Review by Ian Keogh

Vanishing Point occurs at the point in DC’s history where Batman is missing after an encounter with Darkseid. For the full details see Infinite Crisis. Another surprise revealed there, was Rip Hunter, long-serving rectifier of time-travelling glitches, being Booster Gold’s son. He’s noticed the similarity between the missing Bruce Wayne and several historical figures, and has gathered Superman, Green Lantern and Booster to investigate. The result is an intriguing story wrapped around the events chronicled in The Return of Bruce Wayne, while also providing an existential threat to Hunter’s work.

Having created Booster Gold, Dan Jurgens has the best knowledge of what makes him work, and although the other mentioned characters have their moments to shine, Booster dominates. His relationship with Hunter, whose true identity he doesn’t know, is well defined, and the sample art shows the conflicting position he holds in the pantheon of heroes, also well conceived, while his essentially trivial personality is captured in the dialogue. Other characters are secondary, but convincing.

So is the plot, which tours obscure corners of DC’s past eras, with Hunter constantly having the feeling that something’s wrong. He’s right about that, as problems are simultaneously piling up at the Vanishing Point, the end of time, where Hunter bases his operations. An alliance of villains is a little too easily ended, but otherwise Jurgens the writer is on top form.

Jurgens the artist, though, only provides layouts, and despite these having his customary dynamism, leaving the finished art for the most part to Norm Rapmund means it’s not as polished as it would be from Jurgens alone. You’ll constantly notice poorly constructed figures, and places where the perspective isn’t properly achieved, and they’re a distraction.

Each chapter begins with a sweet scene of Booster as an adult guiding his young son, and as a side dish these interludes explain the concept of time as it applies to the DC universe. The remainder is solid entertainment with the only frustration being one element never being solved because it leads into Flashpoint.

In the UK there’s a hardback edition as part of the DC Comics Graphic Novel Collection.