Booster Gold #14 is my least favorite issue of Booster's original volume.

I can't put my finger on just one reason why, but the art is a big part. Jurgens' take on the future of the DC Universe (and sequential-panel storytelling) was clearly being influenced by Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, which had taken the comic-book-reading world by storm earlier that year. What works for Batman doesn't necessarily work for Booster.

It doesn't help that the crowded panels are oversaturated with secondary and pastel colors. I typically like colorist Gene D'Angelo's work, but his color choices, clearly intended to play up the psychological tension of our physically-ailing hero stuck in an era that's out to get him, are perhaps working too well for me.

That said, the issue is not entirely without redeeming value. For example, page 19 does efficiently introduce Broderick, the Dirty Harry of the 25th century. And the final page, with a deconstructed Skeets, builds to a good cliff hanger.

But for my money, the best page in the whole book is this one:

If you couldn't tell before now, I'm a sucker for the Booster/Trixie relationship. Seeing them support one another emotionally in the lamplight.... Yeah. This one's got to be my favorite.

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I hope you're in the mood for some T&A today!

Booster Gold #13 is the only time Gary Martin ever inked a Booster Gold adventure, and the difference between it and what came before is striking. Take page 10 as an example:

Surgically clean lines, heavy black shadowing, and screentone gradients all contribute to a fittingly moody environment as a weakened Booster Gold struggles back into the super-hero saddle.

Or maybe that mood is just the sexual tension between scantily-clad Trixie and full-moon Booster?

"Ready to go," indeed!

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As all Booster boosters of a certain age know, when Michael Jon "Booster" Carter first came to the 20th century back in 1985, he started a company he called Goldstar, Inc. in honor of his originally intended alter ego (which he fumbled naming in front of the United States president).

The name "Goldstar" was used a lot in the first year of Booster's adventures, eventually becoming the name of Booster's sidekick. And then, after a trip back to the future, Booster renamed his company "Booster Gold Incorporated" with very little explanation why.

Which is not to say that there wasn't a reason.

The answer lies in Russ Burlingame's exclusive interview with Dan Jurgens in a book I'm sure I haven't mentioned around here yet, The Gold Exchange: The Boosterrific Deluxe Edition:

Burlingame: It's funny. I was talking to someone younger than me, recounting the story of how Booster was originally Goldstar. And I said that I always wondered whether that was because of Goldstar, the electronics manufacturer, and whether you had really made that change, rather than it just being a throwaway gag. But that person was younger than me, so they had no idea what the company was that I was even talking about.

Jurgens: Yes. Yeah, it was, by the way. That's exactly what it was: we were into it, I had done Goldstar, and Booster's sister as well, but ultimately, they said "We've got to work away from this," and it was because there was a company out there called Goldstar, which none of us were aware of when I first started using that name. So I was like, "Okay, we've got to roll with that one too."

So yes, that is 100% true.

To be clear, United States trademark law protects a "word, phrase, or design" that distinguishes a company's goods and services from its competitors' similar goods. Therefore, while it was in Booster's best interest to rename his licensing company to avoid confusion with pre-existing international electronics company GoldStar (which you can tell your kids became part of what is now known as LG Corporation), there's no reason DC can't keep using "Goldstar" as a character name.

And now you know... the rest of the story.

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It is always worth remembering that if you work hard and don't give up, you will find second chances in life. For example, after a 23-year wait, Dan Jurgens got a second chance to write a series named for the character he created.

Booster Gold had been a peripheral team player ever since his first volume was cancelled following Millennium in 1987. But after the character's star turn in the wake of Infinite Crisis and 52, he got a second chance at stardom in a second Booster Gold series.

The new title was written by the pairing of fan-favorite writer Geoff Johns and movie producer Jeff Katz who quickly established a new paradigm for the "Greatest Hero You've Never Heard Of." When the time came — in the series' second year — for Johns and Katz to move on to greener pastures, the reins were finally turned back over to Booster's original scribe.

Jurgens' first Volume 2 issue was Booster Gold #15, released on this day in 2010. It didn't take him long to re-establish the sibling rivalry he invented decades earlier.

Just like old times!

Eleven years later, Jurgens is now working on yet another Booster Gold title. Perseverance pays off, kids.

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Start your week with Booster Gold sketch art courtesy of Booster booster Steven Palchinski, who graciously offered to let us gaze into his sketchbook of Booster Gold and Friends.

Randy Rantz Kintz

Dustin Nguyen

Norm Rapmund

Peter Semeti

Ryan Stegman

Freddie E. Williams II

James Zintel

Thanks, Steven.

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