You may recall that this time last week, I asked whether the "Linearverse" introduced in Generations Shattered and Generations Forged should count as continuity. That question got answered (in a roundabout way) when earlier this week Russ Burlingame took a break from writing books about movies to interview Generations writers Dan Jurgens, Robert Venditti, and Andy Schmidt in a spiritual successor to his old "Gold Exchange" column for ComicBook.com.

ComicBook: The idea that realities have always been there, just out of sight, rather than actually being destroyed, is a revelation to the characters here -- but is that how you view the worlds that are destroyed in each subsequent Crisis event? Certainly it's how The CW explicitly dealt with their post-Crisis multiverse.

Dan Jurgens: I hadn't thought about it that way, but I certainly see your point!

For me, on a personal level, I find it harder to accept the notion of entire planes of reality being destroyed, only to be recreated again. “Hiding” them or making them inaccessible actually seems much more believable. The amount of energy required to destroy and recreate universes is tremendous, after all.

Plus, we weren't going to change anything. The Linearverse was meant to stay much the way it had been, which is a place that is belt around DC's published history.

Robert Venditti: To steal from Dan a bit, I hadn't really thought of that. I don't know if it's important to me that definitive explanations are made. Mostly, I want to leave toys in the sandbox for other creative teams to play with. I think we've done that.

Andy Schmidt: One of the things that I generally want to shy away from as a creator is writing over someone else's work or saying that it never happened. Because it happened for the reader and for the creators who put those stories together. They're real and they're important to someone.

Most of the comics I grew up reading that got me into comics in the first place have been retconned so they never happened, but they're still what made me fans of those characters in the first place. So, for me, it's just kind of a respect thing for fans and creators both. If it's real to you — I should treat it as such. Generations Shattered and Forged gave us a platform to re-validate those "hidden" stories as you called them. To let readers and creators know we remember, and we still love those stories, while also crafting something new to introduce those takes on characters to new fans. It's challenging and it's fun and I think it's upbeat in the approach and hopefully in its execution.

I like the "it is what you want it to be" approach to the DC Universe — which in the past has made such titles as Formerly Known As The Justice League possible — so I'll choose to consider the story canon. Thanks, guys! I think I'm going to like this Linearverse.

Elsewhere in the interview, the creators also talk about why they chose the characters they chose to include in the story, as well as the long shadow Zero Hour cast on Generations. I recommend you read the whole article yourself at ComicBook.com.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: andy schmidt comicbook.com dan jurgens generations gold exchange interviews robert venditti russ burlingame

I had originally intended today's post to be a response to Russ Burlingame's ComicBook.com breakdown of all the Booster Golds Generations: Shattered has enabled. (You're right, Russ. I had intended to do a little nitpicking, but that seems so petty and irrelevant now.)

Instead, following the near collapse of the American Experiment at the hands of an angry mob encouraged by our own president, I think it more appropriate that I return to the Justice League Unlimited #17, which I covered in more depth on Monday. The final page of that issue, which I had originally put in Monday's comments, is this:

Stay vigilant, Sam. It seems patriotism really is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: comicbook.com freedom fighters russ burlingame superman

Quick recap: In early 2021, Booster Gold will be appearing in a two-part mini-series, Generations: Shattered (January 15) and Generations: Forged (February 23). This story will not be related to the "Future State" event DC is publishing over the same period. (More details available in these Boosterrific posts.)

Until now, we've talked only about Shattered, but we're finally starting to get some good information about the second half of the series. Noah Dominguez and CBR.com and Michael Doran at Gamesradar.com have the advanced solicitation text:

GENERATIONS FORGED #1
written by DAN JURGENS, ANDY SCHMIDT, and ROBERT VENDITTI
art by BRYAN HITC, MIKE PERKINS, BERNARD CHANG, PAUL PELLETIER, and others
covers by LIAM SHARP and RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE

Dispersed through time by the villain Dominus, our ragtag team of generational heroes -- featuring 1939 Batman, Kamandi, Superboy, Steel, Starfire, Sinestro, Booster Gold, and Dr. Light -- must find a way to restore the timeline… and what they ultimately discover is something far, far greater You'll have to read it to believe it as time dies… and generations rise!
ON SALE February 23, 2021

standard cover by Liam Sharp

alternate cover by Rafael Albuquerque

Booster boosters know that our hero's planned origin story relied heavily on Superboy's continuity which was erased from the DC Universe by the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. It will be pretty cool to see the two characters finally interacting.

