The full slate of DC December solicitations came to us over the weekend, and it looks like Booster Gold fans will have something new to read.

BLUE & GOLD #5
Written by DAN JURGENS
Art and cover by RYAN SOOK
ON SALE December 21
Blue and Gold Restoration is open for business! Only issue is, our duo is falling apart while their waiting room is packed to the brim with mostly illegitimate problems. Now Omnizon, self-appointed ruler of Earth, is here to sentence Booster and Beetle to death for disobeying her royal rule of the land. It'll take a friend from the future to save their present and prevent a PR nightmare that could close their operation for good!

If that teased, death-defying cover is any indication, it sure looks like our "friend from the future" is none other than Rip Hunter, Time Master! Hooray!

Also coming in December:

HUMAN TARGET #3
Written by TOM KING
Art and cover by GREG SMALLWOOD
ON SALE December 28
Christopher Chance is a man on a deadline and working to solve a crime that might be unsolvable. Despite his better judgment, he's falling for his lead suspect, and her violent ex-boyfriend isn't happy about it. Oh, and that ex? He's a Green Lantern.

I don't have any idea what Booster Gold has to do with this series, and I remain completely unenthusiastic about Tom King putting words in Booster's mouth again. (Keep your hands off my hero, Tom!) But I can't be mad at Greg Smallwood's cover. I promise to try to reserve judgement until I get it in my hands this December.

You can find a complete list of solicitations, including the previously discussed One-Star Squadron, at gamesradar.com.

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On Wednesday, DC gave a sneak peek of its December solicitations via DCComics.com. Blue and Gold was not mentioned, but there is another new title that sounds suspiciously like it.

And for fans looking to laugh, or just looking for a bargain, it’s ONE-STAR SQUADRON.

From Harvey, Ringo and Eisner nominee Mark Russell (WONDER TWINS, EXIT STAGE LEFT: THE SNAGGLEPUSS CHRONICLES) and Eisner and Ringo winner Steve Lieber (SUPERMAN’S PAL JIMMY OLSEN), comes a one-of-a-kind six-issue limited series that promises Superman-Level Service at Bizarro Prices!

ONE-STAR SQUADRON is DC’s Super Hero team, where heroism meets capitalism. This ragtag group of heroes led by Red Tornado is here to provide service with a smile. All you have to do is send a request via their on-demand hero app and they’ll answer any call. Whether it’s a children’s birthday party or an alien invasion, no job is too small or too big in this story about the Super Heroes without a billion dollar fortune or Fortress of Solitude to fall back on… heroes like Red Tornado, Power Girl, Gangbuster, and Minute Man. Follow these working stiffs as they work for a living while trying to parse one of the great mysteries of the world--just who’s signing those checks and why?

Poor Power Girl and Red Tornado. They used to be Justice Leaguers. My, how the mighty have fallen.

Hey, wait a second! "One of a kind"? Former Leaguers Blue Beetle and Booster Gold announced their own on-demand super-hero service only last week in Blue and Gold #2!

It won't surprise any readers of this site that I've always loved the old, comedic Hero Hotline concept. I'm also a big, big fan of Mark Russell's sharply satirical point-of-view. So I expect great things from this new mini-series.

But in the long run, I'm hoping that Blue and Gold Restoration will be Coke to One-Star Squadron's Pepsi.

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Look who makes a cameo appearance in today's Justice League #67:

Er, I meant specifically Booster Gold. He's in the background of several panels, which, frankly, is a bigger presence than he has in most comic books. And at least he's in good company. Vixen and Blue Devil are also here to mutely decorate the backgrounds, and few characters are given any more than a single line of dialog. What you see from longtime League stalwarts Black Canary and Green Arrow above is their only notable contribution to the proceedings. If the Justice League roster needs to include someone with a colorful name to stand around and state the obvious, Booster Gold can do that!

Look, I'm not going to lie. As you can probably tell by now, I don't personally care for Brian Michael Bendis's take on the Justice League. The unique quirks of his personal style aside, his characters don't act much like the DC heroes I've been reading about for decades. I find myself reading his issues as though they represent an alternate-universe team that, while far from "ultimate," could perhaps occupy Earth-B.

(Historical footnote: In the Bronze Age of DC Comics, Earth-B was the unofficial universe of writer Bob Haney's impossible, out-of-continuity Brave and the Bold stories. That universe was presumably destroyed by the Crisis on Infinite Earths. I suggest the new Earth-B in DC's all-new, all-different post-52, post-Death Metal Omniverse cosmology should be home to the stories of Brian Bendis.)

So I can't exactly recommend this title to anyone. But we readers don't get to choose which books Booster Gold appears in, do we? As a great poet once said, "Ours not to reason why, ours but to whine and buy."

Buy this issue and make Skeets happy.

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Sorry, low content mode today as I'm still busy re-reading Blue and Gold #2 — now available at fine comic stores near you! Have you bought yours yet?

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Justice League America #56 was released on September 17, 1991, thirty years ago next week. Its mawkish story takes place in the middle of the too-long "Breakdowns" event marking the denouement of the United Nations-sponsored Justice League International era.

This chapter focuses on the forsaken Leaguers struggling to adapt to life without a league. Among them, Fire and Ice struggle to join a modeling agency, and Blue Beetle finds that his poor physical health will prevent him from joining the Booster Gold-led Conglomerate. There aren't a lot of "bwah-ha-ha" moments here.

No matter how you look at it, "Breakdowns" was not a particularly good story, and this wasn't a particularly good issue. As much as we want them to be, not all comics can be masterpieces.

But this comic book is worth a look back today if for no other reason than for its cover by Chris Sprouse and Bruce D. Patterson. As pretty as it was at the time, it was made more poignant by events that transpired almost exactly ten years after the issue's publication.

#NeverForget

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