I Don't Think [52 Spoiler] Deserved To Die

I think it's been long enough that I don't have to put this in cut-away tags.

I don't know if I believe Booster Gold is dead.

On one hand, as deaths go, being cradled as a skeleton in someone's arms is pretty freakin' dead from where I'm sitting. Didio, Johns and the rest of the creative team seems to refer to him as dead. He's pretty damn dead.

On the other hand, it just doesn't feel right.

This isn't because I have any particular fondness for the character. Booster is funny sometimes but that's it really. I don't have any qualms with his portrayal in 52 because it isn't markedly different from his own series. I do think it ignores later developments where he's grown up a little, but it really doesn't seem out of character for me. I can buy the oddities as a kind of grief fueled regression.

I suppose I'm a little annoyed because I didn't really care.

I know superheroes die all the time. And most of the time come back. And I'm not going to be upset if any do come back, because to quote someone: "Everyone comes back, except Bucky or Jason Todd...oops."

But I want to care. I cared when Hal died. I cared when Ted died. I cared when Clark died. I cared when Conner died. Hell, Jack Drake and Steph Brown, neither character really being among my favorites, still got me a little sad.

This though... I think, as cliched as this sounds, I wanted a grander redemption moment. At least a clearer one. It seemed to me that Booster went out more trying to save his reputation than save the city. And fair enough, that's not completely out of character. And there's a moment where he seems like he might be choosing the city...but I wanted something clearer.

Basically I wanted a moment where Booster knows he's going to die and does it anyway. And I didn't feel I'd gotten that from the comic. Sure it's cheesy, and probably out of character, but it's what would be necessary to redeem a character as self absorbed as Booster.

In a strange way, I think a hero's death must be earned. Death is a special thing for a hero, whether it's permanent or not. Many lesser heroes are remembered more because of how they die than they'd ever have been alive. A good death can occasionally even ensure a resurrection of a character that doesn't deserve it.

I think this might have been the motivation for Steph's gratuitous torture in Robin. I mean, War Games was started because of her screw up. But it was her bravery and strength being tortured that gave her death a respectability beyond say...Jason Todd's. Jason's death wasn't really a hero's death, I think. Jason's death is remembered more as him screwing up and paying the ultimate price. I don't think people remember Steph's death the same way.

Countdown was an entire book devoted to taking a third-rate joke character and making him worthy of the death they were about to give him. A death worthy of being the death knoll of the pre-ICrisis DCU. They made a huge effort to take the character beyond the joke status of the JLI, beyond the lesser sidekick status in Birds of Prey and highlight the parts of his character that made him awesome. They showed him at his best, his most heroic. The underdog who never stops fighting. And when he died...it *hurt*.

If we assume everything is as it seems, then I think Booster's death is supposed to be of similar importance in 52. But I have a problem with that. I don't think he's earned that. I don't think the character, as portrayed in 52, is worthy of a death that important.

If they wanted to write him out without changing him, they should have just sent him back to the future, and given this death to someone who deserves it.

I admit, I've got a weird paradox here. I think that death is a special thing and that heroic deaths are, in their own way, rewards. I guess it's because going out to save a city is an awesome way to be remembered. Which may be why deaths like Pantha's, Wildebeest's, Bushido's, Conner's or Kal-L's don't bother me. They might have had debatable effect, but they went out trying to stop a madman with the powers of a god. But, it's also true that aside from Conner (who would be really easy to resurrect if/when someone chooses) none of these characters even approach my favorites so of course I don't mind much that they die. If Sand or Guy had been killed against Superboy Prime, I'd have had a fit.

I am a bit of a hypocrite.

But I do know that I really hope Booster isn't dead. Because he didn't deserve to go out like this. The quieter Booster we saw in Countdown, Maybe. The Crusading one in the OMAC Project, sure. But the IC/52 Booster that may or may not even be the same character? No. He wasn't worthy of this death.

Of course, there's the very high chance, given all the straightforwardness regarding his death, that things aren't what they seem at all. So I'll just have to wait and see.