Why Booster Gold and the Blue Beatle should get a Film
comic, films, movies, superheroes, movie
With the announcement of DC's newest TV series, the Blue Beetle, I thought now would be an appropriate time to look back at the greatest character to ever hold the title, Ted Cord. Then I'm going to make my case for why he should have a buddy Superhero movie co-starring Michael Jon Carter, a.k.a. Booster Gold.
Diversity in Heroes
With all the talks of reboots of major franchises going on, I find myself wanting movie companies to just focus on lesser known characters. Sure, Spider-Man, Batman, and the X-Men all pull in record breaking numbers whenever a movie opens, but if all that is shown are the recognizable ones, than that's all that people will think that superheroes are about. The truth is that, the superhero genre is just as versatile as any other genre. In fact, the superheroes are just props to liven movies up with their costumes. You can have a romance starring superheroes, political thrillers, horror films, and road trip movies that all involve superheroes. Who wouldn't want to see a film where Tony Stark and Wolverine team up for a cross country bar hopping adventure?
Booster Gold (Michael Jon Carter)
 Take Booster Gold, the greedy, opportunistic, scoundrel from the future. He steals all of the technology for his powers, and then travels back to the late eighties to get rich with Ronald Reagan. He encapsulates the idea that greedy people are not necessarily evil, and can be heroes despite themselves. But despite saving the world on his own dime (and have no one notice that he's doing it,) Booster would be plotting a get rich quick scheme right after an alien force was banished.
While Booster Gold maintained salvageable sales, be was never able to get above the role of a C-lister. At least not on his own.
Shortly after his own series debut, Booster was put into the Justice League International series, where he teamed up with other C-listers at the time and together, they managed to become B-list celebrities in the DC Universe.
Booster's actions would usually create little sub-plots for the team, where he managed to have some scheme blow up in his face, and a filler-story would follow. Thankfully, he became friends with Ted Cord, the Blue Beetle, to back him up in his crazy schemes. This is where the potential of Booster started to really shine.
The Blue Beetle (Ted Cord)
 Ted Cord was another C-list hero, called the Blue Beetle, who DC acquired to rights too. Despite his origin involving some mystic scarab, Ted just used technology to make Blue Beetle equipment, and become a third-rate Batman imitator.
For those of you who have seen or read the Watchmen, the character Night Owl, is based of Ted Cord's Blue Beetle.
Ted himself has a lot of potential that writers never fully exploited, he was a successor to an older hero that could never (in his own eyes) quite live up to the title, but knew that he was worthy of it. To him, crime fighting was an adventure, not an obsession, so he would goof off, and have fun while doing it.
Somehow, when the DC Universe rebooted itself in the mid-80's, he somehow made his was onto the Justice League, alongside Booster Gold, and a bunch of other characters no kids today recognize.
The Justice League International
The Justice League was DC's attempt to make money in the late fifties, by putting all of their popular characters into one book. It featured Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the Flash, and the Martian Manhunter. It made money.
After DC's Company Wide Crossover (which actually changed everything,) called Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC's continuity became a complete mess, and they rebooted everything, including the Justice League. The writer's of Batman, Superman, Wonder Women, and all of the other A-list Superheroes didn't want to add them to the team yet, preferring to build up their beginning in self contained series and not having any major groups interact with them on a monthly basis.
Because of this, the Justice League involved people who should not have been on a team together. Captain Atom, some guy from Russia, Guy Gardner (the other Green Lantern,) Black Canary, the Martian Manhunter, Mister Miricle, some midget, Dr. Fate, Maxwell Lord, and of course, the two pranksters that this article is about.
The series took a sitcom like tone, focusing on how the group got along instead of how they took down world shattering issues. The result worked surprisingly well and led to a number of less interesting spin-offs.
However, once Comic Book legend, Grant Morrison did his run on the Justice League, focusing on Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, and all the large players, the Justice League International run seemed to be all but forgotten in continuity. Despite a strong following by the people who actually read the book, the characters seemed to go back into irrelevance.
In typical turn of the century fashion, the character's were brought back to be warped, the fun loving heroes that founded the Justice League were now killing and being killed, and doing a bunch of crazy crap which they were never meant to. For better or for worse, the events of the last six years have lead to some of the most character defining moments of the characters.
