Blue and Gold #1: The Boys are Back in Town

Rumors of this book have been around since before the internet days; I’m talking single-digit numbered issues of Wizard. Back when the cover featured a comic book character IN a Wizard’s costume. But, I guess if you wait for something long enough, you’re bound to get it. So thank God for Death Metal, the series that put a lot of genies back into a lot of bottles. Now we have Booster back to his old self, Ted Kord back to being Blue Beetle, and oh yeah, he’s not dead. That’s more help than you’d imagine. Writer and Booster Gold creator Dan Jurgens is one of the few writers that can actually write humor successfully in a comic book, in my opinion. The great thing about this book is that all the humor is natural – there’s no forced laughs, no weird situations that are put into place so that a joke can get payoff later, it’s a very well done story that just happens to be pretty funny. The story that Jurgens puts together is a typical Booster/Beetle situation from back in the “Golden Days” of these heroes, and best of all it’s in current continuity ready for a whole new audience to discover and fall in love with these OG bros. The writing in this book is top-notch, but would you expect any less from the man who killed Superman, made Ben Reilly an enjoyable character and brought the Titans together with the Legion of Superheroes? 

We are super-blessed to have Ryan Sook doing art on this book. This guy makes art look easy. Jurgens took Sook to the woodshed this issue and it doesn’t look like it phased him one bit. He creates a new alien species/world/tech that’s really cool and makes them actually appear threatening. This book is one of the reasons that Ryan Sook is in such high demand. Excellent comic art and excellent storytelling.