Plot summary: The entire League is assembled to face off against a powerful foe, but the over-eager Booster Gold is stuck on crowd control.

Notes and Trivia

Episode: 8 (S1.E8)

Original Air Date: September 11^th, 2004

Directed: Dan Riba (4)

Written: Andrew Kreisberg (1)

Animation: Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD. (4)

Music: Lolita Ritmanis (3)

For some reason this story was originally centred around Firestorm instead of Booster Gold. I guess there is an inherent weirdness about Firestorm that could have been fun, but given the tone of the story… how was it ever not Booster? Luckily the comic version of Firestorm was killed off shortly before production, so they were forced to make the change.

Booster being mistaken for Green Lantern is the most famous gag from this episode, but the opposite once happened in a comic where Animal Man was thought to be Booster Gold.

Skeets says “My gosh! It was full of stars!” is a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

DCAU Debuts

Booster m’f’n Gold has arrived! Created by Dan Jurgens in 1986, Michael Jon Carter hails from the 25^th Century where he was a museum night watchman, studying up on the various superhero exhibits and later stealing various pieces of tech, most notably a time machine. Travelling back to our present with his ‘faithful’ robot sidekick, Skeets, Booster exploited his knowledge of the past to become a superhero. He’s a massive fame whore, seeking celebrity endorsements and greatly exaggerating his capabilities, which also means he annoys 99% of his fellow heroes. There is a little more to him than that, but that’s the elevator pitch that has kept him tremendously popular over the decades. He appeared in Smallville, Legends of Tomorrow, various cartoons and is set to receive his own DCU TV show on HBO Max.

I skipped a proper introduction for Elongated Man in his first appearance as it was just a cameo, but he’s got a fun little role here, so why not? Ralph Dibny is as he claims in the episode, a detective, who also happens to have stretching powers. The Ductile Detective, if you will. His creators (John Broome and Carmine Infantino) didn’t realise DC already held the rights to Plastic Man, who has enjoyed a higher profile historically, and like Green Lantern says, “we don’t need two stretchy guys.” Nevertheless, Dibny has remained a bit of a sentimental favourite among the fandom.

Mordru is exactly as J’onn says, one of the single most powerful magic-wielders in DC, tied to ‘The Lords of Chaos’. Jim Shooter & Curt Swan created him in 1968 and he’s one of those villains they trot out of every so often when they need a major threat.

Recap

Booster Gold saves Metropolis from a giant robot but the assembled crowd are unimpressed with his grandstanding, even after an informative powerpoint from his partner, Skeets.

Likewise, Martian Manhunter denies his request to be placed on higher profile Justice League missions… but it’s all hands on deck when the unstoppable Mordru begins rampaging.

However Batman relegates Booster to crowd control once they’re all boots on the ground, a role that proves largely unnecessary and borin, depressing the wannabe celebrity superhero.

He’s eventually drawn into the evacuation of a lab, where he learns from Dr. Simmons of an insane experiment that’s turned one of the scientists into a walking black hole that could destroy the entire damn universe!

J’onn dismisses Booster’s call for help, leaving him to try and resolve the problem alone, which is complicated by having to help deliver a baby and various other shenanigans.

When Skeets is sucked into the black hole Booster breaks down and confesses all his shortcomings, but Dr. Simmons assures him only he can do this, and he manages to attach a neutralising device at the last second.

Skeets and everybody else are restored, but Booster is so depressed that he turns down a chance to kiss Dr. Simmons and watches from the sidelines as the other heroes celebrate their win.

Batman scolds him for abandoning his duty, but Dr. Simmons cheers him up by asking him on a date. Cute.

