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Boosterrific.com: The Complete, Annotated Adventures of Booster Gold
Boosterrific.com: The Complete, Annotated Adventures of Booster Gold

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Showing posts 1 - 5 of 43 matching: hbo

Friday, October 27, 2023

Character Spotlight on Mindancer

The life of any comic book hero would be a lonely one if not for the many characters who have made up their supporting cast. Just as Superman has Lois Lane and Batman has Alfred, Booster Gold has also shared his adventures with quite a few people over the years. Today we look at one of those, Mindancer.

The People in His Neighborhood: spotlighting the characters who have made Booster Gold such a star

They say you never forget your first time. First love. First paycheck. First stollen time machine you used to travel back in time to become a super hero. And even first defeat.

In Booster Gold's case, that means he'll always remember the first time he met Mindancer.

© DC Comics
© DC Comics

Blackguard gets all the fame for appearing on the cover of Booster Gold #1, but the real villain in Booster Gold's 1986 debut issue is the "unidentified, super-powered woman who," in the breathless words of WGBS television news reporter Cindy Miles, "took S.T.A.R.'s satellite guidance system from Booster Gold!"

That mysterious, garishly-costumed assailant is "an extremely dangerous" psychic mercenary codenamed Mindancer. According to Booster's sidekick Skeets, she can leach the mental energy from nearby bystanders to boost her innate telekinetic and telepathic abilities.

At the time she crossed swords with Booster Gold, she was working for The 1000, who also employed Blackguard. In fact, Booster's inaugural defeat of Blackguard led directly to his rematch with Mindancer when she was sent to spring Blackguard from Metropolis Prison in Booster Gold #2. They fight to a draw, and Mindancer escapes after Blackguard creates a distraction. Considering that escaping was her whole reason for being there, this should probably count as another win for Mindancer.

Their third encounter, inside the headquarters of The 1000 in Booster Gold #3, goes even worse for Booster, as he is left unconscious and placed in a 1000 death trap!

© DC Comics

Booster escapes thanks only to the timely intervention of Thorn (Booster Gold #4), who also defeats Mindancer in hand-to-hand combat. Thorn tears off Mindancer's mask, revealing that her red hair is only a wig. Mindancer's true face underneath is... well, this:

© DC Comics

Why does she look like that? We may never know. The humiliation of having her true face exposed empowers Mindancer, an "unskilled physical combatant" according to her entry in Who's Who Update '87 #4, to overwhelm Thorn and escape.

Mindancer has rarely been seen since. She next shows up in 1994's Green Lantern Volume 3 #52 as a (masked) inmate in Slabside Penitentiary for metahumans, indicating that at some point she was caught and brought to justice. It must have been a long sentence. She's not seen again until The Flash #800 (2023), where she is caught participating in a poker game with stolen goods and presumably re-imprisoned.

After nearly four decades, it doesn't look like Booster and Mindancer will be crossing paths again anytime soon. Therefore, the final record stands at Mindancer 3, Booster Gold 0, a result so lopsided, I'm sure Booster Gold would prefer to forget.


Other People in Booster Gold's Neighborhood:


Booster Gold's sidekick, Skeets
Booster Gold's twin sister, Michelle Carter
Booster Gold's mother, Ma Carter
Booster Gold's 20th-century ancestor, Daniel Carter
Booster Gold's "daughter," Rani
Booster Gold's boss (and son), Rip Hunter
Booster Gold's secretary, Trixie Collins
Booster Gold's business manager, Dirk Davis
Vice President of Booster Gold International, Mackenzie Garrison
Booster Gold's first love, Monica Lake
Booster Gold's first foe, Blackguard
creators of the Booster Gold comic book, Benny and Marty
the voice of Booster Gold's conscience, Nurse Devlin
the brilliant scientist who created Goldstar, Jack Soo
the mad scientist who hacked Skeets, Doctor Shocker
the bomber who almost killed Booster Gold, Mister Twister

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: mindancer people in his neighborhood supporting characters

Friday, October 6, 2023

Character Spotlight (Back) on Rani

I keep an eye on the Google search queries that lead people here to Boosterrific.com. Most of them are usually what you might expect: "best Booster Gold comics," "Booster Gold powers," "why do people like Booster gold?" But last month I spotted something odd: searches looking for information on "Rani."

