In a case that can only be described as sheer madness, someone out there in TV land has decided that Rip Hunter is a better character than Booster Gold. It makes no sense. But they’ve gone and cast Arthur Darvill as Rip Hunter in that upcoming Justice League-esque TV show. This comes soon on the heels of a casting announcement for Hawkgirl.

I wouldn’t mind being type-cast as a time traveller

Rip Hunter is a generic time traveller who debuted in comics in 1959 and had a short-lived comic book series in the early 60s. He’s a handsome, somewhat dashing action hero type who basically just travels around time having adventures. Darvill, of course, was Rory Williams on Doctor Who, so he is no stranger to time travel.

Now, we knew a time traveller was coming to the show because of casting announcements. But like any sane people, we all thought it was going to be Booster Gold, the far far more interesting comic book time traveller. Booster Gold is a washed up football player from the future who steals a time machine and some futuristic technology and comes back in time to be a modern day superhero, using the future tech to make it look like he has super powers. That is a damn good character premise, and Booster Gold has an awesome gold costume.

Rip Hunter is just a dude who maybe wears a jumpsuit from time to time. In no epoch is Rip Hunter a better, more interesting character than Booster Gold. Yet this is the epoch we live in, apparently.

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