Best Performance

Tom Everett Scott and Billy West were so fun as the Booster/Skeets double act that they were brought back to reprise the roles in Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Let’s be real though, West does all the heavy lifting, absolutely slaying as the downtrodden robot sidekick. His delivery of “Maybe they needed a vase” turns a really good line into one of the best jokes in the entire DCAU. West is just a true titan of the voice acting profession, and it’s a genuine delight whenever he shows up anywhere. Skeets primarily gets zingers, which helps, but he’s also so good at taking more banal moments like explaining Booster Gold to confused bystanders and adds so much quirk to it. There’s just something about a robot that lacks confidence that is so perversely funny to me. Honestly, I could write essays about how good Billy West is in general, but we’ll leave it here for now.

Lori Loughlin shouldn’t be overlooked as Dr. Simmons. It’s difficult to excel as an original civilian character who largely exists to provide exposition in a show so stacked with big names, but Loughlin really brings it, especially the pep talk to Booster near the end.

Remember how I said George Eads was weirdly bad as Captain Atom? Well he’s gone and Chris Cox has inherited the role instead. It’s too soon to tell if he’s an improvement.

Episode Ranking

Conceptually this is entirely my jam, setting up an enormous event that’s happening just off screen at all times, while we focus on a side story about a loveable loser.

Booster is obviously an obnoxious try-hard, but it’s still brutal when he’s thrice confused for Green Lantern, and that despite Mordru being the biggest threat the League have ever faced, they just want him to wave people in the direction of safety, a task that bores him to tears. It’s also an episode filled with little punch lines at Booster’s expense, such as leaping to rescue a little boy’s ‘aunts’… only for it to turn out to be his ‘ants’, or a smash cut from a promise of adventure to him helping an old lady read a subway map. Also it’s not really a ‘joke’ per se, but Booster finding himself delivering a baby in the midst of his side-quest to save the world is also a good bit… and serves the underlying secret sauce of all this – that despite his irksome demeanour, he is genuinely heroic and when he locks in, he can do great things. I really loved his quick-thinking when rescuing Dr. Simmons from the black hole, causing a cave-in to act as a buffer when he’s unable to fly out of its vacuum force.

Lumping Elongated Man in with Booster on crowd control was an extremely good bit, as Ralph complains far more than Booster, despite the latter having more of a negative reputation, but he’s the one who gets called up to the main squad all the same. More than that, it happens seconds after he grumpily claims he wouldn’t help if they asked. Just good, basic shit. Plus the ending with everybody heaping praise on Elongated Man for taking down Mordru while Booster is finally over it all truly demonstrates his journey.

It’s also one of the more underrated episodes visually. From small stuff like the art design of the giant robot Booster had already defeated at the start of the episode, to the bigger, sexier moments where the black hole is messing with physics, they’re kind of flexing here. I particularly liked when an entire train was warped, coiled and absorbed, but Booster getting partially sucked inside while still trying to snap on the control collar was great too.

Overall though it’s not got quite enough going for it to crack the very top tier. It’s more fun than it is good, I would say, though Andrew Kreisberg does write the hell out of what they’re going for, which makes sense given he crushed it in his single Justice League story. But they’re not trying to do anything poignant here, is all. It’s simply a funny, memorable but limited episode. I think when all is said and done this will act as a bit of a gatekeeper between the middle of the pack and the real contenders.

For the Man Who Has Everything
Fearful Symmetry
The Return
The Greatest Story Never Told (NEW ENTRY)
Initiation
This Little Piggy
Kids’ Stuff
Hawk and Dove

Rogues Roundup

Mordru (first appearance)

Honestly… there isn’t really a villain in this episode, but I don’t think I’ve ever done that before… maybe a single episode of BTAS?

He’s obviously not going to score very high because he doesn’t even speak and is entirely a plot device… but so were some of the others we’ve had so far! The design is batshit, an acid trip cosmic wizard flying around the city transforming everything into a threat, including merging Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman into a single entity at one point.

I think the simple fact the entire League assembled to fight this fucker and seemed scared the entire time is worth ranking him, especially as a nice comparison to Amazo getting a similar but different treatment one episode ago.

Lex Luthor
Circe
Amazo
Mongul
Galatea
Brimstone
Ares (and The Annihilator!)
Mordred (and Morgaine le Fey!)
Mordru (NEW ENTRY)