Tuesday, March 9, 2010
While I'm on the subject of fan tributes to Booster Gold, I should mention another blog post I ran across this past weekend. Minor Henchman finished his highly-subjective list of the 100 greatest comics covers of the past 20 years, and while no cover in the list features Booster Gold, Booster does appear in 2 of the comics: Justice League International #18 and Chase #6. JLI 18 is a fun cover, sure, but hardly the best of the Maguire Justice League covers. (Justice League #4 is far superior, but I'm certainly biased.) While I can't say as I agree with many of Minor Henchman's choices, the list is worth a look-see, if only to see if you agree with it yourself.
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Monday, March 8, 2010
If the Academy Awards have you in the mood for movies, Fansites over at Comicbookmovies.com produced a proposed cast list for a JLI movie late last week. While I'm not much for this sort of thing (I'm not a big fan of hypotheticals: I prefer things I can count, like actual comic book appearances, 'natch), they chose television's Teddy Sears as Booster Gold and James Roday as Blue Beetle. That sounds like something that I'd watch. Aw, who am I kidding. I'd watch a movie with Booster and Beetle if they were played by Ethan Suplee and Andy Dick. I'd complain about it, but I'd still watch.
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tiggerpete Posted on Mar. 8, 2010 at 10:23:38 AM
I think the best person to play Booster would be Aaron Eckhardt, he is a great actor (Dark Knight, Thank You For Smoking) and has some good comedic timing, which I think is a must for Booster (no matter how serious things get, he can still find a way to crack wise) as for Ted, I think I might go with Robert Downey Jr. though this would be an expensive cast if one were to fill out the whole roster, any thoughts on who plays Guy, or Black Canary, Martian Manhunter, etc.?
Harry Posted on Mar. 8, 2010 at 03:35:14 PM
I'm afraid I'm not the best for the casting game (way too removed from pop culture, old fogie that I am - though my Booster suggestion is Guy Pierce b/c I just rewatched Memento), but I was impressed with the effort by the site. He choose actors that could conceivably be cast if the production were ready for filming.
The problem is of all the logistical complications with such a film, casting is low on the list. Look at the Heculean effort put forth by Marvel Entertainment to get an Avengers flick, and DC Enterainment is light years behind them.
Harry Posted on Mar. 8, 2010 at 03:43:12 PM
On the other hand, a good script idea and the right medium could be too tempting to pass up. For instance, what if a creative effort similar to Battlestar Galactica went into a Syfy series or miniseries? Forget an origin tale, but open up in full swing middle of the action, completely emersed in the DCU? Have one character speak directly to the audience (breaking fourth wall style - before the Deadpool movie uses it) to catch people up on the needed story elements. Limit production costs by emphasizing the human drama/comedy elements but periodically deliver the CGI goods. Smallville functions well this way... maybe so could the JLI? Although I think the next series of this nature we would see is a WB JSA program.
Boosterrific Posted on Mar. 8, 2010 at 05:57:37 PM
[Official Comment]: I agree, Harry, that the site did such a great job casting in a budget, which is one of the reasons that I linked to it. Wizard has long played the casting game without any such consideration, always resulting in perhaps an ideal cast, but also an impossible one. (It's also funny that you mention a JLI show where the fourth wall is broken, as that is exactly the convention attempted by the awful live-action JLA television pilot a few years back [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118365/].) While I adore the work of Eckhardt and Downy Jr (he could play Amanda Waller and make it work!), I do think they set the bar pretty high for a casting call. I'm loathe to suggest any stars myself, but I'm always a big fan of giving lesser-known stars a shot at playing heroes so that the star doesn't outshine the role. (See Stallone as Judge Dredd for an example of what NOT to do.)
Harry Posted on Mar. 8, 2010 at 10:08:25 PM
The link took me to an error. I am unfamiliar with a JLA pilot. Was it aired?
