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.

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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!

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:

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.

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DC solicitations are out for August, and by my current count, Booster boosters can expect to see our hero make an appearance in at least 10 upcoming books (including reprints). That's a lot!

As we've already covered, Booster will be in August's Tales of the Human Target one-shot as well as several Dark Crisis issues.

And while we knew that Booster would be on the cover of the first issue of DC vs. Vampires: All-Out War, we are just now learning that he'll be on the 1:25 variant edition of the second issue by James Stokoe:

If you didn't know, "1:25 variant" means that for every 25 copies of the book your Local Comic Shop orders with the standard or regular variant covers, they'll get exactly one of those. The general rule of thumb in comic collecting is that you should generally expect to "pay the ratio" for these sorts of incentive variant covers: you pay approximately $25 for 1 copy at your LCS. In today's market, that's like, 5 gallons of gas!

These 1:25 covers will obviously be in limited supply, so if you want this (or any incentive variant — so named because the publisher is using it to create an incentive to buyers to purchase more copies than they might be otherwise initially inclined to order), I recommend you negotiate with your LCS ahead of time to try and strike a deal that will be worthwhile to both of you.

On the other hand, the collected edition of Blue and Gold is due on September 27 for a comparatively meager $19.99. And while I'm sure you already have all the individual issues, won't it be nice to have them all bound under one cover?

You can find all the August solicitations at GamesRadar.com. Spend wisely, Booster boosters.

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Ready for some scary news for Friday the 13th?

Tom King is going to be writing more Booster Gold.

Announced earlier this week via substack.com, Tales of the Human Target is a one-shot anthology issue of Human Target / Justice League International team-up stories that will include a Booster Gold adventure drawn by Kevin Maguire.

(Par of) Booster will even appear on the issue's alternate cover by David Marquez:

Booster and Beetle! Ice and Fire! Batman and Mister Miracle?

I have not enjoyed King's treatment of the JLI in the Human Target mini-series so far, so I can't honestly say that I'm enthusiastic about reading this. But I will definitely be buying it to look at Maguire's pictures when the book comes out on August 23, 2022.

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I feel like I say this every year, but now at your Local Comic Shop:

This softcover reprints the hardcover DC Comics: Generations, which was itself a reprint of Generations: Shattered and Generations: Forged. If you've been waiting to read these issues until DC knocked $10 off the price, your day has come!

By the way, in the very recent Justice League 2022 Annual #1 — yeah, it's an awkward name, but at least it doesn't have any colons in it, so... progress? — Batman recognized an accidentally time-displaced O.M.A.C. when the rest of the Justice League didn't. Says Batman:

words by Brian Michael Bendis; art by Sanford Greene, Matt Herms, Josh Reed

Is this evidence that the Batman who was plucked from the past for Generations is the same Batman now a member of the modern day Justice League? I choose to think so. (I don't know how, but time travel can do weird things to continuity.)

It sure seems like DC Comics: Generations has become must-read material for DC continuity wonks. Get it while it's hot!

And while you're at your Local Comic Shop, if you're interested in following Booster's appearances in Human Target, know that he gets a name drop in this week's issue 5. It's only this one panel:

words by Tom King; art by Greg Smallwood, Clayton Cowles

Speaking of continuity, I can't say I care for the rest of this issue's events and characterizations. But, hey, Greg Smallwood's art always delivers!

Enjoy your shopping!

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