The Good
Once again, Dan Jurgens delivers a nice adventure with Booster Gold. More than anything else, it delivers the return of Blue & Gold. That's Booster Gold and Blue Beetle to the uninitiated, the best hero duo at DC (that's not up for discussion). This issue revolves around Booster dying from time travelling without protection.
We get a pretty great buddy road trip story that's actually not the typical fun and silly story you'd expect with the two of these characters involved. Ted Kord is doing everything he can in order to save his friend's life. The outcome isn't one of my personal favorites but the pacing of the book is fantastic and the overall story has a great arc and flow to it. More importantly, it's just great to see some more Booster Gold in comics and even better when Ted Kord is involved.
The art team of Alvaro Martinez, Raul Fernandez, and Chris Sotomayor do some great work here on the issue. Martinez's pencils really convey the sense of fun right in the opening and the art continues to be light, even in times of distress. Sotomayor's colors really help with that as well. The book is bright when it counts, and gets pretty bleak, colorwise, when needed.
The Bad
I'm not the biggest fan of the whole Waverider turn towards the end of the issue. Booster Gold was aging rapidly and had to be saved and this is what came out of it, but the look and design of the character isn't sitting right with me. Plus, it's a mash up of two characters and being a Booster Gold fan, I'd rather see the old school Waverider, who was Matthew Ryder.
As if time travel wasn't enough, now universe hopping is thrown into the mix. While I consider myself a fan of Booster Gold, one thing I never got around to reading was VANISHING POINT and lots of what's happening here relies on that, just like a giant chunk of issue one leaned on FUTURES END. The main story also really overshadows what's going on with Rip Hunter, which becomes a little forgettable by the time you finish reading. (Note: A lot of this all makes a lot more sense when you read the conclusion of CONVERGENCE #8, but I checked this out prior to that)
The Verdict
Overall, CONVERGENCE BOOSTER GOLD is fun but at times, can be a little rough for casual fans of the character that don't follow all of Booster's adventures. The story with Booster and Blue Beetle is a ton of fun and pretty emotional at times, but the secondary material with Rip and the other Booster against the Legion of Super-Heroes falls a tad flat. It's not bad, but it's really overshadowed by the Blue and Gold story. All-in-all, if you're a fan of Booster Gold, this is probably going to be some essential reading for the character's future, so you may want to pick this up.
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