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Paul Booker (Prime Earth)

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As a result of the New 52 in 2011, the entire line of DC characters was relaunched, incorporating properties belonging to the company's imprints: Wildstorm, Milestone, and Vertigo. As such, elements of this character's history have been altered in some way from the previous incarnation. For a complete list of all versions of this character, see our disambiguation page.

I'm Major Disaster! An' I don't team up with nobodies.
— Major Disaster src

Paul Booker, also known as Major Disaster, is an enemy of the Justice League and the father of Penny Booker.

Though Major Disaster was an established member of Green Lantern Hal Jordan's rogues gallery,[1] he was offered a shot at redemption by Superman midway through a battle. Accepting, he pushed fellow supervillains the Mighty Bruce and Scorch to give up their lives of crime, and even went on to serve as a member of the Justice League of America, but eventually slid into recidivism.[2]

On the orders of Vandal Savage, Major Disaster attacked a nuclear power plant outside New York City with the Atomic Skull, generating a hurricane for cover and an earthquake to expose the plant's power rods. When Superman and Wonder Woman responded, he attacked the latter hero with giant hailstones and a ruptured gas line, and struck the pair with lightning as he and his partner fled, only to be intercepted by the golden hero Wonderstar.[3] They were incarcerated at Salvation Tech Emergency Evaluation Laboratories' superhuman prison in Virginia, from which they were taken by Savage's forces,[4] and were delivered into the custody of Angelo Bend, his mutinous son. Bend fitted the Major and a number of his fellow villains with implants forcing them to follow his orders, and set them against the intruding Superman, Wonder Woman, and Parasite.[5] Booker was defeated with the other villains by Wonder Woman, however, and was taken out of Bend's hands and into the coils of her Lasso of Truth.[6]

The Major faced Wonder Woman once again, and while his disasters brought down the bank in which they fought, crushing bystander Vanessa Kapatelis' legs, he was handily defeated by the hero once again.[7] Major Disaster was one of many villains recruited by the artificial intelligence "Genie" to kill the Justice League in Denver, Colorado.[8] Though he possessed a force field which the Flash was unable to penetrate, the hero instead pinned the Major beneath his fellow villain Giganta. He eventually freed himself and attempted to bury the surrounding area with an earthquake, but was thwarted by the League's Green Lanterns, who stabilized the ground, and taken into custody.[9]

He was lured out to the Coney Island boardwalk by a message he believed to be from Green Lantern Guy Gardner, demanding a confrontation. In reality, it was from his estranged daughter Penny, who, hoping to impress her father, had taken up the name "Minor Disaster" and attempted to humiliate costumed celebrity Harley Quinn. To his disgust, however, her efforts had only made Quinn more popular, and he encouraged her to either quit or kill Quinn, for the sake of preserving his reputation. After Minor Disaster created a whirlpool that nearly destroyed Coney Island—albeit by accident, unbeknownst to him—the Major reached out to her to voice his approval. When he remained unavailable, however, his daughter severed her ties to his legacy.[10] Major Disaster was one of several foes of Hal Jordan recreated as clockwork robots by Hector Hammond as part of a trap for Jordan on Athmoora.[1]

He later enhanced his powers and besieged Los Angeles with an artificial tornado, but was distracted by the Green Lantern and easily defeated by the Flash.[11] Major Disaster was recruited by Max Boykin, an associate of the criminal Bruno Mannheim working as a therapist for ex-convicts, into a scheme to harvest and sell the telomeres of his chromosomes, extending the lives of their buyers at the cost of his own— and overwhelming him with despar as a side effect. When his daughter, suspicious of her father's new source of income, confronted Boykin, she inadvertently triggered her powers, killing him. To protect her, Booker took the fall for the crime,[12] passing it off as an attempted bank heist. Surrendering to Superman, he was incarcerated at Stryker's Island Penitentiary, where he was interviewed by journalist Clark Kent—unbeknownst to him, the alter ego of Superman—about his supposed return to crime.[2]

Powers

Weaknesses

Equipment

  • Disaster Dial (Formerly): At one point in his career, Booker used a dial-shaped device to trigger disasters,[13] though this ability eventually became internal.[4]
  • Power Boots[3]


Related

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Green Lantern: Season Two #12
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Action Comics #1082
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Superman/Wonder Woman #13
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Superman/Wonder Woman #21
  5. ↑ Superman/Wonder Woman #23
  6. ↑ Superman/Wonder Woman #24
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Wonder Woman (Volume 5) #38
  8. ↑ Justice League (Volume 3) #10
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Justice League (Volume 3) #11
  10. ↑ Harley Quinn (Volume 3) #54
  11. ↑ Green Lantern (Volume 7) #4
  12. ↑ Action Comics #1084
  13. ↑ Harley Quinn (Volume 3) #53


Green Lantern Villain(s)

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Justice League Villain

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Superman Villain(s)

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Wonder Woman Villain(s)

This character has been primarily an enemy of Wonder Woman and the Amazons in any of her various incarnations. This template will categorize articles that include it into the "Wonder Woman Villains category."

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