Last Friday, Outright Games released the new DC Comics-based video game, Justice League: Cosmic Chaos, on most major platforms. I haven't played it yet, but I have learned that Booster Gold is in it.

That's the artwork that accompanies the "The Drip" achievement for the Xbox One & Xbox Series X/S version of the game. According to xboxachievements.com, you earn it when you "Get your first costume from Booster Gold."

I didn't know the game existed before the weekend, but if it's got Booster in the game — and Skeets in the artwork! — I'll definitely have to add it to my wish list.

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The corpse of Newsarama recently ran an article titled "Booster Gold - The comic history of DC's time-traveling himbo". And while I try very hard to ignore these sort of clickbait-y articles designed to catch-up readers who don't know any better, it does still bother me when they're misleading.

For one thing, Booster isn't "one of the first brand new DC heroes introduced after the major continuity reboot that took place in the 1985 limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths," he is THE first. (Dan Jurgens states this explicitly in print for the first time in the letter column of Booster Gold Volume 1 #12).

But that doesn't really bother me as much as this. Quoth the article:

"Alongside Jaime, Booster is finally able to use his time travel technology to go back in time and save Ted's life, bringing his best friend back from the dead."

Yeah, that technically happens at the end of Booster Gold: 52 Pick-Up. If you're only reading recent trades, you might think that's the end of the story. But as the follow-up collection Booster Gold: Blue and Gold — not to be confused with the unrelated Blue and Gold collection — makes clear, that time-displaced Ted must stay dead. (In fact, it's Ted himself who recognizes this fact and makes the ultimate sacrifice in Booster Gold Volume 2 #10.)

The reason that Ted Kord is alive and well in the modern DCU has nothing to do with Booster Gold and everything to do with the constant manipulation of the Multiverse by the likes of Doctor Manhattan, Perpetua, Pariah, and the like. Death is a very temporary condition in an infinite omniverse.

To be fair, maybe these were honest mistakes. The author's bio identifies them as a "Marvel Comics expert," so maybe they don't know any better about the goings on over at the Distinguished Competition. Maybe they were the only writer available when the "write something to fill today's quota of stories about proposed HBO properties" assignment was handed out.

I'm even willing to concede that "comic books news" blog readers who are unfamiliar with DC Comics' greatest superhero, Booster Gold, are probably not ready to understand how decades of publishing mandates have made DC's long-term continuity a nightmare for anyone trying to build a biography of one of their super heroes. So a little simplifying is probably necessary. No one runs before they walk, after all.

But none of that is any excuse for calling Booster a "Himbo."

Someone has been reading too many Tom King comics. Sure, Booster has many problems, but lack of intelligence isn't among them. Give the poor boy a little respect, please.

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The final issue of Human Target is out this week, and it's not impossible that UPDATE: Rob Snow assures us that Booster Gold puts in an appearance.

Booster might also pop up this week near Ted Kord in Blue Beetle: Graduation Day — UPDATE: he's actually in the House Ad for Lazarus Planet Omega — or referenced by Rip Hunter and his original team of Time Masters in Stargirl: The Lost Children — UPDATE: he's not, but another rarely seen time-displaced Leaguer is.

One place I wouldn't normally think to look for Booster is in the pages of this week's Batman: Gotham Knights: Gilded City, the comic tie-in to the Gotham Knights video game. Booster isn't often in Gotham City, but he is in the game. Or at least Skeets is.

Obviously, Flakies was the first cereal that Booster Gold ever endorsed way back in 1985 (in Booster Gold #2), and its great to see that they're still in business.

Gotham Knights takes place in an alternate universe where Batman is dead, so while it shouldn't come as a surprise that their cereal is star-shaped, I do have to wonder why they're called "Flakies" if the cereal itself isn't made of flakes? What kind of universe is this?

Thanks to friend James for spotting these boxes in game on top of Barbara Gordon's refrigerator.

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DC's February 2023 solicitations were released last week, and it appears that Booster Gold will play some role in the eight-issue "Lazarus Planet" event first announced back at New York Comic Con.

Or, at least, he'll be on the David Marquez cover to Lazarus Planet: Omega #1:

Given that A) Omega is the final book in the event, B) none of the solicitations or promotions otherwise mention him, and C) our hero is usually backgrounded in these sorts of big event stories, I don't have much hope that Booster will be playing a big role in this event.

But maybe I'm wrong. I sure hope I am. We'll certainly find out when Lazarus Planet: Omega comes our way on February 21.

Meanwhile, you can read more about Lazarus Planet and all other DC comics coming in February at GamesRadar.com.

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Tales of the Human Target is due to arrive in your Local Comic Shop next week, on August 23. Tales is an anthology book, with stories featuring Guy Gardner, Fire, and Booster Gold. According to Newsarama @ gamesradar.com, Booster Gold was chosen because that's who Kevin Maguire wanted to draw. I'm very much okay with that.

That Newsarama article hyperlinked above is an interview between Grant DeAmitt and Tom King about a whole bunch of Human Target-related stuff. Importantly for Booster boosters, it includes an on-the-record discussion about why King keeps putting a dumbed-down version of Booster Gold in his stories:

Nrama: Okay, moving on, the next character that's in Tales is Booster Gold.

King: My favorite character in comics. I love writing him.

Nrama: Oh yeah?

King: I tell Dan Jurgens all the time, 'thank you for creating this character.' Even if I write him a little differently than Dan would write him, because Dan writes him a little smarter than I write him. I write him a little more goofy. But I love that sort of goofiness of him.

Nrama: Is that what attracts you to the character? The goofiness?

King: There are two things that attract me. Number one, I write these tragic, sad things. I never get to write funny. I love writing funny. I love comedy. It's a chance to get into that. And yeah, there's this like, don't tell anybody this, but I base him kind of on Futurama, on Zapp Brannigan and Kiff. You know how Skeets is his partner who, like, loves him and hates him at the same time? I love that.

I also love – this is the thing I got from Jurgens. What Jurgens understands about this character is, that in the end, Booster does the right thing and doesn't get credit for it. He's the superhero who's like, yes, he first thinks of himself. Yes, he first thinks of money. Yes, he's a goofball. But at the end of the day, he's really a really good person. He really is self-sacrificial. But just because of all that other bravado stuff, nobody gets to see that part of it. He's one of the nicest, best heroes in the DC Universe. Everyone assumes that because he's a goofball, he's not good. And I love that about him.

Nrama: So in the beginning of Tales, when he has that monologue about being just like Superman, he's actually right? He's closer to Superman than we give him credit for.

King: People forget that in 52, the big DC event, he was the Superman for a time. A character called Supernova. So again, you read that and you're laughing at him, but there is something in him that's just a little Superman.

The craziest part about Booster is that he had the stupidest plan in the world. He's like, I'm going to go into the past. I'm going to steal a bunch of tech and go back and be a superhero. And then he actually did it! He executed the stupidest plan, and it worked! There's something Brave and Bold about that.

Futurama? Really?

That said, all jokes — and my personal appreciation for King's ouevre — aside, I don't want to discourage anyone from enjoying Booster Gold for whatever reason they find to enjoy him, even if their reason isn't mine.

Live and let Booster Gold.

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