BleedingCool.com reports

DC Comics has announced 2023 editions of the following books: Creature Commandos, Batman And Son, Booster Gold: 52 Pick Up, The Authority Book One, Batman And Robin Vol 1: Batman Reborn, and Wonder Woman: Paradise Found.

It's great that 52 Pick Up is getting a new printing, but it makes me wonder whether that's happening just because it finally sold out on Amazon following the recent announcement about Warner Bros' latest plans or whether its story (by Geoff Johns) will be the basis for James Gunn's show.

Based on Gunn's "Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters" announcement, I've been assuming that his Booster Gold show will be based on Jurgens' original run, which is collected in The Big Fall and is also sold out on Amazon. But no reprint announcement for that one yet.

So Johns over Jurgens? Or am I reading too much into this? Probably the latter. If Gunn's previous work is any indication, the television show won't hew too closely to any previously published story.

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Remember that time when the powers-that-be at DC decided to scrap (almost) their entire shared universe for another, new shared universe of unfamiliar characters in familiar costumes?

Yeah, okay. That's a little vague. We *are* talking about DC here.

Specifically, I'm talking about the relaunch 12 years ago, the "New 52." If you'll recall, sales were down, and something had to be done to goose them. That something was determined to be a line-wide reboot. However, before a new universe could be launched, the pre-existing universe had to be canceled. Which is how Booster Gold #47, released on this day in 2011, became the final issue of that series.

Sadly, it's not a very good comic book.

Most of the story deals with Booster's tragic but inconsequential misadventures in the Flashpoint alternate universe with doomed Alexandra Gianopoulos — all drawn by a fill-in artist who seems to be operating under an unforgivingly tight deadline.

But the issue ends with a Dan Jurgens-drawn coda teasing that perhaps Booster had returned to the mainstream DCU in time to continue his story in the incoming New 52 Universe, where all DC characters would be wearing new costumes designed by Jim Lee.

It would be four more years before it was clarified that the New 52 Booster Gold (introduced the following month in Dan Jurgens-written Justice League International #1) and the original, post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Booster Gold were not actually the same entity at all. (All was revealed in 2015's Convergence Booster Gold.)

It's that sort of confusion that made the New 52 such a frustrating experience for longtime fans. If the creative teams don't know what the new rules are, how can the readers?

Frankly, over a decade later, I'm still irritated. The less said about Booster Gold #47, the better.

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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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A thunderstorm came through my town and knocked out our power just as I was composing today's post at about 1AM. Without wifi, that's where it'll stay. Power company estimates a fix won't be in until nearly dawn, so I'm going to bed, and this is all the post you're going to get, Booster boosters.

While I'm sitting in the dark, may I suggest you go read some other site instead. I hear from The Blot that BleedingCool.com is hinting that Booster might have a bigger role to play after Dark Crisis is over. And Rob Snow says that Booster is in the newly published The DC Book of Lists, available for Kindle download right now at Amazon.com.

Or go outside and throw a ball for your dog. Not everything in the world is about comic books, you know.

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In 1967, in the opening episode of the second season of Star Trek, best friends Captain Kirk and his first officer, Mister Spock, are forced to fight one another on an alien planet. The episode is called "Amok Time," and it's pretty good television.

Why do I mention that? Because DC has released the preview of this week's Blue and Gold #6!

I guess this makes Booster Spock? That's... not what I would have expected. Great! I like to be surprised. I hope that writer Dan Jurgens has a few other tricks up his sleeve to put his own spin on a classic situation.

You can find the whole preview at BleedingCool.com, and tomorrow, you can buy this issue from your Local Comic Shop (or whatever now passes for Comixology) and make Skeets happy.

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