Maxwell Lord
Before I go on to other topics, I should briefly write about Maxwell Lord. He was another greedy business man of the 80's who was always trying to promote his own objective. He was someone that Booster could relate to, and while he was always looking out for himself, he had a good heart, and was allowed to help out the team. His would power was the ability to manipulate other's minds, at the cost of giving himself a nosebleed. For whatever reason, the group seemed to like him, even if they didn't always trust him.
The Chemistry
 Out of all of the Justice League International characters, Booster Gold and the Blue Beetle seem to get the most praise and fan art. This is probably because they have one of fictions ultimate bromances. They're not gay. Really, all Ted thinks about is women. But the chemistry between the two would give Kirk and Spock a run for their money.
The two joke around together, mess up simple situations as a team, try and prove that they aren't gay, and are willing to sacrifice each other's lives for one another. Because of this, they are an extremely fun pair to read about.
But thanks to a lead up to a big crossover event entitles Infinity Crisis, Blue Beetle is now dead. While this annoyed a few of the fans that the character had, it was also one of the best things that could have happened to him story wise.
During his final days, Ted started looking into places that Batman refused to go to see what potential problems were arising. It turned out that one of Ted's friends, Maxwell Lord, was behind the plot. Instead of putting Ted into some Bond-esque death trap, Max just shoots him in the head. No great goodbye speech, no last regret moments, he's just dead.
Max later gets killed by Wonder Women in events that sound so stupid when you recap them, that I refuse to do it.
 This leads to something big, the character growth of Booster Gold, the person who he joked around with and occasionally acted as the voice or reason was gone. Now he had the choice to give up crime fighting, or re-evaluate his role as a hero. He gave up.
But of course he came back.
Booster went on to be one of the stars in DC's weekly 52 series. He tried to help keep the world safe for a year while Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman were missing.
Getting Ted Back
Booster Gold is a time traveller, so he always has the option of revisiting Ted when he needs some cheering up, but more importantly, he has a chance to save him.
The problem is that whenever you mess with the time stream, the consequences are hilarious, or deadly. So Booster has to undo the damage his actions cause, which means that Ted needs to die again. The problem is that apparently, no one wants Ted to stay dead. People keep coming up to him and try to prevent his fate, which he has to go through in order stop the timeline from being broken (again.) He always dies in the end anyways, because once all the goofing off is done with, he is a hero, much to Booster's disappointment. Because at the end of the day, Booster Gold is just a big kid that needs to realize that it's time to grow up.
Why They Deserve a Movie
Booster and Beetle deserve a movie...
- because they have the chemistry to make it work, and the story arcs would perfectly fit into a film trilogy.
-Plus there are no buddy Superhero films that have filmed yet, and these two would be the best characters to show it.
-There films are able to be both serious and light hearted at the same time.
-Because we could use a Back-to-the-Future-like story.
-If the movies are successful, there are plenty of ways they could get spin offs, prequels, or cameos in other films.
Why They Probably Won't Get A Movie
-Not enough people know who they are.
-The actors need great chemistry to pull off the roles.
-Neither of them has a defining story or run in their own titles.
-They are known as part of a group.
-Not enough people get what the character's are about.
-The last film about a Superhero who never made it huge but has a strong following was Daredevil.
Needed Changes
Booster Gold and the Blue Beetle can make a film without the rest of the Justice League International, although Maxwell Lord should be part of the cast to become a villain. The films shouldn't go over their origins, since their origin's are nothing special and don't compete with most other heroes. The films should tone down some of the zaniness of the characters, to make it work with an audience who is more interested in realistic story telling. Maxwell's motives should defiantly be altered.
Conclusion:
Chances are, they will make a film out of these two, but only after DC released an animated series about the A-list free Justice League in the form of a cartoon show. If done right, you'll see a direct to DVD movie showcasing these two that will be toned down to get a light PG-13 rating. Most people will be unimpressed, and any hopes of making it big the big screen will be dashed for the next fifteen years.
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June 16, 2010
Author: Mike M. |
