Insiders have been teasing future plans in the lead-up to next week's Comic-Con International 2025, and it looks like after the Summer of Superman concludes, readers will next be treated to the Fall of DC.

Marvel Comics' new 12-issue maxi-series The Secret War will be "one of the most significant events in Marvel history ever" promises Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter. Shooter will write the book, in which a number of permanent and temporary changes will be made in many of the major Marvel super-heroes and super-villains.

Oh, wait. Sorry. That was the announcement of was eventually published under the title Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars as it originally appeared in The Comics Journal #85 in 1983.

What I meant to post was the story that The Hollywood Reporter broke this past Wednesday.

Scott Snyder, the writer behind best-selling sensation Absolute Batman, and Joshua Williamson, who writes Superman, are the co-architects of what is being called DC K.O., the story initiative that will debut this fall and run through a main book as well as ripple out through various titles across the DC Universe. Javi Fernández (Batman & Robin, King Spawn) will draw the main series that is being described as a slugfest to end all slugfests. “DC K.O. is a knock-down, drag-out fight between all your favorite DC super heroes in a cosmic tournament to save the universe from Darkseid,” said Snyder in a statement.

Just heroes fighting heroes, then? It's not Marvel's 1984 Secret Wars; it's DC's 2007 Countdown: Arena (or 2015 Convergence). At least no one has actually read those.

Over at BleedingCool.com's article on this announcement is this description of the upcoming event:

While the battles are epic, the emotional center lies with Superman. "Metal was a Batman story, Death Metal was a Wonder Woman story—and DC K.O. is a Superman story," said Williamson. "I wanted to tell a story about Superman looking into his own heart of darkness," said Snyder. "It's a very personal story wrapped in nine layers of candy exploding in your face."

Call me a grumpy old man, but I really do not ever want any layers of exploding face candy.

As this is a Booster Gold fan site and not a general comics blog, I wouldn't be snarking at this groundbreaking news at all if not for the graphic that accompanied the article. See if you can see what I saw. Hint: he's inside the golden circle (fighting Blue Beetle).

AIPTComics.com has identified that art as a crop of the Scott Koblish wraparound variant cover for DC K.O. #1. (Koblish has been doing a lot of those sorts of crowd scene covers lately. They must sell well. I admit I'm buying them; I'll buy any comic with Captain Carrot or Red Bee on it. What can I say? I'm a nature lover.)

Despite not actually being mentioned in the text of any of these articles (by accident or design?), Booster Gold also appears on a couple of other covers in the AIPT Comics article. The first is an alternate cover for Superman #31, which presumably concludes the storyline beginning in next week's Superman #28 as was teased back in May.

The second is the main cover for the one-shot special Justice League: The Omega Act #1. (Booster and Skeets also appear on a variant.) The cover by Pete Woods homages the classic cover of Crisis on Infinite Earths #7, you know, the one where Superman cradles a dead Supergirl, this time with Booster Gold in place of Supergirl. Uh oh. If I may quote SLW:

I mean, you can't be a fan of Booster's without acknowledging the fact that he's kind of the DCU's punching bag, but come on.

So be sure to tell your Local Comic Shop to hold at least one of each of these for you when DC K.O. and its many tie-ins begin arriving in stores this October. They may be your last chance to see Booster Gold alive.

(Thanks, Tiffany. Despite my cynicism and crushing event fatigue—maybe I really have been reading comics for too long—it really will all be worth it if Booster gets a match against "Apokolips Now" variant Superman. That guy sent Booster to an alternate universe and forgot about him! Grr.)

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Who wants some good news?

A Booster Gold television show was first announced in 2011. That one didn't really go anywhere. Then, in 2016, there was some discussion that Booster Gold was being developed into a movie. That one didn't go anywhere, either. Then, in 2023, another Booster Gold television show was announced.

Now, here's the good news. That 2023 announced series isn't dead. Yet.

As The Hollywood Reporter reported Monday from a press conference by DC Studios Co-Head James Gunn:

A series on time traveling hero Booster Gold was waiting for a showrunner to make time for it but "maybe he fell out of love, maybe he got busy," he says, "but we had to pivot."

ComicBook.com adds:

Booster Gold, meanwhile, represents one of the studio’s most intriguing developments, with Gunn confirming the project is "going pretty strong."

So there you go. "Pivot" and "going pretty strong." When it comes to Booster Gold shows, that's as good as news gets.

