Blue and Gold #2

Blue and Gold #2

DC Comics 2021

Written by Dan Jurgens

Illustrated by Ryan Sook

Lettered by Rob Leigh

Who needs the Justice League anyway? Our heroes certainly don’t! After a painful rejection from the DC Universe’s team of a-list heroes, Booster Gold and Blue Beetle strike out on their own. Thanks to the Kord Industries fortune, anything is possible for this dynamic duo…right? Little do they know, an alien assassin seeking revenge places Blue and Gold in her crosshairs, and The Omnizon never misses!

The power of friendship is real people and we see that with Ted as he turned down solo League membership because they wouldn’t take Booster too. I’ll be brutally honest I liked the last Booster series where he was time travelling and really did grow up a lot and we see him here as if all that time he spent with his dad was just erased. Don’t get me wrong there are few writers quite like Dan and he’s got this humour down pat but I'd like to see a more serious side of Booster coming out as well. There's a flicker of that happening within these pages and I hope we see a lot more of it. Fame and Fortune is what he wanted when he first appeared and I’m not sure how well that translates now, though let’s be honest the whole social media thing is precisely up his alley.

I’m really enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does a magnificent job in bringing their personalities to the forefront. I love seeing the almost opposite personalities that make them such good friends and compliments to one another. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is impeccably rendered.

I am a fan of how we see this being structured as well as how the layers in the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. The layers open up different avenues and while some will be explored others will not be but they all add this great depth, dimension and complexity to the story. The pacing here is extraordinary and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story the more you realise we need this book on a regular basis.

The interiors here are pretty flawless. The linework is clean, crisp and sharp plus how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail in the work that we see is utterly phenomenal. We see backgrounds utilised quite often, we could always see more, and do a wonderful job enhancing and expanding the moments. They also work well within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows this amazing eye for how colour works. The colour work really enhances the visually sensationally.

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I like that we’re seeing the influx of social media, the good, the bad and the ugly, in all its glory being utilised by Booster. It does make sense for someone who craves attention and wants to be seen as more serious than he is, though this really isn’t the way for that to happen, but let’s face facts he has no skills to have a secret identity and get a job. So being sponsored really is the way he needs to go to survive in the modern world. With some extremely solid writing and great characterisation and alongside these stunning interiors make for some dynamic reading.