Reaction to Superman #30

I’m mostly posting this in case we’re proven right or maybe — mercifully — proven wrong, so we can point to it later.

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DaraOakwise — 10:10 AM
Looks like just reestablishing everything pre New 52. So …. Is Ted dead or not dead? Because he wasn’t dead a bit ago.

Steff 🌈 — 10:25 AM
Not dead. Because the Flashpoint stuff comes next.
[10:26 AM] And I am underwhelmed because they skipped over the thrashing Doomsday gave the JLI and Booster acting like a grieving widower for years. LOL!

DaraOakwise — 10:27 AM
Yes they did!

Steff 🌈 — 10:27 AM
Looks like they also skipped the Overmaster arc?
[10:27 AM] Which was where Ice got killed and Booster lost an arm?

DaraOakwise — 10:29 AM
Yeah. They didn’t bother to spend much time with the JLI. Nothing about that, or Guy being yellow or Warrior either. (Which seems an oversight when you go with “Kyle became the last GL.”)

Steff 🌈 — 10:30 AM
Right??

DaraOakwise — 10:30 AM
I get that they are telling decades of history in 20 pages but they have some big gaps.

Steff 🌈 — 10:32 AM
And some pretty critical ones, in terms of like-- important character beats.

DaraOakwise — 10:32 AM
Yeah very much.
[10:33 AM] They could have mentioned that like—half the JLI ends up dead.

Steff 🌈 — 10:37 AM

Awh, my heart. ❤️ I hope they get some kind of reunion.

Steff 🌈 — 10:47 AM
Right?? Talk about a whole misery-fest, tho.
[10:47 AM] I get the whole ‘break the cutie (or the hottie)’, but christ on a cracker.

DaraOakwise — 10:48 AM
Gah we have got to have a Booster and Ted reunion/couch cuddle.

Steff 🌈 — 11:14 AM
Unlikely. It really is a misery-fest right now.

DaraOakwise — 11:17 AM
I haven’t read it … what’s happened since Supes unchained him from the wall?

Steff 🌈 — 11:21 AM
I mean, aside him getting electrocuted once and almost ritually sacrificed?

DaraOakwise — 11:25 AM
Gah, really? I’m going to have to go read it.

Steff 🌈 — 11:25 AM
I’m not sure it was worth the money I spent. 🤣
[11:26 AM] I like what they did with Prime, but there’s kind of a limit even for me when it comes to angst.
[11:26 AM] If you don’t get a moment to let your poor character breathe in 12 months, that’s a lot.

DaraOakwise — 11:26 AM
There is angst and then there is torture, y’know?

Steff 🌈 — 11:27 AM
Literal torture.
[11:27 AM] Like damn, I will beat my people up because they live dangerous lives and there’s a purpose to it, but they also have their wins. And moments to rest.

DaraOakwise — 11:29 AM
Yeah, exactly. You’ve got to give him a win, he can’t just be the literal punching bag forever.
[11:31 AM] I know he is a hero out of the goodness of himself—he can’t just stand aside, it’s not in him—but also he’s just a person and at some point there is no coming back, physically and emotionally

Steff 🌈 — 11:34 AM
I know it.
[11:34 AM] Like at the least, after what they put him through here, he actually would need therapy and a break.

DaraOakwise — 11:35 AM
At the least. And possibly the hospital.

Steff 🌈 — 11:35 AM
Oh, definitely that.
[11:36 AM] Like I am having a genuinely hard time imagining how they can possibly bring him back from this realistically without actually doing the work of showing it.
[11:36 AM] Maybe at all, tbh. And I say this as someone who’s put Booster through all kinds of wringers.

DaraOakwise — 11:36 AM
Right??? (And yet, you know they will just handwave it. Which is deeply frustrating.)

Steff 🌈 — 11:37 AM
I don’t even know how they can??

DaraOakwise — 11:37 AM
They shouldn’t. They absolutely shouldn’t. But one issue later they all pretend it didn’t happen.

Steff 🌈 — 11:38 AM
Like seriously, not only was the poor thing strung up and kinda tortured, not only did he spend like a couple to few years thinking everyone abandoned him, but they straight up used him to murder a bunch of people, albeit indirectly.

DaraOakwise — 11:38 AM
If there was anything near to realistic, that would be him done.

Steff 🌈 — 11:39 AM
I can see paths back, but not how comics companies tend to do it.

DaraOakwise — 11:39 AM
They do not.