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Internet comic book "news" is often like a children's game of telephone: Someone says something, someone else hears what they want to hear and passes that along to someone else, and the next thing you know, Blue Beetle will be co-starring in HBO's announced Booster Gold television series.

If you saw that news reported somewhere in the past week, know that at this point it's nothing more than wishful thinking.

The original report that many sites are referencing ran in The Hollywood Reporter. "Marketing 'The Flash': No Ezra Miller, But Lots of Batman and TV Spots" ruminates on the James Gunn-controlled future of the DC Cinematic Universe thusly:

Both executives have said some actors from the current universe could persist, and one who seems most likely is Xolo Maridueña, whose character Blue Beetle has close ties in the comics to Booster Gold. Gunn and Safran are planning their own Booster Gold show, and it is possible Blue Beetle could appear in it, depending on Beetle's reception this summer.

"Could persist"? "One who seems most likely"? As you can see, that's a lot of speculation on the part of the article's authors. Which is fine, so long as we recognize that for what it is.

It's not like we haven't had high hopes before. Once upon a time, people were similarly predicting that Booster Gold would show up on CW's The Flash or early seasons of DC's Legends of Tomorrow. He didn't.

Which is not to say that we shouldn't be hopeful. Blue Beetle could appear in a Booster Gold show. Assuming we ever actually get a Booster Gold show, I sure hope he does. All I'm saying is that we should all be careful not to confuse rumors with reality.

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The Internet buzz this weekend was all about DC's post-Future State solicitations coming this March. It looks like we're down to 20 titles in its shared DC Universe, which is a far cry from 52. But maybe less is more. DC certainly wants us to think so.

Anyway, the big news for Booster Gold fans is that our hero is featured on the cover of DC's tentpole March title: Infinite Frontier #0.

cover art by Dan Jurgens and Mikel Janin

Isn't that cover a beaut? (Thanks to Rob for making sure I saw it.)

HollywoodReporter.com confirms that Infinite Frontier is a one-shot, but most of the characters on its cover appear in one or more of the 19 other titles in the publisher's solicitations on GamesRadar.com. Conspicuously absent is any hint of where we might next see Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. (There are several reprint collections that will include Booster cameos — more on those later — but nothing new.)

Will Infinite Frontier be Blue and Gold's only appearance in this new DC Universe? (DC doesn't want to call it a reboot, but if it talks like a reboot....) Has their comic not yet been announced? Will they be playing a supporting role in someone else's comic? Or are they on that cover just because Dan Jurgens drew it?

Come to think of it, Jurgens' name isn't mentioned anywhere else in the solicitations, either. Batman Beyond was canceled, and Nightwing has been passed to the very capable hands of Tom Taylor. So what will Jurgens be up to? So far, mum's the word.

I hate to speculate about such things, but it sure would be nice to see Jurgens working on Booster Gold full time again.

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On October 7, 2019, I wrote (based on news from HollywoodReporter.com):

"DC finally plans to release their comprehensive Rebirth continuity in 2020. That's a mere 9 years after they threw out decades of character development in a bid to boost sales."

Well, guess what DC's plans are for 2021?

"It now appears as though DC's comic book line could be abandoning the idea of a single, shared continuity in favor of a multiverse / metaverse / omniverse model in which each individual comic will have its own story to tell, without much concern for what's going on in other titles across the publishing line."

So says Russ Burlingame at ComicBook.com. This merry-go-round is starting to make me dizzy.

Burlingame's report is based on a post from BleedingCool.com, which qualifies DC's plan thusly:

But what the DC Omniverse will mean is greater creative freedom, less interference by editors (or publishers), and no one saying "you can't use that character, they died in City of Bane/got lost in a Dark Dimension/went evil and currently approaching Gotham, slowly, with all her plants."

Longtime readers of Boosterrific.com know that I consider "continuity" to be a synonym for "character development." If DC fractures their Universe into an Omniverse, instead of having one dynamically developing Booster Gold character with a single continuity threading through many stories, there will be an infinite number of Booster Golds, each with his own continuity of appearances. That doesn't sound very simple to me. Unless they intend for there to be one static Booster Gold character who never learns anything or does anything new. I can't wait to spend money monthly on that.

But this plan would save DC Comics the cost of paying salaries to all those editors. I wonder how much longer until they can get robots to draw the panels?

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