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?

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Friday afternoon, The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that 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.

"We're starting to figure out how continuity works," [DC Comics co-publisher Dan] DiDio said about the process, noting that reboots and complicated retcons are what happens when "things stop making sense."

I'm glad that DiDio, who has overseen DC Comics' output since 2004, has finally realized the value of continuity to the types of stories that his company sells. Better late than never, I guess.

Anyway, I'm sure that what you want to know, as a visitor to a Booster Gold fan site, is "how will this affect Booster Gold?" The answer looks to be: Pretty significantly.

DiDio made the announcement at the "DC Nation" panel of this past weekend's New York Comic Convention accompanied with an illustrated graphic. Bleeding Cool spent most of the weekend pouring over the visible bits of that timeline. I can't make out anything, but Rich Johnston seems to think it restores most of the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity as the third generation of DC heroes.

If that is to be believed, it looks like Booster Gold's history once again includes his joining the original "Bwah-ha-ha" Justice League International alongside Blue Beetle. Also restored: Infinite Crisis and Justice League: Generation Lost. Is there time for 52 to have happened in there somewhere? One can only hope.

Will any of this ever make it to print? Will the short-lived New 52 continuity be abandoned? How can Convergence be shoehorned into this new chronology? Who knows. Maybe we'll find out after Doomsday Clock finally ticks down in December.

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DCComics.com released some alternate covers for upcoming issues of Heroes in Crisis via , including this J.G. Jones alternate featuring Booster Gold and Harley Quinn.

It looks like that will be a 1-in-50 "chase" variant, meaning that comic shops will get one for every fifty of the regular covers they order. (For obvious reasons, these are also called "incentive" variants, as they incentivize shops to order more comics than they otherwise would.) Comic shops price these rarer variants according to the purchase threshold, so expect to pay a pretty penny to acquire this cover, probably three or more times the $4 cover price.

There will also be 1-in-100 and 1-in-200 variants, the second of which is by Francesco Mattina and depicts a very bloody Harley wearing Booster's broken visor. Good luck finding that one for less than $50.

In addition to those rare variants, DC also released the Ryan Sook standard alternate covers for the first three Heroes in Crisis issues. Each depicts an "incident report" based on more traumatic moments in the lives of DC heroes. These are purportedly from the files of Sanctuary, "a facility designed to allow superheroes to process the trauma of those not-so-heroic moments." These traumatic moments include the death of Superman, Batman's broken back, Aquaman's lost arm, and Jason Todd's death. Oddly, they also include Wonder Woman's assassination of Maxwell Lord.

That seems to imply that Lord has died at Wonder Woman's hand. Where does this fit in continuity?

When last we saw him in the pages of Justice League vs Suicide Squad (2016), Lord was still alive and continuing his villainous ways. Since the original Justice League International never existed and Ted Kord is still alive in the DCnU, the events kicking off Infinite Crisis that led directly to Lord's death and eventual rebirth must have played out somewhat differently than originally seen in Wonder Woman #219 (2005) and Brightest Day (2010). Does this cover reference that old continuity destroyed by Flashpoint? Or are we being given a glimpse of a as yet unrevealed relationship between Lord and Wonder Woman in the DCnU? (Could Lord be behind the deaths at Sanctuary?)

Maybe we'll find out more when Heroes in Crisis finally sees print.

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Unless explicitly intended otherwise, most one-shot issues should probably be considered outside of continuity. That's sort of what "one-shot" implies.

Last week's poll question: Was Booster Gold/Flintstones in continuity? (55 votes)

I'm glad I asked this question. I'm surprised how few of you actually consider this to be in continuity. It's always good to know what the fans are thinking.

That said, I still see nothing to prevent the issue's story from taking place in modern DC continuity. Given that there's no indication in DC's July solicitations that we'll be seeing Booster Gold again any time before August (at the earliest), it looks like the publisher is in no hurry to prove this story wasn't in continuity. Therefore, I'm going to classify it as such here on Boosterrific.com.

(What is or is not in continuity is always in flux. For examples: Batman: Son of the Demon, Watchmen, and anything that DC published prior to Crisis on Infinite Earths. If you're a fan long enough, everything will come and go and come back again. Even Extreme Justice.)

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I hope everyone enjoyed Booster Gold/The Flintstones Special #1 as it looks to be the last time we'll see Booster Gold in the DCU for a while.

But was the Special really in continuity? It's not entirely clear. Taking place outside of continuity doesn't make the book any less enjoyable. However, as the chronicler of Booster's adventures, I'd sure like to know whether or not you think it should be considered within continuity (and which continuity that might be).

This week's poll question: Was Booster Gold/Flintstones in continuity? Please visit the Boosterrific Polls page to view results for this week's poll.

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