Look! Booster Gold made a surprise appearance in this week's Justice League vs. The Legion of Super-Heroes #3:

It's only a cameo appearance, but if you buy this issue, it will make Skeets happy.

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This week, DC is killing off the Justice League, which is bad for them but good for us because Booster Gold is on the third variant ("CVR D") card stock cover by Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund!

Yes, this cover is the rare self-homage, as Jurgens references his own work (inked by Brett Breeding) on the poster accompanying Superman #75 in 1993. (Superman dies once every thirty years, I guess.)

I have no reason yet to suspect that Booster Gold will actually be *in* the book, but *on* a book is good enough for me. Consider buying this comic and making Skeets happy.

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Here's an interesting footnote in the adventures of Booster Gold.

George Morrow at CBR.com recently referenced a 2006 Comicon.com Pulse article in which Jennifer M. Contino interviewed comedian Patton Oswalt, writer of JLA: Welcome to the Working Week, about his "upcoming" contribution to the Justice League Unlimited comic book:

THE PULSE: Out of all the superhero cartoons that have come and gone, what do you like the best about JLU?

OSWALT: The wide-ranging aspect. Also, they don’t just focus on the Big 5. I also like what they do with the villains. I wish they’d just do an Injustice Society cartoon. Wow!

THE PULSE: That would be cool. What is your JLU story about? How did you get involved with doing a story for that imprint?

OSWALT: Well, I tried out to be the monthly writer, but they thought a lot of my story pitches blew. But there was one they liked, which involves Booster Gold and The Atomic Knight. So that’s the one I’m doing.

THE PULSE: Out of the zillions of heroes in the JLU universe, how did you settle on Booster Gold and the Atomic Knight?

OSWALT: I thought of the kind of story I’d like to tell first, and then went through my old Who’s Who and figured out who’d be the best characters to tell that story emotionally. We’ll see.

As we all know by now, we didn't see. Justice League Unlimited was cancelled in 2008, never having included any story crossing Booster Gold with the Atomic Knights. But Oswalt is very correct that it would make a great pairing.

Every Booster booster knows that Booster Gold arrived in our "present day" on August 20, 1985, a date our hero selected in part because it occurred before a nuclear conflict of the late 20th century (Booster Gold #14). But what you may not have realized is that the nuclear war of Booster's future history was better known as The Great Disaster of the DC Universe, and according to the heroic Atomic Knights, it happened in October 1986 ("Rise of the Atomic Knights", Strange Adventures #117).

Given that the goal of the Atomic Knights was to rebuild society after the disaster, a crossover story between them and future rags-to-riches success story Booster Gold would be a good story set-up!

In hindsight we know definitively there was no nuclear disaster in the DCU in 1986. Superman discovered that the original stories of the Atomic Knights were all fictional simulations (in DC Comics Presents #57, 1983), and the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Atomic Knights would go on to aid the city of Bludhaven after a scaled-down nuclear event in Crisis Aftermath: Battle for Bludhaven — a mini-series drawn by Dan Jurgens!

Will we ever get to read Oswalt's story? Only time will tell.

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We're still learning about what DC's summer crossover Dark Crisis event will be. We've seen pictures of Booster Gold in June's Dark Crisis #1 and Young Justice: Dark Crisis #1, but thanks to aipt.com, we can now be pretty sure he'll be making at least a cameo appearance in May's Dark Crisis #0 Free Comic Book Day Special Edition:

art by Jim Cheung

You'll note that Booster Gold is included in the Brad Meltzer-era group and not the Giffen/DeMatteis-era Justice League International group. I can only assume that's because Booster was not on Kevin Maguire's 1987 cover of Justice League #1 (because he wasn't on the team yet).

But not only was he not a member of the 2006 relaunch, he also wasn't on the Ed Benes / Maria Benes / Alex Sinclair 2006 cover of Justice League of America #1. At least not at first.

See, these are the two "standard" covers of Justice League of America #1 which were distributed equally:

You can see for yourself that Booster Gold isn't on either one. However, he *was* on the solicited cover, which included many differences from what eventually appeared on comic shop racks:

The solicited art was finally used on the second printing of that issue. If I were the guessing sort, I'd assume that when creating the art for Dark Crisis #0, artist Cheung had access to the solicitation image, and that's why Booster ended up where he ended up in the gallery pic above.

Or maybe Dark Crisis is changing the DC Multiverse (again) and now Booster was a active member during that era of the league.

Either way, Dark Crisis #0 will be in your Local Comic Shop this Free Comic Book Day, Saturday, May 7.

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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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