As it happens, we haven't seen Rani in a comic book since 2011, so I can't guess what would have anyone searching her out in 2023. But mine is not to question why.

Instead, in order to help out whoever out there might be curious about Booster Gold's "daughter," let me re-run a post that I originally presented in 2019 as part of my "People in His Neighborhood" series on supporting characters in Booster Gold comics.


The life of any comic book hero would be a lonely one if not for the many characters who have made up their supporting cast. Just as Superman has Lois Lane and Batman has Alfred, Booster Gold has also shared his adventures with quite a few people over the years. Today we look at one of those, Rani.

The People in His Neighborhood: spotlighting the characters who have made Booster Gold such a star

In the 30th century, when the evil god Darkseid will take over the planet Daxam in what will become known as "The Great Darkness Saga," time-traveler Booster Gold will do what he can to save innocent lives (as seen in Booster Gold Volume 2, #32). Unfortunately for everyone, Booster is no match for an army of billions of super-powered Daxamites, and he manages to save only one child, little orphan Rani.

© DC Comics

With Rani's foster parents having fallen victim to Darkseid's invasion, Booster has little choice but to take the poor girl home with him to 21st-century Arizona where she could be cared for by Time Master Rip Hunter, who unbeknownst to Booster is his real son. Rani nicknamed Rip "Boppy" after her own grandfather (Booster Gold #33). Hunter is concerned that Booster had damaged the space-time continuum by bringing Rani back into her past, but Booster's twin sister, Michelle, refuses to allow them to send the little girl back to a death sentence in the future (Booster Gold #34). Just like that, Rani became part of Booster's family, having free rein of Hunter's Arizona Time Lab compound.

Despite her young age, Rani has an advanced knowledge of technology (Booster Gold #35) and a drive to join the family business. In Booster Gold #38, she pilots a stolen time sphere to 1943 to confront Maxwell Lord's parents before he was born, and would later "borrow" Michelle's Goldstar costume (Booster Gold #39). In response, Michelle grounded her for two whole days.

© DC Comics

Rani was mature for her age, but she would understandably continue to be traumatized by her experiences on Daxam. For example, when Doctor Nishtikeit and his time-traveling Nazis attacked Hunter's Time Lab (in Booster Gold #41), Rani suffered a prolonged PTSD episode that only resolved when Booster returned to "rescue" her. As seen in Booster Gold #42, Rani cried for the entire duration of Booster's 25th-century prison sentence (though Booster was away for only 10 minutes of her relative time in the 21st century). So far as she is concerned, Booster is her new daddy, and he treats her like the daughter he never had.

In the last days before Flashpoint changed history and destroyed everyone's memories of the history of the world that was, Rani was fittingly last seen in Booster Gold #43 on 30th-century missing child poster.

© DC Comics

"The Great Darkness Saga" is still in Booster Gold's future. Will Rani be there? Will Booster Gold save her? Only time will tell.


Other People in Booster Gold's Neighborhood:


Booster Gold's sidekick, Skeets
Booster Gold's twin sister, Michelle Carter
Booster Gold's mother, Ma Carter
Booster Gold's 20th-century ancestor, Daniel Carter
Booster Gold's "daughter," Rani
Booster Gold's boss (and son), Rip Hunter
Booster Gold's secretary, Trixie Collins
Booster Gold's business manager, Dirk Davis
Vice President of Booster Gold International, Mackenzie Garrison
Booster Gold's first love, Monica Lake
Booster Gold's first foe, Blackguard
creators of the Booster Gold comic book, Benny and Marty
the voice of Booster Gold's conscience, Nurse Devlin
the brilliant scientist who created Goldstar, Jack Soo
the mad scientist who hacked Skeets, Doctor Shocker
the bomber who almost killed Booster Gold, Mister Twister

Comments (3) | Add a Comment | Tags: people in his neighborhood rani supporting characters

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Taking It to the Max

I recently got an email from Travis Bickle, and although he was clearly "talkin' to me," I think it's best if I just pass along exactly what he said:

We certainly are in a heavy Booster dry spell right now, which is why I was pathetically exuberant upon finding the news I'm about to share. HBO just updated its streaming service to be called simply "Max" instead of "HBO Max" (really clever change), and with this came some slight adjustments to other aspects of the experience as well, including allowing HBO's userbase to more options for their avatars in-app. Now, a user's profile can be represented by none other than Booster Gold, utilizing his look from the JLU animated series. Previously the options were a lot more limited.

