A little bird tells me that Booster Gold will play a part in this weekend's Justice League Action episode, "System Error."

That's not obvious from the episode description from my cable guide:

When Batman discovers that he and the rest of the League are robots, he investigates to find out who did this and why.

That said, IMDB does seem to confirm that Diedrich Bader will be in the episode as Booster. Even more telling, the episode writer, Patrick Rieger, retweeted the episode tease and followed up with this tweet.

So turn your television dial — they still have those, yes? Televisions? — to Cartoon Network at 7AM eastern Saturday morning to see Booster in action, Justice League Action!

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: diedrich bader justice league action patrick rieger system error twitter.com

Booster Gold returned to action this weekend, by which I mean Cartoon Network's Justice League Action.

The plot of the episode, titled "Phased and Confused," concerned Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman needing the help of Booster Gold to escape the Phantom Zone. All that was really just an excuse to get Booster Gold alone in the watchtower so he could do this:

While I always look forward to seeing Booster Gold in action, I have to say that I found his antics in this story to be so immature that I was left wondering why the Justice League would tolerate him. (Yes, "Time Out" established that Booster is still a time master in the JLAction universe, but the Justice League doesn't know that.)

That said, I'm not going to complain too much about a children's cartoon not meeting my adult expectations. Besides, whatever other faults the episode might have had, it was fun to see Booster pulling a Risky Business in Batman's costume.

Justice League Action has been a lot of fun, and I hope that there will be many more seasons to come.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: justice league action phased and confused

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment issued a press release earlier this month to tell the world that Justice League Action would be coming to DVD this October. The first release will be "Season 1 Part 1" and contain the first 26 episodes of the series.

While this is great news for any fan of fun television, beware that Booster Gold appears in only one of those episodes, "Night of the Bat" (the third episode of the series). Presumably we'll have to wait for next year's "Season 1 Part 2" to get the superb "Time Out." But we don't have to wait that long for more Booster Gold.

Tomorrow, Cartoon Network will air the Justice League Action episode "Booster's Gold" for the first time in America. The episode synopsis at CartoonNetwork.com reads "Green Arrow becomes involved with Booster Gold when he discovers that the self-centered superhero has brought dinosaurs back from the past for a money-making venture." Oooh. Count me in.

The episode was written by show producer Jim Krieg and Jake Castorena, director of "Time Out," does the same for "Booster's Gold." So I think we can expect good things.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: cartoon network jim krieg justice league action

Some of you noted that Booster seemed slightly more ADHD than usual in his recent Justice League Action appearances. I attributed the behavior to the incredibly truncated running time of the episodes.

At Comic-Con International last weekend, the show's producer gave a slightly different explanation to SyFy Wire.

"The DNA is there of those characters," producer Jim Krieg said, "like Booster's a little bit of a dummy in the comics, and maybe we dial that up to 11. But everybody is sort of an exaggerated version of what they are in the comics. Actors get it immediately, and they ride that train to the end of the world."

(Wait a second. "Dial that up to 11." Was that a Spinal Tap reference?)

While I wouldn't call Booster a "dummy," it is true that he's not particularly concerned about what other people think of him (so long as they're thinking of him). And I'm certainly not going to complain so long as Justice League Action continues to be so much fun.

Keep up the good work, guys!

Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: 2017 comic-con conventions jim krieg justice league action syfy

I'm about to do something I never do. I'm going to gush about something I saw on television this past weekend, specifically the Justice League Action episode "Time Out."

"Time Out" gives us possibly the greatest on-screen Booster Gold ever.

Episode writer Jonathan Callan channeled Booster Gold perfectly. Like our hero, he stole from his past to make a better present. Sci-fi geeks may recognize that the primary antagonists in "Time Out" were lifted from old Doctor Who episodes. (And that doorway at Vanishing Point sure looked like something from Stargate.) I'm not complaining. Using familiar ideas like this allows "Time Out" to squeeze some high concept time travel shenanigans into a brief eleven minutes of action.

[UPDATE: On Twitter, Callan admits that in addition to Who, the time antibodies were also inspired by Stephen King's Langoliers and the chronovore to be a "lift from Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman".]

Callan makes another theft that is much more important. The plot of "Time Out" comes from another television show you've probably heard of, specifically Justice League Unlimited episode "The Greatest Story Never Told." Once again, Booster Gold is initially presented as an incompetent dudebro who only plays at heroism for fame. Once again, Booster Gold is the only hero who can save the world when an unexpected crisis develops, and once again, no one else gets to know about it. It's the small changes to this formula that make this episode greater than its predecessor.

Whereas "Greatest Story" dropped the crisis into the lap of an ill-prepared Booster, here the problem is a job a more mature Booster has accepted, trained for, and completed many times before without any hope of reward. "Time Out" really sells Booster's inherent goodness and loneliness, personality traits commonly obscured by his more obvious desperate need for attention. In this episode, Booster is fully aware of his faults and doesn't care to hide them because how others see him isn't as important as doing the right thing.

That's some good stuff right there.

I probably don't need to mention that the episode is greatly enhanced by voice acting from former Batman Diedrich Bader and current (and all-time best) Batman Kevin Conroy. They manage to convey a lot of humor and pathos in a very short period of time. Great job done by all.

If I have any quibble, it's that Skeets doesn't have any speaking lines. But given how much good stuff we did get ("Booster cave," Vanishing Point, Booster getting the last word over Batman), I'm more than willing to let that go. That Skeets was in here at all is good enough for me.

I hope any Booster boosters who missed the broadcast will have a chance to discover this gem in reruns. I look forward to many repeat viewings myself.

Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: diedrich bader jonathan callan justice league action justice league unlimited kevin conroy time out