For months, Booster Gold has been completely absent from the DC landscape. That's worked us fans into a bit of a furor, desperate for news about the return of our hero. We're likely to shell out our hard-earned cash to snatch up anything that DC publishes that even hints at a return of our hero. But should we?

Just because we want to read more about Booster Gold doesn't mean that we should buy his comics unconditionally. I sincerely doubt that anyone has "buy Booster Gold comics" at the top of his or her list of personal priorities. Hopefully, considerations for food, water, and shelter come first. Also up there are probably the health and happiness of family and friends, or maybe the requirements of jobs or education. I would be surprised if ethics and politics don't find their way in that list somewhere, too.

Sometimes, buying comics may run in contradiction to something else on that list. Maybe you have to curb your comics-buying to spend more time with your spouse. Maybe you would rather buy food than spend $3.99 on a 15-minute reading experience. Maybe you're expressing your personal dissatisfaction that the company has erased years of cherished character development, or maybe you won't support a company's decision to capitalize on an intellectual property despite the well-publicized dissent of its creator. Heck, maybe you're just tired of supporting an industry that chooses creating new controversies over creating new content.

Those are all pretty good reasons not to buy a comic book. But what if the comic book was written or drawn by someone whose personal ideology was in contradiction to yours? What if that person was openly crusading against your way of life or your political views? Would you still buy that Booster Gold comic if you knew that the money you spent for it was helping to fund the very forces seeking the eradication of your way of life?

So when is it okay not to buy Booster Gold comics? I can't answer that for you. Thankfully I haven't ever had to cross that line myself. However, it seems to me that with almost every decision DC has made over the past couple of years, the company makes me think about it more and more. That makes me even less happy than the lack of a Booster Gold comic book itself.

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