Steff 🌈 — 11:40 AM
I also would absolutely not be shocked if he did straight-up try to kamikaze.
[11:40 AM] Booster’s a hell of a lot tougher than he gets credit for, but he’s also got limits to that and he’s not exactly the most stable of critters.

DaraOakwise — 11:41 AM
Oh completely. That would be in character; he’s done it before.

Steff 🌈 — 11:41 AM
The Overmaster Arc that DC has conveniently half-forgotten.
[11:42 AM] Max Lord in Generation Lost.

(ETA: I’d forgotten to add The OMAC Project, too.)

DaraOakwise — 11:42 AM
Yeah exactly

Steff 🌈 — 11:42 AM
There’s heroism mixed in there, but there’s also fatalism, and he’s in even worse shape here.

DaraOakwise — 11:43 AM
That was a realistic approach to his trauma. Which has now itself been handwaved.

Steff 🌈— 11:43 AM
Him sacrificing himself would be wildly in character, but also really lousy
[11:43 AM] Pfft, right.

DaraOakwise— 11:44 AM
It would be.

Steff 🌈 — 11:45 AM
Best case scenario, the remaining people who love him stop him. And while I am not usually a fan of involuntary commitment, I’d totally say he needs committed somewhere very not Arkham and very not Sanctuary, with actual professionals and space to fall apart. And like-- again, the people who love him as support.
[11:45 AM] That would be a realistic reaction to that much bad.

DaraOakwise — 11:47 AM
That is exactly what would need to happen. And not necessarily involuntarily (although getting Booster there on his own would be hard.) You know DC won’t. Assuming he survives this at all …. we may have to fix it.

Steff 🌈 — 11:52 AM
I mean, if he remembers Sanctuary, he’d nope out so hard. LOL! Because if you wanna ruin therapy as a possible avenue, that’s the best way to do it.
[11:52 AM] Ted could talk him into it. But I don’t think literally anyone else would be able to. Not even Skeets.

DaraOakwise — 11:53 AM
Yeah, that would not work. No Justice League facilities.

Steff 🌈— 11:53 AM
Like if we’re staying true to character, even ignoring 40 years of queer coding, Ted’s the only one who’s earned the emotional clout to realistically talk Booster into it.

DaraOakwise — 11:53 AM
It would be a stretch even for Ted.
[11:53 AM] Completely. And even then it would be a struggle no doubt

Steff 🌈 — 11:54 AM
Probably. Ted could probably convince him into outpatient, at least.

DaraOakwise — 11:54 AM
It would be some combo of Ted begging and also insisting

Steff 🌈— 11:55 AM
Which would require DC to write Ted with the spine of his 80s book.

DaraOakwise — 11:55 AM
Yes it would

Steff 🌈 — 11:55 AM
Though, like, they did do a pretty good job with him in the most recent Blue Beetle run.

DaraOakwise — 11:56 AM
What has been sorely missing for a while is Ted and Booster actual interaction

Steff 🌈 — 11:57 AM
Right?

DaraOakwise — 11:57 AM
It keeps getting referred (“don’t tell (my husband) Ted”) but it’s been a while since they’ve actually been on the page

Steff 🌈 — 11:57 AM
They got like three panels in Absolute Power.
[11:57 AM] And like one page in Blue Beetle.
[11:58 AM] I dunno, Dara, I would swear they’re trying to no-homo that intentionally.

DaraOakwise — 11:58 AM
I don’t doubt that may well be happening.

Steff 🌈 — 12:05 PM
-lays on the ground-

DaraOakwise — 12:09 PM
I mean I hope not … but I sure wish we had more than sideways third hand references to their long and storied history!

Steff 🌈 — 12:09 PM
I look at the fact that the word ‘bro’ was never in either of their vocabularies before 2019.
[12:10 PM] Literally, Heroes in Crisis was the first time either ever used that word in reference to the other. Ever.

DaraOakwise — 12:10 PM
Ugh
[12:11 PM] Yeah

Steff 🌈 — 12:11 PM
I mean, unless there was the Black Lantern Ted doing it during Blackest Night, but I don’t think so.
[12:11 PM] People would have said something about it, I’d think.

DaraOakwise — 12:12 PM
Yeah without looking I’m sure he didn’t. That would have been tonally weird for the horrifically half-erotic thing they were doing there

Steff 🌈— 12:12 PM
-snorts- Right?
[12:13 PM] Ha! The most no-homo thing they did during that whole thing was not showing Booster in violet. Because realistically, he absolutely would have been. LOL!

