Chock Full 'O Teasers: Rip's New Board

Sharp-eyed readers noticed back in 52 that Rip Hunter’s chalkboards often bore notes relating to current and future DC events. That trend continued into the Booster Gold ongoing series. In issue #10, we’re presented with a brand new board. Here’s our breakdown of what it says, and what we think it means.

Board: Gotham isn’t safe – MIDNIGHT HAS THE HEARTS!

Meaning: That’s pretty clearly a reference to the new Batman: Gotham After Midnight series. If you read this week’s DC Nation, the rest of that comes into focus.

Board: RED LANTERNS=BLOOD

Meaning: That’s pretty specific. Our guess? Someone’s going to die at Red Lantern hands very soon. Perhaps in the pages of Rage of the Red Lanterns?

Board: The Perfect Peter Platinum isn’t so perfect!!!

Meaning: Booster Gold #1,000,000 has Triple-P next month.

Board: Who is under the MASK?

Meaning: Could be three things here. One, the issue of who Batman may become. Two, the identity of Black Beetle. Or three, the question of Libra. I lean toward Libra, possibly because the next item is . . .

Board: Listen to Libra. The Prince will fall on HIS sword. (HIS looks like it has two bats underneath it).

Message: Very interesting. It seems that HIS, with the sketches, refers to Batman. So either a prince (Damien, even?) is due to fall on Batman’s sword, OR, Batman is The Prince (The Prince of Gotham) and he’ll fall on his own sword (leaving the mantle, perhaps?). A third option? Joker, the Clown Prince, falls to Batman.

Apart from that, the inclusion of Libra is interesting. Perhaps Libra is speaking in reassurance to his fellow villains asking about the threat of Batman. And maybe Libra knows that Batman is going to take himself out. Could be an indicator that Batman IS The Black Glove, and that Batman will fall on his own metaphorical sword.

Board: Trigon=Red Herring (circled)

Message: I think that this cat’s out of the bag. Titans #1 teased Trigon as the villain of the arc, but issue #2 revealed the true villains to be his three sons. And possibly Uncle Ernie.

Board: City of Angels > Zatara

Message: Hopefully, this doesn’t refer to the awful remake of Wings of Desire. It seems that Zatara will face great odds in L.A. soon. Either that, or he can’t sell out his magic show.

Board: Why, Captain Atom? Why?

Message: Looks like someone finally catches up to Captain Atom/Monarch about his atrocities in Countdown. But who? Maybe this is a job for those Challengers of the Beyond to, uh, challenge, er, beyond! Yeah, that’s it.

Board: Jean Paul Valley Lives! That’s not him!

Message: So Jean Paul may live, but we’re being told that he’s NOT the “New Batman” that was teased at the beginning of R.I.P.. Actually, my guess for that is that Batman is Tim and Damien is Robin. But we’ll see. Like Rip and Booster might say, we’ve got time.