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Boosterrific.com: The Complete, Annotated Adventures of Booster Gold
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Showing posts 6 - 10 of 120 matching: games

Friday, March 3, 2023

A Little Spackle Can't Hide All the Cracks

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.

Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: gamesradar.com ted kord

Monday, February 27, 2023

Skeets Is Also a Great Cereal Mascot

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.

© WB Entertainment

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?

© DC Comics

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

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: cereal flakies gotham knights human target new releases rob snow skeets video games

Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Coming Soon: Lazarus Planet Omega

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:

© DC Comics

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.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: david marquez gamesradar.com lazarus planet solicitations

Monday, August 15, 2022

Goofballs Are People Too

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.

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: gamesradar.com grant deamitt human target interviews kevin maguire newsarama tom king

Monday, July 25, 2022

What We Learned at Comic Con 2022

At the San Diego Comic-Con 2022 DC Dark Crisis panel last Thursday, Dark Crisis writer Joshua Williamson announced that the mini-series is being retitled starting with issue #4. That new title is Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Quoteth gamesradar.com:

"We've kept the real name a secret from the start because we didn't want to give away what was happening in the middle of the story, with the return of the Infinite Earths," says writer Joshua Williamson.

Despite my expectations, I'm enjoying Dark Crisis, but I have to feel that I've been reading comic books too long when my first thought is "this renaming reveal is exactly what DC did halfway through Countdown to Final Crisis" and my second thought is "doesn't Williamson realize that he brought back the infinite earths last year in Infinite Frontier?"

Apparently, we get an infinite number of infinite earths now. Continuity? Pfft.

But let's not get distracted by details. The important new news is that Booster Gold (and Skeets!) will be on the cover to Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths #5, available October 4!

© DC Comics

The blew up Titans Tower on the cover of issue #2 (mere months after it was blown up and rebuilt in the pages of Teen Titans Academy), and it looks like the Hall of Justice get similar treatment for issue #5. What's next? Wayne Tower? The Flash Museum? It must be hard to get building insurance if you own a signature piece of property on any earth in the DCU. (It makes more and more sense to have your headquarters in an out-of-the-way place like a cave in Happy Harbor, Rhode Island.)

According to BleedingCool.com, the issue is going to have at least 5 covers, including 1:25 by Ariel Colon, 1:50 by Mikel Janin, and 1:100 foil by Daniel Sampere and Alejandro Sanchez (which I suspect will be identical to the default Cover A but shiny!).

From what I've seen so far, it looks like Booster (and Skeets!) will only be on the Ivan Reis and Danny Miki standard variant (Cover B) pictured above. Be sure to tell your Local Comic Shop that's the one you want so they can order it for you!

A somewhat harder to collect Booster Gold cover will be the 1:25 variant of Human Target #8, due on October 25:

© DC Comics

That one can't be direct ordered, so the only way to guarantee you get one is to pay your LCS to also order you 25 copies of the regular cover. Cover price $4.99 times 26 copies equals $129.74 before tax. That's an expensive comic! Maybe your LCS will cut you a deal for buying in volume?

You can see all of DC's October solicitations at CBR.com.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: 2022 bleedingcool.com cbr.com comic-con conventions covers danny miki dark crisis gamesradar.com human target ivan reis josh williamson justice league ryan sook san diego solicitations


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