© DC Comics

Just last week, Warner Bros. Discovery put out a press release announcing new avatars were coming to their retooled app. Booster was nowhere to be seen. I'm very glad to see that oversight has been corrected.

Thanks for the news, Travis, but don't stay up all night watching movies. Lack of sleep is bad for your mental health.

Comments (3) | Add a Comment | Tags: hbo jadeknight2008 jake justice league unlimited max taxi driver travis bickle

Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Giving Thanks for Hollywood 2023 Edition

Big announcement today about our favorite hero coming to HBO! Says the press release:

The story will center on Booster Gold, a washed-up athlete from the future who travels back to the present in hopes of becoming the greatest super hero of all time. Instead of chasing criminals, however, his main priority is chasing fame and money. But Booster Gold discovers that being a hero takes more than just a megawatt smile, and that the future doesn't happen without first protecting the present.

Oh, wait. Sorry. That one was from the press release from 2011 when Booster Gold was coming to SyFy. Obviously, that one never materialized. I'm sure this new one by *checks notes* James Gunn is totally better and will really happen this time.

Don't let my snark fool you. I'm pleased as punch that Booster might be finally coming to a... whatever screen it is you can watch HBO Max on. Tablet? Cell phone? That seems appropriate for Booster.

You can see for yourself Gunn's announcement of DCEU "Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters" — which one is Booster? God or monster? — on Youtube.com, and you can read a pretty good write-up about what all it entails on Variety.com. In both Gunn describes the upcoming Booster story as:

Booster Gold is one of comics really popular cult heroes. He is a fascinating guy. He is a loser from the future who uses future technology to come back to present day and become a superhero so that people will love him. It is basically a superhero story of Impostor Syndrome on an HBO Max series.

That does sound like an angle that HBO would want to tackle. And I don't disagree with that take on the character, although I might have worded it a little differently. Personally, I prefer how Booster's creator Dan Jurgens described his hero to Russ Burlingame at ComicBook.com:

With a character like Booster, who's more complex that many people realize, clarity is essential. Many writers have made the mistake of treating him like an idiot, which he most certainly isn't. It's just that his journey from problem to solution sometimes gets a bit tangled up, which is what happens to most of us in our own lives.

Heck, that might be the best, most succinct description of Booster Gold ever. Nobody gets him like Dan does.

If the ten different projects Gunn mentioned are released in order, it sounds like we shouldn't expect Booster Gold sooner than 2025. We've all got plenty of time to get excited.

Thanks to all who made sure I knew the news.

Comments (4) | Add a Comment | Tags: dan jurgens hbo james gunn russ burlingame television variety.com youtube.com

Monday, February 14, 2022

I Love Your Sketchbook

Spend your romantic holiday with something you'll really love. By which I mean the latest pieces in Cort Carpenter's Booster Gold sketchbook!

Booster Gold by Ethan Young for Cort Carpenter
Ethan Young

Booster Gold by Ken Searcy for Cort Carpenter
Ken Steacy

Booster Gold by Phil Hester for Cort Carpenter
Phil Hester

Booster Gold by Gavin Guidry for Cort Carpenter
Gavin Guidry

Booster Gold by Darryl Banks for Cort Carpenter
Darryl Banks

I'm of the opinion that there is no bad Booster Gold fan art, but it actually hurts my feelings that the Banks art isn't the cover on some published comic.

Thanks for sharing, Cort!

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: cort carpenter darryl banks ethan young gavin guidry ken steacy phil hester


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