DaraOakwise — 12:14 PM
The corpse of your bro doesn’t get brought back from the dead to torture you.

Steff 🌈— 12:14 PM
Like shit, even if you’re ignoring romantically! Love is love is love.

DaraOakwise — 12:14 PM
Right?? lol

Steff 🌈ꜲFIC — 12:14 PM
Pfft! Not like that.
[12:14 PM] Not with shibari on the cover. 🤣

DaraOakwise — 12:17 PM
Yeah. 😂 No, that whole thing was very much “your dead ex lover, being twisted from every one of your nightmares.”

Steff 🌈— 12:20 PM
It really was. Like jesus, Ted straight up targeted Booster wanting to rip his heart out.
[12:21 PM] -desperately Will Smiths at that-

DaraOakwise — 12:21 PM
That isn’t subtle

Steff 🌈— 12:21 PM
It’s not. It’s about as unsubtle as the whole ‘man after my own heart’ and ‘that’s about all that I’m after’.

DaraOakwise — 12:22 PM
I knnnnoowww. None of what they have is subtle

Steff 🌈 — 12:22 PM
I’m not sure how anyone can interpret that as anything other than an open admission of outright queerness???

DaraOakwise — 12:23 PM
In actual admissions, it’s half an inch from a pile of their clothing on the floor and the wind blowing through the curtain of an open window as we go off-screen ….

Steff 🌈 — 12:25 PM
I would definitely think that was a decampment from the closet in the real world.

DaraOakwise — 12:26 PM
“Your heart is all I’m after.” That’s. That’s. I mean, come on.

Steff 🌈 — 12:29 PM
THAT IS SO QUEER.
[12:29 PM] That is such an indisputably flaming thing to say!
[12:31 PM] Ugh. Canon sucks right now.

DaraOakwise — 12:31 PM
It is! To say nothing of an actual explicit statement! “Oh, they were just joking around that’s how they talk.” YEAH??? THAT IS ALSO HOW PEOPLE IN A RELATIONSHIP TALK?
[12:31 PM] And it does suck.

Steff 🌈 — 12:32 PM
Omg, though, anytime people sit there and whine, “Why can’t they just be friends?” it’s like-- uh, people can be in love and be friends.
[12:32 PM] In fact, it happens all the fucking time.
[12:32 PM] In fact, most enduring marriages have spouses who are also friends.

DaraOakwise — 12:32 PM
It does! It is!

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After Dara gets to read it

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Steff 🌈 — 5:27 PM
There ya go. All the torture with like-- 1/3 less body weight.

DaraOakwise — 5:33 PM
First omg

But yeesh he is in bad shape

Steff 🌈— 5:36 PM
I do admit I laughed at that.
[5:37 PM] Though Dan can’t be too pissed, he’s the one who started with Booster in bondage.

DaraOakwise — 5:37 PM
I was going to say … I mean Dan might not be angry he’s tied up. Dead, yes. Tied up, no

Steff 🌈— 5:37 PM
Also, damn, Clark can almost wrap those hands all the way around his waist.[5:38 PM] But yeah, see what I mean about it being a misery-fest?

DaraOakwise — 5:43 PM
That physical and physiological trauma is intense. How do they bringing him back, seriously

Steff 🌈 — 5:44 PM
Probably with a lot more time and care than I would trust DC with, tbh.

DaraOakwise — 5:45 PM
Yeah exactly

Steff 🌈— 5:45 PM
Like if you have any respect for the man’s characterization, he’s pretty much at the end of his rope and probably would think oblivion might be a mercy.[5:47 PM] I dunno. I can’t really think of anyone up there in that group of writers who would have the insight or the skill to pull it off.
[5:48 PM] Even just far enough to satisfy the suspension of disbelief.

DaraOakwise — 5:59 PM
Yeah the level of what they’ve just done to him … to handwave it would be a disservice, but how do they address this appropriately and with honor to his character? Short of like ..: a “five years later” and some superhero knocks on Booster’s door and Ted answers and is like “no. Go away.”

Steff 🌈— 6:01 PM
1.) Wipe his memory. Probably won’t be a permanent solution though.
2.) Legit, get past this latest stupid and commit the man to some decent least-restrictive facility.
3.) If that’s not enough, at least stick him in the center of the JLI and let them keep him from self-destructing spectacularly while making sure he goes to a therapist.
[6:02 PM] After 2 or 3-- time.

