It seems like a while since Ross Pearsall showcased Booster Gold in his Super-Team Family Presents... blog, but it was worth the wait.

Maybe that's not the Avenger's greatest line-up, but holding off even Captain America alone is a noteworthy accomplishment.

Keep up the good work, Ross.

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First things first: if Booster Gold appeared in a new comic today, I remain unaware of it. But Batman Beyond #48 is due next week, so we've got that to look forward to.

Second things second: Jennifer wrote me to note that Booster Gold's cameo from Superman: The Man of Tomorrow #7 is not in the Boosterrific database. She's right. It's not.

I mentioned the cameo here on the blog the week it was released back in June, but I never added it to the database. As a reminder, here's what that cameo looks like:

Superman: Man of Tomorrow #7, words by Dave Wielgosz; art by Miguel Menonca, Yasmine Putri, David Baron

You might ask why I haven't gotten around to adding that yet. It's a good question. Four months is a long time. There have already been ten more issues of Superman: Man of Tomorrow already! How lazy can a guy be? While I can be pretty darn lazy, the exclusion of Superman: Man of Tomorrow #7 has been intentional.

As a matter of tradition, all the books in the Boosterrific database are the printed editions (you know, the old-school kind that you can read without LED screens and batteries). Therefore, I had been waiting for DC to reprint the Digital First Superman: Man of Tomorrow series before adding it to the site. That's what DC did in the past. Until lately, they have combined 2 or more of these digital comics into a single floppy available at your Local Comic Shop.

But 2020 is interesting times, and DC isn't the same company it was at the start of the year. They have yet to announce any printed editions of Superman: Man of Tomorrow. It might come eventually as a trade collection of the whole series, but these days who can tell?

So the question becomes: should I change the way I've done things in the past to start adding individual issues of digital exclusive content? Or should I hold fast to my old fashioned concepts of what a "real" comic book is? What do you think?

This week's poll question: Should the Boosterrific database include comics existing only in digital formats?

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I was having a particularly bad week — which makes me no different than 90% of the global population this unendurable 2020 — when I received a pleasantly unexpected email from Cort Carpenter with a new batch of Boosterrific sketches from his Booster Gold sketchbook.

Reilly Brown

Adam Gorham

Steve Lieber

Mike Norton

Dave Stokes

... and another by Dave Stokes

And one by Cort himself!

Good timing, Cort. It's hard to feel down while looking at that many smiling faces.

You can see these and many, many more at Cort's online Booster Gold sketchbook on imgur.com.

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In Booster Gold Volume 2, our hero became a time travelling policeman, someone whose job was to travel through time and ensure that history unfolds correctly. Given that the DC Universe has a propensity for frequent, reality-shifting Crises, the obvious question becomes "what is correct"? What history can be changed, and what can't?

Booster Gold #5 answers that question, which is why it is in my list of the twelve best Booster Gold comics.

To teach Booster Gold (and his audience) about the limits of interfering with history, the original Time Master, Rip Hunter, sends Booster back to one of the most known and respected stories in DC Comics history: The Killing Joke. Booster soon learns there is nothing funny about it.

What follows are about a dozen pages of Booster Gold (and Skeets!) having his shiny butt handed to him by the Joker and his goons. Over and over again, Booster tries to prevent the Joker from brutalizing Barbara Gordon. Over and over again he fails.

It's not always an easy read, but it is a worthwhile one — especially when you realize the gambit Hunter is playing and at what personal cost. It is also a valiant definition of true heroism courtesy of writer Geoff Johns. No matter how many times Booster Gold gets knocked down, he always gets back up again. What a guy!

It should be noted that a large part of what makes this light-on-dialogue book such a great read is the art, which Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund intentionally based on the original material drawn by Brian Bolland.

While legendary writer Alan Moore always gets most of the credit, Bolland's detailed and disturbing art is no small part of what has made The Killing Joke an enduring classic, and he deserves some recognition for making Booster Gold #5 one of The Best Booster Gold Stories Ever.

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No sooner do I post one Michael Doran Newsaradar interview about the upcoming Future State event than he releases another, this time with Generations: Shattered writer (and Booster Gold creator!) Dan Jurgens.

Nrama: Dan, the [Detective Comics #1027] story pretty much is a lead-in to what we know about Shattered #1 from the solicitation. The "original" Batman is recruited from his timeline to serve on a time-crossed team (somewhat reminiscent of Avengers Forever). The most interesting new detail not in the solicitation seems to be that despite his appearance on the covers we've seen, Kamandi twice refers to Booster as an old man.

Jurgens: Yes, Kamandi refers to Booster as an old man, but that's by design and all meant to lead to part of the overall mystery of what's happening—not to mention the idea that we can have different generations of characters.

Nrama: So then it suggests to us he's referring to a Booster not from the current main timeline or his original timeline, but from a timeline years-decades removed from the current core DC timeline. Did we interpret that clue correctly?

Jurgens: You did!

Nrama: Will any other time-plucked characters be part of the story?

Jurgens: Yes, one in particular, who'll play a key part in the story and, we think, serve as a very pleasant, fun surprise for readers.

Nrama: Speaking of surprises, most "mysterious" comic book foes (in solicitation terms, as Shattered #1 promises) turn out to be established characters in new guises or making surprising returns. Can you give any clues as to who your's is?

Jurgens: Sure! He has definitely appeared before, but I think it's been a while since we've seen him. His power level has definitely positioned him with the ability to manipulate time into something he can shatter, dominate, and shape to his own desire.

Please, please, please let it be Black Beetle!

I guess we'll find out when Generations: Shattered #1 arrives January 15, 2021. In the meantime, you can read the whole interview at GamesRadar.com.

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