The Super Powered Fancast

Batman #46

DC Comics

Written by Tom King

Art by Tony S. Daniel

Inks by Sandu Florea

Colors by Tomeu Morey

A year after Booster Gold decided to give Bruce Wayne his disastrous wedding gift of saving Bruce’s parents in Crime Alley, Gotham City continues to spiral down the drain as violence and destruction spread out throughout the city.

At Arkham, Booster Gold has decided to make a bad situation worse. After losing Skeets, Booster is unable to travel through time and is now stuck in the world that he helped create. He decides that the best thing he can do is break Catwoman out of Arkham and try to arrange for she and Bruce to meet. It is a radically stupid idea, even for Booster and that made me more interested to see how big a train wreck this moron could cause.

Fortunately, I was not disappointed. His busting her out alerts Dick Grayson’s murderous, gun-toting Batman to start hunting them both and the violence of the city itself causes Bruce’s father Thomas to have a heart attack, sending the family to the hospital. Booster is starting to crack under the pressure. Without Skeets, he is a babbling idiot, ranting about the last arc in the series where Batman brought in Harley to break Ivy out of her control of the world. Booster thinks bringing Selina and Bruce together will do the same thing.

Man is he wrong.

I admit that I was not fully on board for this arc when it started. I thought it was well done, but too out of left field for me to care about. This issue decided to lean into the absurdity and madness and it works. The desperation of Booster, the twisted bloodbath at the end of the issue, both serve as a means of telling the reader that all bets are off and nothing you think is about to happen, will. I like being surprised and this issue surprised me with the risks it was willing to take to tell this story. Well done.