DaraOakwise — 6:02 PM
I like #2 followed by 3

Steff 🌈 — 6:02 PM
That would make for an interesting story.
[6:03 PM] But again, it’s not one I think DC has the skills to pull off.

DaraOakwise — 6:03 PM
And then yes time. Let’s be sure writers that we reference that Booster is a recovering wreck for some years yet please

Steff 🌈— 6:03 PM
Also, it wouldn’t easily lend itself to comic format unless you left it mostly off-page.

DaraOakwise — 6:04 PM
Right? They’d have to do it in the corners. Him walking out his therapist’s door, etc.

Steff 🌈— 6:04 PM
What I have a feeling they’ll do is push the whole time-traveler angle thing because they seemed to completely miss that people love him most in the context of the JLI (and specifically Ted), even during his second solo.
[6:04 PM] Like-- there was a reason he kept going back to that, Doylist-wise, and that’s because it sells.

DaraOakwise — 6:05 PM
I know. Omega energy time traveler blah blah is not good for him or stories

Steff 🌈— 6:05 PM
I’d tolerate it even then if I thought there’d be any real, genuine thought to what the aftermath would look like.
[6:06 PM] Like there’s resilience -- which he has! A lot of, in fact! -- and then there’s just ignoring the consequences of this level of bad.

DaraOakwise — 6:06 PM
Yeah. I mean there is a compelling and wrenching story for him here. Not that they are going to bother telling it.

Steff 🌈— 6:07 PM
Pffft. Of course not. The last time anyone’s successfully told a compelling and wrenching story with Booster, it was 2011.
[6:07 PM] Officially speaking.
[6:07 PM] Clearly we do a bangup job.

DaraOakwise — 6:09 PM
Right, officially wise. We’ve been doing good work, obviously
[6:10 PM] Like—what’s the point? If you’re going to take a character this far—it’s torture, straight up—why do that if there isn’t a storytelling reason?
[6:11 PM] They could have told this story without doing that to him. So why this choice, if they aren’t (and they aren’t) going to do something with it?

Steff 🌈— 6:12 PM
I think they’re going to do things with it, though. I just think they’re gonna be all the heterosexual white fanboy things.

DaraOakwise — 6:13 PM
Ugh. Yes, possibly.

Steff 🌈— 6:17 PM
Because for the most part, it’s still treated like a very heterosexual white fanboy medium.
[6:18 PM] I should post this whole thing to Off the Record, just in case it turns out we’re right in our predictions. 🤣
[6:18 PM] Or shit, proven mercifully wrong!

DaraOakwise — 6:18 PM
Prove us wrong, DC. Just to get back at us. 😂

Steff 🌈— 6:19 PM
And not in the bad way!

DaraOakwise — 6:20 PM
Deliver him to Ted Kord, to tenderly nurse him back to health over six Very Special Issues

Steff 🌈— 6:28 PM
That would be the bravest thing DC ever did.
[6:28 PM] Which is why they won’t.
[6:28 PM] Like legitimately. Not even being facetious.

DaraOakwise — 6:29 PM
Oh I know it.

Steff 🌈— 6:31 PM
Taking two characters who have been doing the gay-chicken version of the will-they-won’t-they dance for almost forty years and saying, “You know, there actually are a ton of close platonic male friendships in media, we can allow these two to be together without ruining the lives of every heterosexual fanboy.”

DaraOakwise — 6:33 PM
Could you imagine? Even if they didn’t even breath in the direction of something romantic, they would still lose their minds. CaN’T tHEy be FrIenDs?? Yes?? That’s what this is?
[6:34 PM] And if they did take it romantic … omg

Steff 🌈 — 6:35 PM
I mean, you already have all the right-wingers mad about Superman and such. LOL!
[6:35 PM] C’mon, DC, this is another excellent way to piss them off.

DaraOakwise — 6:35 PM
Being kind. So woke

Steff 🌈— 6:36 PM
Being kind. Being queer.
[6:36 PM] It’s all somehow bad.

DaraOakwise — 6:36 PM
If people are going to be pissed, may as well make them REALLY pissed. Lol. DC will never do it. But they should

Steff 🌈— 6:38 PM
They should. Maybe in a dozen more years. LOL!

DaraOakwise — 6:39 PM
They should do it now. 😂 The set up is there.

Steff 🌈 — 6:41 PM
It really is.
[6:41 PM] It would be one shining thread of good in a sea of misery.

DaraOakwise — 6:42 PM
It really would.

Steff 🌈— 6:44 PM
Ugh. Anyway, that sucked.