Believe it or not, this is the first week in the past nine that hasn't included a comic released from DC with a Booster Gold appearance. That's over two solid months of Booster Gold. Boosterrific!

To put that in perspective, there was a time not so long ago where we'd go months and months between Booster Gold panels. There was a 112 day break as recently as 2019, a 119 day break between issues in 2018, a 238 day break in 2017, and a 161 day break in 2016. The record, of course, is the 413 day break that began in 2015. Yee-ouch.

Say what you will about how horrible 2020 was — and I assure you, I have — but at least Booster boosters had something to read.

Booster Gold #7, 1986

We love it, too, Dirk.

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Like my favorite super hero, I'm planning to start the year watching my alma mater play football. In the meantime, I present for your nostalgic enjoyment the 5 most-read Boosterrific.com blog posts of 2020, presented in ascending order of hits:

5. Monday, April 6: This Day in History: Without Great Power
In which we revisited Booster Gold's participation in Justice League Europe #50, his first taste of superheroic action after losing his powersuit to Doomsday. Say what you will about his motivations, but Booster Gold's got guts.

4. Friday, March 13: That Time Booster Gold Defeated a Disease
In which we took at look at the events of Booster Gold Volume 1 #17 in light of the pandemic that was sweeping the globe. Conclusion: an impenetrable force field is better than a vaccine.

3. Monday, October 26: The Strong and Silent Type
In which I improved Superman & Batman Magazine #8 by cutting out most panels that don't include Booster Gold. Sorry, I couldn't do anything about that bulky 1990s power suit.

2. Monday, November 9: Two of a Kind: Shattered and Forged
In which we clear up the confusion surrounding DC's announcements of Generations: Shattered and Generations: Future State comic books. Hint: they're the same book. Or, at least we think they are. We'll be more certain when we finally have the book in our hands next week.

1. Friday, December 18: The Best of Booster Gold: Action Comics 995
In which we conclude our year-long series of the 12 best Booster Gold comics. (Maybe those clickbait comic book listicle sites are onto something.)

Let's make 2021 another Boosterrific year!

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A recent clickbait listicle at CBR.com written by Brett Hoover has the very pointed title "Justice League: 5 Reasons Why Blue Beetle Is The Most Annoying Member (& 5 Why It's Booster Gold)."

I was initially going to let this obvious bit of fanboy-baiting slide, but then I decided that if I wasn't willing to fight for Booster Gold, who would? So in the interest of giving equal time to Booster bashers, let me directly address those 5 reasons. (I'll leave it to others to defend Ted Kord and Jaime Reyes.)

Reason 5. Booster Gold: Believes Himself To Be More Powerful Than He Really Is
Superheroes have egos. In fact, in most cases that is what makes them super as they are constantly trying to improve themselves to live up to their own and others' expectations of them. That said, in the case of Booster Gold, it is just sad how he tries to portray himself as one of Earth's mightiest heroes when, in fact, he is just a chump in a costume. What is even sadder is that, because of his enormous ego, he doesn't even notice that others see through his facade.

No one can deny that Booster Gold has an over-sized ego, but if the premise is that he's the worst Justice Leaguer, the real question is whether his ego is more over-inflated than other Leaguers. I'd say Booster's sense of self-importance, while impressive, is dwarfed by the runaway delusions of self-important grandeur often displayed by the likes of Batman, Hawkman, Green Arrow, or Parallax Extant Hal Jordan.

Reason 4. Booster Gold: Not Earth's Mightiest Hero
Certain superheroes seek to earn their place in the top ranks of the Justice League. Many work for years to even get admitted to the A-level superhero squad. While all are heroic in their own way and are confident in their own powers, Booster Gold takes his accomplishments and quadruples the amount of importance his actions really played in any situation. It isn't wrong to be confident but confidence is something that is obtained through surviving the tough battles, not just given like he wants it to be.

This sure sounds like a duplication of the first complaint. No less a talent than Geoff Johns dubbed Booster Gold "The Greatest Hero You've Never Heard Of" explicitly because when a time-cop like Booster Gold does his job correctly and saves a multiverse, you don't see the tough battles he fought on your behalf. If someone has to be a publicly recognized, best-selling A-lister before they join the league, someone might want to break the news gently to Martian Manhunter, Red Tornado, and Firestorm.

Reason 3. Booster Gold: Attention Seeking Superhero
Booster Gold isn't known for his modesty when it comes to the good deeds he has committed. In fact, he oftentimes hopes and prays that there is a camera on each corner taking his picture as he saves the day. This attention-seeking aspect of his persona leaves many superhero allies with a bad taste in their mouth when forced to team up with him. Yet, instead of realizing how pathetic such a demeanor truly is, he instead begins to believe their animosity is because of his true heroism.

