With the death of the Justice League, Dark Crisis is finally upon us, and over at CBR.com, D.R. Bickham has interviewed Dark Crisis's chief architect Joshua Williamson about what the DC Universe should expect in the months to come.

But all we really care about here at Boosterrific.com is how Dark Crisis will affect Booster Gold. Thankfully, Williamson had answers for that as well:

CBR: Who is your favorite member of the "Not Really" Justice League introduced in Dark Crisis #1?

Williamson: The "Not Really" Justice League? That's pretty funny. I really like Dr. Light and Frankenstein. Obviously, I like Damian Wayne a lot because of my history with that character, and I like getting to write him in this context. Booster Gold and Blue Beetle are cool. I like all these characters, and that's a part of why they're here.

CBR: What kind of role will this unofficial Justice League play in Dark Crisis?

Williamson: Every character you see in Dark Crisis #1 plays an important role throughout the series. There are no throw-away characters. Dr. Light has some especially big moments. It is called Dark Crisis, after all.

CBR: I assume this means we can expect a big Booster Gold / Blue Beetle moment at some point in Dark Crisis as well?

Williamson: Yes, of course. I love Blue and Gold, and I'm happy that they are both a part of Dark Crisis. They have a couple of great moments, especially later in the series.

Hey, we could all do worse than "a couple of great moments." I look forward to them.

Thanks to Booster booster Rob Snow for making sure we saw this.

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Here's an interesting footnote in the adventures of Booster Gold.

George Morrow at CBR.com recently referenced a 2006 Comicon.com Pulse article in which Jennifer M. Contino interviewed comedian Patton Oswalt, writer of JLA: Welcome to the Working Week, about his "upcoming" contribution to the Justice League Unlimited comic book:

THE PULSE: Out of all the superhero cartoons that have come and gone, what do you like the best about JLU?

OSWALT: The wide-ranging aspect. Also, they don’t just focus on the Big 5. I also like what they do with the villains. I wish they’d just do an Injustice Society cartoon. Wow!

THE PULSE: That would be cool. What is your JLU story about? How did you get involved with doing a story for that imprint?

OSWALT: Well, I tried out to be the monthly writer, but they thought a lot of my story pitches blew. But there was one they liked, which involves Booster Gold and The Atomic Knight. So that’s the one I’m doing.

THE PULSE: Out of the zillions of heroes in the JLU universe, how did you settle on Booster Gold and the Atomic Knight?

OSWALT: I thought of the kind of story I’d like to tell first, and then went through my old Who’s Who and figured out who’d be the best characters to tell that story emotionally. We’ll see.

As we all know by now, we didn't see. Justice League Unlimited was cancelled in 2008, never having included any story crossing Booster Gold with the Atomic Knights. But Oswalt is very correct that it would make a great pairing.

Every Booster booster knows that Booster Gold arrived in our "present day" on August 20, 1985, a date our hero selected in part because it occurred before a nuclear conflict of the late 20th century (Booster Gold #14). But what you may not have realized is that the nuclear war of Booster's future history was better known as The Great Disaster of the DC Universe, and according to the heroic Atomic Knights, it happened in October 1986 ("Rise of the Atomic Knights", Strange Adventures #117).

Given that the goal of the Atomic Knights was to rebuild society after the disaster, a crossover story between them and future rags-to-riches success story Booster Gold would be a good story set-up!

In hindsight we know definitively there was no nuclear disaster in the DCU in 1986. Superman discovered that the original stories of the Atomic Knights were all fictional simulations (in DC Comics Presents #57, 1983), and the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Atomic Knights would go on to aid the city of Bludhaven after a scaled-down nuclear event in Crisis Aftermath: Battle for Bludhaven — a mini-series drawn by Dan Jurgens!

Will we ever get to read Oswalt's story? Only time will tell.

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You know most CBR.com listicles just annoy me, but every once in a while, they say something I agree with.

For example, take "DC Comics: 10 Sidekicks Who Need To Break Away From Their Mentor" by Derek Faraci.

8. Skeets Plays Second Fiddle To A Goofball

Of all the sidekicks in comics, Skeets may get the least respect. A super-intelligent robot that holds all of human history up to the 25th century in its databanks, Skeets works alongside Booster Gold to help the hero from the future become the greatest hero of today. But Skeets only shows up when Booster bothers to turn him on. When Booster was a member of the Justice League International, he boxed up his sidekick up and left him in storage, which is just plain rude. With its smarts, its lasers, and its sense of humor, Skeets is more than ready to branch out and do its own thing.

Yes! In Skeets' case, striking out on its own might even seem like *less* work.

Booster Gold #37

If you're paying attention, DC: yes, I would buy a Skeets solo comic.

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Booster Gold has topped yet another CBR listicle, this time "10 Most Bizarre Alter Egos DC Heroes Have Used" by Scoot Allan.

Quoth the article:

1 Booster Gold Faked His Death And Disguised Himself As Supernova During 52

DC launched a weekly comic series called 52 following the events of Infinite Crisis that explored a year in the DC Universe without Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman. A mysterious new hero known as Supernova appeared in Metropolis that kicked off an ongoing mystery about the man behind the mask.

While many thought it was Superman, it turned out to actually be Booster Gold, who had faked his death in order to stop his corrupted robotic pal Skeets. What's really bizarre bout the Supernova identity is that it was also used by Booster Gold's ancestor Daniel Carter and then stolen by Booster Gold's father from the future, making it a multi-generational costumed alter ego.

First of all, let me say that if you have not yet read 52: why not? It's no accident that issue 15 made my list of the twelve best Booster Gold stories.

Secondly, the Supernova identity is more bizarre than even Scoot's two understated paragraphs imply. (Hint: it involves Superman pretending he's Batman.) For more information on the Silver Age comic book origins that inspired Supernova, I strongly encourage you read the July 2019 Boosterrific Blog post "Sunshine Supernova."

And thirdly, I'd say that Supernova isn't Booster Gold's most bizarre alter ego. That honor goes to Bloodspot.

JLA: Incarnations #6

Comic books are the best kind of weird.

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Earlier this month, Timothy Donohoo recapped the Extreme Justice team for the CBR.com article "Booster Gold, Blue Beetle & Captain Atom Formed the Most Extreme Justice League."

I'm not sure from the article whether Donohoo ever actually read any of the Extreme Justice issues (half of his history is based on the not very accurate 2001 JLA: Incarnations mini-series produced five years after Extreme Justice got the axe) , but at the very least it's nice to see someone saying nice things about one of my personal favorite (but widely forgotten) comic series:

Also fitting the team name was the art, which redesigned many classic characters to fit in with the growing popularity of books at Image Comics. It was one of the few DC books that attempted to ride this wave, and it was rather obvious in its methods. Scowls and gritted teeth are a constant sight, with muscles and breasts being more emphasized. Booster Gold got a ridiculous-looking armor that made him look like Valiant's X-O Manowar crossed with a football player, while Blue Beetle was rather blatantly drawn to resemble Todd McFarlane's take on Spider-Man.

No, really, that's about as nice a thing as anyone ever says about Extreme Justice.

And he's not wrong:

Ah, the good, old nineteen-nineties. Some days, I really do miss you.

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