Some people take Labor Day off, but not me, not when I've got to tell you about Booster Gold coming to your Local Comic Shop this week!

As you can see in the issue preview at AIPTComics.com, Booster gets a cameo appearance on the very first page of Blue Beetle #1!

I'm pretty sure that's a "Bwah-Ha-Ha" being cut off by the narrative box in that panel.

And if one panel isn't enough homage to Kevin Maguire's famous Justice League #1 cover, remember that there's also a 1:25 Justice League #1-inspired variant cover to this week's Fire and Ice: Welcome to Smallville drawn by... Kevin Maguire:

(For the record, neither Booster Gold nor Fire nor Ice appear on the original cover to Justice League #1, which wouldn't be re-titled Justice League International until issue #7. Booster joined the team in issue #4, and Fire and Ice joined in Justice League International #14. All three are on the updated roster cover of Justice League International #24, which was the very first book to homage the cover to issue #1. It is no coincidence that Issues #1 and #24 also bookend artist Maguire's run on the series.)

Buy one or both of those issues and make Skeets happy!

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Just last week, my chronological collection of favorite pages touched on Justice League International #11. That book was published on November 10, 1987. The following week, Booster appears (mutely) in exactly two panels of the frame story on page 2 of Blue Beetle #22. Two weeks after that, he is in just one panel of a previous issue recap in Action Comics #598. A week later, Booster is depicted in five panels across the 22 pages of Justice League International #12 — three of those in flashbacks!

Which finally brings us to Justice League International #13... which has Booster in exactly 6 panels. Why am I giving you a favorite page from this book and not those others? Although he is rarely seen or heard, Booster's role here is larger than a simple drop-in, drop-out cameo. He's present with his Justice League teammates as the action rises steadily towards the adventure's climax that will play out in Suicide Squad #13, and Booster has a more sizeable part in that melee. So even though Booster's role in Justice League International #13 is limited, it's not insignificant.

But it's not significant enough to make my favorite page.

That's page 8, and it really illustrates what I like best about Keith Giffen's very stylized art (ably aided by Al Gordon's confident inks and Gene D'Angelo's strong color) comprised almost entirely of close-ups and heavy shadows. Maybe Watchmen made me a sucker for the rigid 9-panel layout, but I especially love how Giffen uses it to create three horizontal triptychs — Rule of Three raised to the third power! — to ratchet up both the comedy and the drama. Very well done.

Tune in next time to finally see a Booster Gold panel in Suicide Squad #13!

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Given that I'm calling this series "My Favorite Pages," I feel beholden to only present my favorite page from an issue. And sometimes my favorite page of an issue with Booster Gold in it doesn't have Booster Gold on it.

Such is the case for Justice League International #11.

This is the first Justice League issue to include Booster since he betrayed the team during Millennium, so it's no great surprise that he plays a minor role here. Even if Booster didn't provide much material support for the Manhunter's cause and did ultimately help the heroes triumph, you can't exactly blame the rest of the league for no longer trusting the guy.

In fact, it will be a few months yet before Booster plays any significant role in another Justice League adventure. In the meantime, we always have Blue Beetle.

Yes, Manhunter. I enjoyed it very much.

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Somehow, Booster Gold doesn't appear anywhere in Millennium #2, but Millennium #3 makes up for that by dedicating several pages to our hero.

Of those, my favorite is this one, page 11, written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Joe Staton:

Somehow, Steve Englehart's characterizations of the JLI here feel much more "correct" than Len Wein's JLA we saw last week in Blue Beetle #20. Both writers had worked on Justice League comics before, in the early (Wein) and late (Englehart) 70s. It's probably worth noting that according to Englehart's own website, steveenglehart.com, he was brought on to the book in 1977 to "give the characters personalities." That tradition clearly continued into Giffen/DeMatteis's International era, where personalities were often more important than plots.

And while I'm talking Englehart, I should probably also add that although he didn't introduce the "Manhunter" characters — that credit technically belongs to Joe Simon and Jack Kirby — Englehart did introduce the concept of the Manhunters as Oan robot constructs in Justice League of America #140. So there's a direct line from Englehart's 1970s JLA to Millennium a decade later.

That concludes your comics history lesson for this week, kids. Your assignment: read more comics!

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As I've been compiling this list of my favorite pages, I have avoided including books that contain less than a full page of Booster Gold. But today I'm going to make my first (and probably not last) exception to that rule for Blue Beetle #20, where Booster is visible in only three panels on page 6:

The JLI presented here feels a little... wrong. (J'onn J'onzz has his feet on the desk? Booster says "Wowzer"?) A lot of that is writer Len Wein's over-written script, but some blame has to be shared by penciller Ross Andru's Bronze Age-throwback vibe. (I admit that Andru did many things right in his long, celebrated career, but 1980s Blue Beetle belonged to Paris Cullins.)

At this point you may be asking why I am including this page of minimal, off-model Booster in my list of favorites? Because it is Booster's first appearance in a Blue Beetle comic, and that's a good enough reason for me.

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