Sure, Booster has frequently lamented not receiving the earned respect of his peers, but that final sentence is patently untrue. I think you, like so many others before you, have confused him with Green Lantern, specifically Guy Gardner. Or Obsidian. Or Triumph. (Surely I'm not the only person who remembers Triumph, the founding leaguer who was lost in timeline shenanigans. Speaking of timeline shenanigans....)

Reason 2. Booster Gold: Mentored By His Own Son
Some of the worst things shows or comics about time travel have to deal with are the paradoxes these travelers inflict on time itself. Fans see it often enough by the Flash who has jumped around the past and the future on countless occasions. Booster Gold's attempts at messing with time ultimately resulted in him not only coming in contact with his son, but being mentored by the child he hadn't yet raised, along with having his future self shape his past self.

Time paradoxes make for bad Justice Leaguers? Sure, Triumph was a jerk, but time paradoxes are practically a prerequisite for league membership. Stalwarts like Superman and Supergirl had plenty of time-twisting adventures with the future's Legion of Super-Heroes in their past, Plastic Man's JLA adventures through time would prove him functionally immortal, and Moon Maiden seemed nice enough while she existed. (Can anyone explain why the Flash gets a pass here? Is it because the Cosmic Treadmill is cool? Because it is.)

Reason 1. Booster Gold: Runs From The Present To Live In The Past
There's a common time travel fantasy about going back in time with modern technology in order to impress the denizens of the past. If that weren't the main reason Booster Gold traveled in time, it wouldn't be so sad. Booster Gold was so unimportant in his time that the only way to feed his ego was to time travel to the past and show off his futuristic technology.

Well, you have me there. It's not a very heroic origin, is it? I guess there's a reason the Justice League never let a criminal like Lex Luthor join. Oh, they did? Well, then. Case dismissed.

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In ancient times, May Day was a celebration of the dawning of a new season from the old, a rebirth. In the 20th century, "mayday" became a distress call for pilots.

Both of those etymologies are reflected in CRB.com's latest Booster Gold-centric clickbait, "Every Terrible DC Timeline Booster Gold Has Prevented (or Caused)" by Brandon Zachary.

As one of DC's resident time-travelers, it makes sense that Booster Gold has left an outsized impact on the DC Universe timeline over the years. While he's done some of this to protect the timeline from the influence of others, he's also sometimes done this to try and suit his own goals.

That's a fair point. Booster Gold isn't perfect, and that's a key part of why we like him.

Before you click on over to CBR, know that the article title isn't entirely accurate (surprise!). Zachary covers some of the larger (and worst) changes that Booster has made to history, but there are plenty of other terrible timelines that Booster prevented but didn't cause (like saving the multiverse from the likes of Mister Mind in 52 and Starro in Booster Gold #13, just to name a few).

And, of course, no list of the worst timelines that Booster both caused and prevented would be complete without the time he killed a little girl's dog, as seen in Booster Gold #31.

In a multiverse with an infinite number of terrible timelines, a time cop's job is never done.

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I walked outside late last night and heard... nothing. Usually, I can hear the hustle and bustle of traffic as trucks come and go from the nearby industrial warehouses throughout the wee hours of the morning. But now, with everything shut down due to shelter-in-place orders, not so much.

What's that got to do with Booster Gold? Not a thing.

The point is that nothing much new is happening these days, so there's not a lot of "news" to write about, especially in regards to the serialized adventures of a comic book hero. That leaves a content void here at the Boosterrific Blog that needs to be filled with something.

Sure, I could post another link to some of the many, many, many CBR.com clickbait lists that include Booster Gold, but who wants more of that in their life?

I could post more about me, your obsessive neighborhood Booster Gold blogger, but I know no one wants more of that in their life. (No, really. I've been running a personal blog at wriphe.com for 18 years, and it's read by a whopping 12 people a week. I get it. My life is boring.)

So I thought I'd try something new. I thought I'd ask you, the Booster Gold fan reading this text right now, why you've chosen to spend your valuable time visiting Boosterrific.com. What makes you a super Booster Gold fan, the kind who goes above and beyond and visits websites about your favorite hero? How did you find Booster Gold in the first place? What attracts you to the character? What brings you here?

Send me an email, either through the Boosterrific.com Contact Portal, or directly to walter(at)boosterrific.com, and tell me about your fandom. I'll share them with other fans in future posts. (If you'd like to take the opportunity to promote your own projects, go ahead. Booster Gold sure would.)

Let's take this opportunity to see how Booster Gold fans are alike across our super-specific community. Maybe we'll learn a thing or three.

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