No band has been as universally celebrated as the Beatles, but they haven't been without controversy. Their original cover for Yesterday and Today, released in 1966, stirred up so much trouble, you'd think that had posed with the severed head of a sitting United States President.

Amazingly, the Fab Four didn't learn their lesson from that brouhaha. One year latter, they would again step into trouble with their initial draft of the album cover for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, released 50 years ago yesterday.

The Grammy-winning album cover included of images of people who had inspired the Beatles, including Sonny Liston, Shirley Temple, Lenny Bruce, Shirley Temple, Karl Marx, Marilyn Monroe, and Shirley Temple. (The Beatles really, really liked Shirley Temple.) But not everyone made the final cut. As People magazine reported yesterday:

"One of them wanted money for it," [Paul McCartney] continued.

"We just wrote to everyone and said, 'Do you mind?' Well, at first we didn't. But the head of EMI, Sir Joseph Lockwood came to my house and complained! He said, 'This is going to be a nightmare. There are going to be legal battles!' I said, 'No, no, no. People are gonna love it! They're all on the Beatles cover, you know! It'll be a laugh, they'll understand.' He said, 'No, you've got to write to them all.'"

"So we did. We got a letter out: 'We are planning to do this using your image. Do you mind? Is it okay? Please give us the okay.' And all of them did, except for one ... who wanted to cut a deal," he explained. "And we thought, 'You know what, we've got enough people on here!'"

Who was the celebrity who wanted to get paid for the Beatles to use his likeness? Would you believe it was a profit-minded time traveler?

The album was eventually released without Booster Gold's image. Despite the omission, the album still sold pretty well — about two and a half million copies in 1967 alone. Compare that to 2016's best-selling album, Adele's 25, which moved a half million fewer copies. In fact, Sgt. Pepper's was outperformed in 1967 by More of The Monkees.

Perhaps if the Beatles hadn't been so greedy and had stuck with their original impulse to go Gold, their album might have survived as more than a footnote in history.

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You might recall that DC teased us after Convergence with news that Justice League United was being revamped to include future guest appearances by assorted DC heroes, including Booster Gold.

Never mind.

DC has announced it is cancelling Justice League United effective with issue #16 shipping in December. If Booster doesn't make an appearance in the series by then, he's going to need to start his own team.

For more information on this and the other four titles that DC is canceling, visit ComicBookResources.com

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Friday, DC released the art teams for September's Futures End month of one-shots. Booster Gold: Futures End #1 will be looking pretty good.

BOOSTER GOLD: FUTURES END #1
Writer: Dan Jurgens
Artist: Moritat, Steve Lightle, Stephen Thompson, Mark Irwin, Ron Frenz, Brett Booth, Will Conrad
Cover: Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund

That's right, Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund are back together on the lenticular cover. DC has already started rolling out previews of the covers for the first two weeks of the event, so we should be seeing the week 4 Booster Gold cover sooner rather than later. September can't get here soon enough!

You can find a full list of creative teams for the Futures End one-shots at dccomics.com.

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Over the holiday weekend, CDN took me to task for not reporting something here on the Boosterrific Blog back in April. Specifically, I failed to forward the news that so far as Geoff Johns is concerned, Booster Gold is "always a Time Master."

As I explained in my apology to CDN, that bit of news came out the same weekend as the announcement that SyFy got their hands on a Booster Gold pilot script. As a result, what Geoff Johns said at the 2012 Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (aka "C2E2") managed to fall off the front page of the blog. Readers of Russ Burlingame's reporting at Comicbook.com were aware of this news, but I failed to pass it along here at Boosterrific.com.

Good news like that shouldn't fall through the cracks. Sorry, CDN.

And while I'm on the subject of old news, perhaps I should pass along a link to Adam WarRock and Mikal kHill performing the song "Booster Gold" that has been posted on YouTube. (Beware, the song contains "explicit lyrics" and is not work safe, which is why I don't embed it here directly.) WarRock released the song and its album, You Dare Call That Thing Human?!?, a few months back, and both are still very much available for download from adamwarrock.bandcamp.com. (The song costs just for just $1 to download!) We shouldn't stop supporting songs about Booster Gold just because they're a few months old. Thanks to Moregenstern for that link.

Where would I be without you Booster-philes?

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If you like your music to sound like road construction, this is the band for you:

This image was Pat Prendergast's submission to Comic Book Resources' blog Comics Should Be Good. From left to right, that's Scott Pilgrim's Todd Ingram (Oni Press) on bass, X-Men's Syren (Marvel Comics) on lead vocals, "New Look" Booster Gold, and Scud the Disposable Assassin (Fireman Press) on drums. It's an eclectic band, no doubt, and if you go to their concert, be sure take your ear plugs.

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