This name drop is the closest that Booster Gold comes to making an appearance in this week's The Flash 2021 Annual:

words by Jeremy Adams, art by Fernando Pasarin, Brandon Peterson, Hi Fi, Michael Atiyeh, Steve Wands

For what it's worth, it's cool that Booster and Rip Hunter are still Time Masters in the DCU. Though how Green Arrow knows Booster is a time cop isn't clear. Do secret identities mean *nothing* in modern comic books? And if everyone knows that Booster Gold is a time cop, why hasn't anyone called him in to help while Wally West has been bouncing through time for the past few months? Maybe it's best if I don't climb down this rabbit hole....

Still, I have to admit that I had expected more in an issue revisiting the events detailed in Heroes in Crisis. Especially since a key element of that story was Wally framing Booster Gold for murder.

The DC Universe has been rebooted (twice!) since Heroes in Crisis. It would be so easy to say that the murders at Sanctuary didn't happen. I won't spoil any of the details of the issue, but The Flash 2021 Annual doesn't want to ignore all of that past, just the parts that are inconvenient. Inconvenient to Wally West, I mean.

Gunfire and Lagoon Boy might be alive again somewhere in the Multiverse. (Thanks, Infinite Frontier!) And Professor Zoom has taken credit as the true puppet master behind Wally West's criminal acts. (Thanks, Flash Forward!) Apparently now we need another excuse for why none of whatever happened was really Wally's fault in the first place. (Thanks, The Flash 2020 Annual!) Funny how one bad story can generate a cottage industry of retcons. (Thanks, Tom King!)

Anyway, Booster has forgiven Wally, and The Flash 2021 Annual wants us all to follow suit. So I'll try to forgive it its flaws. Any book that finally gets rid of Wally's over-detailed New 52 costume can't be all bad.

Is this the last appearance of the Gold Beetle? Only time will tell.

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Back before the DCU was overwritten by the DCnU, and before "The Arrowverse" was a thing on TV, Green Arrow and Black Canary got married in the appropriately titled Green Arrow and Black Canary Wedding Special in 2007. Everyone who was anyone was there, which means that of course Booster Gold was there — in a strictly non-speaking cameo appearance.

Ok, well, technically, as we now know (but Booster didn't at the time), Booster didn't really attend the marriage as there wasn't any actual marriage in that issue. In follow-up issues of Green Arrow/Black Canary, it was soon revealed that the Green Lantern who exchanged vows in The Wedding Special was an imposter. But that's sort of par for the course in the star-crossed Arrow/Canary relationship.

Someone at DC must love doomed weddings, because this week The Wedding Special, previously collected in The Wedding Album, is getting collected for a second time in Green Arrow/Black Canary: Till Death Do They Part.

As you can see, even if the unions don't last, memories of weddings are eternal. That's why you should get yourself in as many wedding photos as possible. Consider it another good lesson learned from Booster Gold comics.

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Last weekend, CW president Mark Pedowitz spoke to reporters about his network's plans following the conclusion to Arrow at the end of the 2019-20 season, and he hinted that the replacement show is likely to also take place in the DC Comics-inspired "Arrowverse."

As the Hollywood Reporter reported, Pedowitz said

"There is another property we're looking at for the following season."

As you might expect, that vague tease has sent DC fandom into a bit of a tizzy as everyone developed their own pet theory for what he could have in mind and what they'd like to see. Sites like CinemaBlend.com and CBR have suggested a bunch of possibilities, from Nightwing to the JSA. One name that comes up pretty consistently is, as you might expect, Booster Gold.

Booster seems as good a guess as anything. Arrow executive producer/writer/director Greg Berlanti has tried in the past to get a Booster Gold project off the ground. Last we heard, Booster was still in the works as a movie project at Warner Bros, but who knows?

Maybe this is Booster's opportunity. Maybe it isn't. There are a bunch of deserving DC Comics properties that remain chronically underexposed to mainstream audiences. Who will the lucky winner be? Keep watching the CW to find out.

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Nicole Drum reports that Arrow showrunner Marc Guggenheim told attendees of this weekend's ACE Comic Con Long Island that Blue Beetle and Booster Gold could be coming to his show.

"I will say, both those characters [Booster Gold and Blue Beetle] are characters we've talked about," Guggenheim said. "Originally Ray Palmer, who was introduced on Arrow, he was supposed to be Ted Kord and we went another way. So, you know, Booster and Blue Beetle, all the 'B' characters really, we're always talking about but nothing I can announce or speak to at the moment."

Hm. That doesn't sound very encouraging to me. However, it's not a "no," so maybe there is still a chance.

Drum goes on to speculate what exactly this comment could mean for the Arrowverse at ComicBook.com.

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Booster Gold hasn't always had the most reliable appearance schedule. For every Booster Gold appearance you collected, there is probably one you missed. Maybe on purpose. Our hero's inclusion in Eclipso #18 likely falls into this category.

The Slings & Arrows Comic Guide describes this early 90s series as something trying "hard to be different — Eclipso is both villain and host — but in the end it becomes another team book because Eclipso's evil is too downbeat and serious for him to carry the narrative by himself." I assure you, it wasn't that good.

The series is best known for the mass murder of several minor C-List heroes in issue 13. This event was used to justify drawing the Justice League into the series starting with issue 14, including Booster Gold, in all his extreme 1990s power armor glory:

Art by Luke McDonnell, Audwynn Jermaine Newma, Raymond Kryssing, & Tom McCraw

"It means we're all in deep doo-doo!" Ah, the 1990s. How I do not miss you.

Eclipso issue 18, released on this date in 1994, was the final issue of this series. Too bad the cancellation came five months too late to save Commander Steel and Major Victory. Rest in peace, guys.

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