At the risk of turning Boosterrific into a blog of apparently random, marginally Booster Gold-adjacent comic book panels, here's another one. The twist is that this one, although published in January 1988, is brand new to Boosterrific!

Presenting Firestorm, the Nuclear Man #71, page 10:

I had somehow previously overlooked this page until FZ called my attention to it in a recent email.

I say "somehow," but I'm not too broken up about it. Nineteen eighty-eight was Pre-Internet, and back in the day the only way to be sure who was in what comic book was to read them all yourself, which I did not. Disclaimer: I still don't. That's why I need other people to keep me informed when they spot Booster Gold somewhere out of the ordinary... like in a background panel of an incomprehensible Firestorm comic book.

Thanks, FZ! Keep up the good work (by which I mean read more comics)!

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One of the casualties of the 1992 "Death of Superman" story, other than Superman, was Booster Gold's original costume. Destroyed by Doomsday, Booster's power-suit was soon replaced by a series of ungainly, lesser armors which became mandatory when Booster lost his arm in a battle with Devastator.

Booster was understandably bummed by the tech downgrade. You would be too, if you had to wear this:

Words by Ivan Velez Jr., Art by Rio, Branch, Burton, Leigh, and Loughridge

(Imagine being forced to use an iPhone 2 now that you're used to your iPhone 8. *shudder*)

Fortunately for our hero, his best pal, Ted Kord, worked diligently at developing better and better suits of armor. The best armor Ted would ever devise debuted on this day in 1995 in the pages of Extreme Justice #10:

Kord's "Mark X" armor was based on a pre-existing alien technology stolen by the Wonder Twins. When Ted reverse-engineered it for Booster's use, he incorporated Skeets' AI for its onboard operating system.

Though the suit made its first appearance in Extreme Justice #10, Booster wouldn't actually put it on until after his arm was replaced with cybernetics courtesy of the villainous Monarch in Extreme Justice #14. (It's a long story.) He also wouldn't wear it for very long. It was destroyed a year later.

And I think we're all okay with that.

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Things have been changing in America lately, and not necessarily for the better. Not so many years ago, many DC Comics super hero bloggers and I participated in semi-regular crossover events. Now very few of us are still posting.

Both FirestormFan.com and AquamanShrine.net have stopped blogging to focus their efforts on podcasting (fireandwaterpodcast.com). The Martian Manhunter blog, The Idol-Head of Diabolu, has likewise gone silent as its creator also seems to be concentrating on podcasts for his other blogs (DC Bloodlines and Wonder Woman: Diana Prince). So too, Splitting Atoms is now more podcast than blog. Others that have fallen completely silent (like Tower of Fate and Being Carter Hall). Some stalwarts soldier on, including SpeedForce.org and Kord Industres. We seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

Once again, this has made me return to a question I've asked myself from time to time since Booster Gold disappeared from the pages of DC Comics: Has the time for websites dedicated to super hero blogging passed us by? Would comics fans rather listen to a podcast than read a website? Is the problem the characters or the bloggers or just shifting demographics?

Like so many of those now-defunct sites, Boosterrific.com is first and foremost a hobby. I started working on it nine years ago, and I keep it running because I want to. Personally, I have no interest in phone apps, wikis, or podcasting. If that's the future of Booster Gold fandom, I'll leave it to someone else. (The Silver and Gold podcast — now a whole network — seems to be doing just fine without me.)

Don't worry, this post isn't a lead up to the retirement of Boosterrific.com. I'm only committing my rambling grumpy old man thoughts to electronic paper. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. It's just that I'm starting to feel kind of lonely out here all by myself. I sure would like some new Booster Gold comics to keep me company.

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Pal Shag! of FirestormFan.com called our attention to this Booster Gold cosplayer on Twitter earlier this week.

This is a cosplayer we've seen before. He's attended conventions dressed as Booster Gold for the past three years! He wore this costume to last year's HeroesCon and he wore the collared variant to DragonCon 2013. I love the persistence.

For the record, this pic was posted by @TrekkerTalk. Big thanks to both Trekker Talk and Shag! And unknown cosplayer, whoever you are, keep up the good work!

UPDATE 2015-06-23: The cosplayer has been identified Jay Tallsquall. Thanks to Pyynk for the identification.

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So here's how this comic book character blogging thing works:

Earlier this week, I paid a visit to The Irredeemable Shag's FirestormFan.com, which just happened to be running a post on the "Great Heroes" DC trading cards from 1987. They were trading cards printed on backing boards included with 3-pack comic books in the late 1980s. I'd never heard of these before. Could there be a Booster Gold?

For more information, I followed Shag's link to CosmicTeams.com, where, thanks to the assistance of Michael Kooiman, I can now show you this, the first Booster Gold trading card, copyright 1989:

The card was just one of 8 on its original board. You can see a picture of the whole board at Kooiman's slideshow of the entire set at ComicTeams.com.

This card has been added to the Boosterrific.com archive of Other Media appearances. But while Michael was giving me the pic for the card above, he graciously forwarded a great scan of the one and only Booster Gold pog from SkyBox in 1993!

My thanks to Michael (and Shag!) for helping make Boosterrific.com more complete than ever.

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