Boosterrific Posted on Mar. 9, 2010 at 12:24:09 AM
[Official Comment]: Sorry about that link to IMDB, Harry. I was careless, but have fixed the link and thrown in a few more to Wikipedia and, if you dare, YouTube. And no, it never aired so far as I'm aware, but it's made the convention rounds as a bootleg for years.
tiggerpete Posted on Mar. 9, 2010 at 04:02:52 AM
yeah I saw part of it on youtube, it is pretty bad, but I think a JLI tv show could be made using young talent (emphasis on talent) and with a similar effects budget of Smallville and it would work pretty well
Harry Posted on Mar. 9, 2010 at 01:00:05 PM
Good god! That is awful. It is quite possibly the worst thing I have every seen on film. What were they thinking?
Boosterrific Posted on Mar. 9, 2010 at 05:22:39 PM
[Official Comment]: Sorry to have done that to you, Harry, but you just couldn't leave well enough alone, could you? And yes, tiggerpete, I agree completely that the success of any such show would be based entirely on the talent of the actors. I have long believed that the success of any work of fiction is based entirely on the development of the characters, and if the producers focused on stories about the characters more than events, effects, songs, etc, a JLA story would be bound to succeed. Give us some talent that can portray the dysfunctional family dynamic of the old JLI days, and I think you have a success in any media.
Friday, March 5, 2010
We opened the week discussing Booster Gold visiting the stories of yesteryear. It now appears we should have been discussing his return to the stories of yesteryear, as it seems that he had already beaten us to it.
In 1963's World's Finest Comics #135, Batman stumbles across a mysterious blue and yellow-clad figure who has apparently traveled from the Gotham City of the future via Time Sphere. Turns out that both the Time Sphere and the mysterious fellow's future-tech was stolen, a fact discovered when Superman travels to the future and meets with the thief's twin sibling. All of this sounds pretty familiar, no?
The story, "Menace of the Future Man" was written by Bill Finger, who perhaps owes more to the creation of Booster Gold than one may have thought. A pretty complete issue review can be found at Silver Age Comics. The story was also recently reprinted in Showcase Presents World's Finest Volume 2.
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tiggerpete Posted on Mar. 5, 2010 at 05:23:54 PM
woah, that is awesome, now question is, does that mean Bill Finger is a time traveling Dan Jurgens? I believe that is clearly the case
Harry Posted on Mar. 5, 2010 at 08:16:18 PM
Neat! I'd love to see that worked into a Booster story somehow.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Changes are underway to the cover gallery here at Boosterrific.com to allow for support for variant / alternate covers. This overhaul requires rewriting a lot of original code. (In fact it hasn't been updated since Boosterrific.com first when live in 2007 and is already long overdue.) As a result of this upgrade, you may experience intermittent outages of cover image displays. Please pardon this temporary failure.
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Wednesday, March 3, 2010
DC is scheduled to release the softcover trade collection of Justice League International issues 23 through 30 today. If you don't already have these, now's a pretty good time to pick 'em up, especially seeing as how they include the first solo Blue and Gold story (JLI #25).
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Harry Posted on Mar. 3, 2010 at 03:00:46 PM
I recently dug out my comic books from my teen years and skimmed through them. I realized that JLI 25 was probably most responsible for my fondness of the Blue and Gold. It has flaws (as pointed out by reviews on this site) in the art and execution... but for this teenager, the tale served to really humanize the two characters. They came across as real people living in the world of gods. Combined with their previous antics and history, this issue brings me twenty years later to this website.
tiggerpete Posted on Mar. 4, 2010 at 01:54:00 AM
consider this one already sold and on its way to my house, I love rereading JLI stuff, and the trades make it so much easier to read at one time without digging through my comics to find single issues
Boosterrific Posted on Mar. 4, 2010 at 04:26:21 AM
[Official Comment]: You will probably not be surprised to hear that I've got all the JLI issues (International, America, Europe, Quarterly, Specials) in one convenient long box not far from arms' reach. I know that I'm biased, but even the worst of them is better than the current angst-ridden JLoA run.
tiggerpete Posted on Mar. 4, 2010 at 09:13:30 AM
I haven't read all of the JLI era books, but I will agree that the JLA recently has been on a down note since Meltzer left, and if Cry for Justice is any indication, the future doesn't look very bright, but hey, there is always Generation Lost to look forward to.
Top 100 Covers? Bah.
