Up until now, if there was one criticism of this series, it would probably be that all the pieces of the story — the flashbacks with Rip and Booster, the main plot of the heroes lost in time, the villains at Vanish Point, and the search for Bruce Wayne — did not really fit together. However, with this issue, we can finally see the plot start to gel. We start to understand why the heroes are lost in time. We start to understand why Vanishing Point was destroyed. And, we start to see how that event might also tie into the death / time-displacement of Batman. As Superman says in the issue, “Darkseid doesn’t make mistakes.” In other words, why would Darkseid want to send Batman back in time? One can easily come up with a number of reasons, with each possibility more fascinating than the last.

This issue of Time Masters Vanishing Point continues to develop the back story of Rip and Booster. We see another flashback to Rip’s youth, but this time it is not a completely happy moment. Something happens that changes the way Rip sees the timestream and his family’s role in protecting it. And, to Jurgen’s credit, he is not just having character moments for the sake of rounding out the characters. I am convinced that these flashbacks will tie into the larger story and themes before it’s all said and done. I think they will be crucial to understanding Rip’s actions and motivations in the remaining issues.

In the meantime, the action continues apace as our heroes fight to free themselves from the grasp of a powerful ancient wizard, who is seeking a means of accessing the timestream and thereby all the weapons contained throughout time and space. We also see the plot move ahead with the super villains who were brought to Vanishing Point.

All in all, this series continues to be very good. With “Generation Lost”, “Time Masters” and the main “Booster Gold” series all delivering the goods, month-in-and-month-out, it’s undoubtedly a great time to be a Booster Gold fan.