If you haven't yet read Justice League International #7, stay far, far away from this month's "International Exchange" column at ComicBook.com. Once you've read the issue, rush over for Russ Burlingame's grilling of Dan Jurgens about the events of the paradigm-shifting issue.

IX: Going on the assumption that I made last issue—that [Rocket Red's] armor would have been infected by that interface... does that now put Skeets at risk?

DJ: Perhaps. Or it's possible that Skeets might make a startling discovery of his own. Or none at all. Or might just go to an ATM to withdraw cash. Hard to tell at this point.

Believe it or not, for this issue with plenty of focus on Booster Gold, Burlingame and Jurgens don't even mention our hero. However, a hinted implication that we'll be seeing more Skeets in the future is a happy substitute. An unasked, unanswered question is whether we'll actually be seeing Skeets, who has yet to appear on panel since Flashpoint, over half-a-year ago. Where have you been hiding, Skeets?

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This month's installment of Russell Burlingame's "International Exchange" column includes a small sampling of Dan Jurgens' breakdowns for the issue. It also includes a bit of social commentary.

IX: It's funny—Batman's comments about people feeling angry and pushed to the brink by governments they no longer trust is as true in a world without aliens and superheroes and madmen with atomic backpacks as it is in-continuity. Was that an intentional observation or just the way life and art play together?

DJ: Very intentional.

I've made it clear from the start that there are elements of this book that are supposed to reflect the world we live in. Consensus has become an impossibility. Any topic or situation seems divided with one party on one side, the other party on the other. MSNBC take an unreasonable stance to one extreme, FOX News the other.

And the minute one party actually does achieve supremacy and do something, like in Wisconsin, the opposite side goes so far as to try to throw a governor out of office. It's not a question of, "I want government to get moving again." It's more, "I want government to do what I want it to do." There's a big difference.

So, yeah, people are angry. If the DCU is to reflect our own world, there's no way everyone would embrace heroes because there's no way it could happen in our reality. With that in mind, Batman's commentary extends to both worlds.

After DC's last major continuity reboot in 1985, the first major crossover was Legends. At the time, America was embroiled in conflicts ranging from drug wars to class wars, cold wars to cola wars. Reflecting the social and political turmoil, Legends was primarily concerned with exploring both the role of super-heroes in the contemporary DC Universe as well as the public's reaction to them. After all, what good is Superman to a world that ignores or hates him?

It sounds like Jurgens is interested in re-investigating some of the same territory a quarter of a century later in the light of the terrible economic times and divisive political culture of the modern day. Hopefully, Jurgens and his fellow writers don't take reality too seriously. I'd hate to one day realize that the DCnU isn't a nice a place to live, and I wouldn't want to visit there.

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Russell Burlingame's latest "International Exchange" column ran yesterday morning on comicbook.com. Burlingame and Jurgens are really developing a rapport after all these years: this month's column is the most entertaining, most informative one yet. You know it's going to be good when Burlingame goes straight for the jugular:

International Exchange: I'll start with the hard, and obvious, question: Who's that girl on the far right side of the cover? It doesn't look like Lady Godiva.

Dan Jurgens: There's a very good answer for that.

It's a mistake. A screw up.

She shouldn't be there as she wasn't yet due to appear in the book. Given the amount of people who look at these things, I have no idea how it ever made it all the way through to print.

Note that Jurgens says the mysterious Woman in Black wasn't "yet" in the book. So when will we be discovering the true identity of this woman who is not Godiva, Wonder Woman, or Donna Troy? Inquiring minds want to know.

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Adjust your bookmarks: Russ Burlingame's "International Exchange" column has a new permanent home on comicbook.com. Here's hoping that the new location is a good fit for Burlingame; we need "International Exchange" to last for years to come! Where else are we going to get great Q&A's with Booster's creator like this:

IX: After reading some comments by Morganstern [sic] over at the Boosterrific message boards, I was wondering: Was it a conscious parallel that Peraxxus is basically in this for the money, which in some ways evokes how most people perceive Booster at this early stage in his career?

DJ: I think that's stretching things a bit too far. I don't know that I'd say that Peraxxus is quite so interested in money. Think of this more as his purpose... this is what he does. He provides a service that people need and collects for it.

But it isn't always money. He's a trader.

No matter where you're doing it, Russ, keep up the good work!

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Russ Burlingame's latest "International Exchange" column with Dan Jurgens will soon be live at The Outhouse. A preview of the column is already posted at Comic Book.com. Jurgens seems to be everywhere right now -- in addition to last week's two linked interviews, Jurgens is also interviewed at Comic Book Movie -- but Burlingame still finds a way to get some good information from the typically tight-lipped Jurgens, even if it isn't strictly Booster Gold related.

ComicBook.com: Hey, whatever happened to thought balloons? You never really see them anymore, and I always kinda look at Guy's monologue at the end [of Justice League International #3] and think, "If only he'd been quieter...!".

DJ: Thought balloons have largely disappeared from comics, in general. There are circumstances where they work, others where they don't. My general approach is that if one member of the team has thought balloons, let's say Rocket Red, then they all should. And Batman never should, in my view.

I suspect that Booster's last thought balloons appeared in Extreme Justice, 16 years ago. These days internal dialogue is almost always replaced by first person narrative boxes. This isn't necessarily a narrative improvement as much as it is an artistic convention.

That said, it is awfully hard to image Batman showing thought balloons in a team setting in 2011, isn't it?

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