As Rob Snow recently pointed out to me, January's Flash: One Minute War Special has a Very Special Guest Star:

"Chapter Four: Future"; written by Jeremy Adams; art by George Kambadais, Matt Herms, Rob Leigh

Gold Beetle's sidekick robot used to be called Skeets (presumably *our* Skeets), but here is renamed Beets. I guess it makes sense that if Gold Beetle combines the legacy of both Booster Gold and Blue Beetle then her robot companion should be an amalgam of Skeets and Buggles (introduced in Blue and Gold #3, half a year after Gold Beetle's debut in Future State: Suicide Squad #1).

We're still waiting on an adventure teaming Gold Beetle up with her ancestors, but I'm sure we're getting closer every day.

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This name drop is the closest that Booster Gold comes to making an appearance in this week's The Flash 2021 Annual:

words by Jeremy Adams, art by Fernando Pasarin, Brandon Peterson, Hi Fi, Michael Atiyeh, Steve Wands

For what it's worth, it's cool that Booster and Rip Hunter are still Time Masters in the DCU. Though how Green Arrow knows Booster is a time cop isn't clear. Do secret identities mean *nothing* in modern comic books? And if everyone knows that Booster Gold is a time cop, why hasn't anyone called him in to help while Wally West has been bouncing through time for the past few months? Maybe it's best if I don't climb down this rabbit hole....

Still, I have to admit that I had expected more in an issue revisiting the events detailed in Heroes in Crisis. Especially since a key element of that story was Wally framing Booster Gold for murder.

The DC Universe has been rebooted (twice!) since Heroes in Crisis. It would be so easy to say that the murders at Sanctuary didn't happen. I won't spoil any of the details of the issue, but The Flash 2021 Annual doesn't want to ignore all of that past, just the parts that are inconvenient. Inconvenient to Wally West, I mean.

Gunfire and Lagoon Boy might be alive again somewhere in the Multiverse. (Thanks, Infinite Frontier!) And Professor Zoom has taken credit as the true puppet master behind Wally West's criminal acts. (Thanks, Flash Forward!) Apparently now we need another excuse for why none of whatever happened was really Wally's fault in the first place. (Thanks, The Flash 2020 Annual!) Funny how one bad story can generate a cottage industry of retcons. (Thanks, Tom King!)

Anyway, Booster has forgiven Wally, and The Flash 2021 Annual wants us all to follow suit. So I'll try to forgive it its flaws. Any book that finally gets rid of Wally's over-detailed New 52 costume can't be all bad.

Is this the last appearance of the Gold Beetle? Only time will tell.

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Over the weekend, Rob "Aims To Please" Snow wrote to say:

Apparently Gold Beetle is dating Wally West's son Jai, as mentioned in the latest Flash ish

As usual, Rob has his facts straight, as you can see in these panels from The Flash #771, which sees Wally quantum leap into his son's future body for coffee with his grown daughter. (Only in comic books, amiright?)

That could very well be a reference to Gold Beetle, who crossed paths with Wally himself in The Flash #769. But let's not rule out the possibility that there will be multiple time-traveling heroes running amok in San Francisco in the 2040s. For all we know, Jai could be dating Michelle Carter.

Sidenote: I've already made a note to myself to pick up next week July 13's The Flash 2021 Annual, but not because of the Gold Beetle. Wally will be revisiting The Series That Will Not Be Named, and I have my fingers crossed we'll get at least a Booster Gold cameo. You know, the guy Wally framed for murder.

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Friend of Boosterrific ("F.O.B") Mike Foster took me to task for spending last Wednesday teasing Green Arrow when I should have been focused the latest Gold Beetle appearance as seen in this panel from that week's Green Lantern #2:

words by Geoffrey Thorne, art by Dexter Soy, Marco Santucci, Alex Sinclair

Exactly why Gold Beetle appears to be handcuffed is unclear, as this panel is her only appearance in this issue. Perhaps the "present day" Time Masters have finally taken notice of her recent shenanigans in Future State: Suicide Squad #1 and #2 and Flash #768 and #769.

By the way, this would seem to be Gold Beetle's first canonical (objectively documented) meeting with Rip Hunter and Waverider, her previously reported encounter with the "Linear Police" being merely anecdotal (as told by her) and apocryphal (because she's the very definition of an unreliable narrator). Good luck finding a game show that will ask for *that* thinly-sliced bit of comic book trivia.

At the rate Gold Beetle is popping up across DC's new Infinite Frontier, it's only a matter of time (har, har) before she finally comes face to face with Booster Gold and Blue Beetle themselves, maybe in this summer's Blue and Gold mini-series that everyone I won't stop talking about.

Thanks for the correction, Mike.

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I've lost track of the number of stories I've seen on the Internet repeating the news of the upcoming Blue and Gold series. But I've already seen exactly one person calling for the not-yet-announced-but-should-be pairing of the Gold and Blue.

I agree with George. I am ready to give DC Comics money to read that, too. (And judging by the number of people who think I should be tracking Gold Beetle appearances, I'm not the only one.)

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