By the way, if you don't recognize "the villain Dominus," Russ Burlingame has the explainer of this 1990s Superman foe at Comicbook.com.

It's looking like it'll be a very Boosterrific 2021! Hooray!

Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: cbr.com comicbook.com covers gamesradar.com generations michael doran noah dominguez russ burlingame solicitations

On October 7, 2019, I wrote (based on news from HollywoodReporter.com):

"DC finally plans to release their comprehensive Rebirth continuity in 2020. That's a mere 9 years after they threw out decades of character development in a bid to boost sales."

Well, guess what DC's plans are for 2021?

"It now appears as though DC's comic book line could be abandoning the idea of a single, shared continuity in favor of a multiverse / metaverse / omniverse model in which each individual comic will have its own story to tell, without much concern for what's going on in other titles across the publishing line."

So says Russ Burlingame at ComicBook.com. This merry-go-round is starting to make me dizzy.

Burlingame's report is based on a post from BleedingCool.com, which qualifies DC's plan thusly:

But what the DC Omniverse will mean is greater creative freedom, less interference by editors (or publishers), and no one saying "you can't use that character, they died in City of Bane/got lost in a Dark Dimension/went evil and currently approaching Gotham, slowly, with all her plants."

Longtime readers of Boosterrific.com know that I consider "continuity" to be a synonym for "character development." If DC fractures their Universe into an Omniverse, instead of having one dynamically developing Booster Gold character with a single continuity threading through many stories, there will be an infinite number of Booster Golds, each with his own continuity of appearances. That doesn't sound very simple to me. Unless they intend for there to be one static Booster Gold character who never learns anything or does anything new. I can't wait to spend money monthly on that.

But this plan would save DC Comics the cost of paying salaries to all those editors. I wonder how much longer until they can get robots to draw the panels?

Comments (3) | Add a Comment | Tags: bleedingcool.com comicbook.com continuity hollywoodreporter.com rumors russ burlingame

The weirdest bit of Booster Gold news I've bumped into lately comes by way of Twitter.com:

Wait, who's the dad?

(Over at ComicBook.com, Russ Burlingame managed to turn this alpaca news into a 500 word article that also promotes Friday's Bill & Ted Face the Music in a clever bit of cross marketing. I tell you, that guy can work Booster Gold into anything, and I mean that as the highest possible praise.)

While we're on the subject of animals named after our favorite super hero, you may recall that last October I told you about a thoroughbred racehorse who lost every race he ran last year.

Well, according to Equibase.com, he's raced 4 more times in 2020, and these are the results:

June 27, Laurel Park, MD, Race 1; "BOOSTER GOLD, wide on the turn, weakened." Finished 6 in a field of 10.

July 30, Laurel Park, MD, Race 3; "BOOSTER GOLD was outrun." Finished 10 in a field of 10.

August 15, Laurel Park, MD, Race 6; "BOOSTER GOLD, in a bit tight at the break, raced wide and failed to menace." Finished 8 in a field of 11.

August 27, Laurel Park, MD, Race 9; "BOOSTER GOLD was outrun." Finished 11 in a field of 12.

Seven races, never finishing in the top half. At least he's a safe bet... not to win. Perhaps our boy should consider retiring to an alpaca farm.

UPDATE 2020-09-18: September 11, Charles Town, WV, Race 3; "BOOSTER GOLD rated close to the early pace three wide, gave chase from the three eights pole then weakened into the far turn." Finished 4 in a field of 6. This is the first time that a bet on Booster Gold could have paid off. A $1 Superfecta bet — a bet on the horses to place in first, second, third, and fourth position in the correct order — would have returned a $914.70 payout. Is it possible that Booster Gold has been sandbagging all this time just to run up his odds for a bigger payment? No one would put that past him.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: alpaca alpacas barnacreaplacas bill and ted comicbook.com dan jurgens equibase.com horses russ burlingame twitter.com twtter.com