The Gold Beetle returns — as a prisoner of the Linear Men! — in this week's The Flash #7:

written by Simon Spurrier, art by Ramon Perez

Seven issues into this latest Flash volume, it's still a big mystery what's actually going on (thanks, decompression!), so I can't explain it to you. What I can say for sure is that the mysterious Linear Man codenamed "Inspector Pilgrim" talking to Max Mercury and Impulse claims he and the detained Gold Beetle are "kinda family."

While I'm inclined to believe that "Inspector Pilgrim" is yet another future version of Jai West (who smooched with Gold Beetle during the One Minute War), I suppose it's a possibility that Pilgrim has some relationship with Booster Gold or Blue Beetle.

Maybe one day we'll find out.

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I recently got an email from Travis Bickle, and although he was clearly "talkin' to me," I think it's best if I just pass along exactly what he said:

We certainly are in a heavy Booster dry spell right now, which is why I was pathetically exuberant upon finding the news I'm about to share. HBO just updated its streaming service to be called simply "Max" instead of "HBO Max" (really clever change), and with this came some slight adjustments to other aspects of the experience as well, including allowing HBO's userbase to more options for their avatars in-app. Now, a user's profile can be represented by none other than Booster Gold, utilizing his look from the JLU animated series. Previously the options were a lot more limited.

Just last week, Warner Bros. Discovery put out a press release announcing new avatars were coming to their retooled app. Booster was nowhere to be seen. I'm very glad to see that oversight has been corrected.

Thanks for the news, Travis, but don't stay up all night watching movies. Lack of sleep is bad for your mental health.

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It's been almost exactly a year since we last got a peek into Cort Carpenter's Booster Gold sketchbook, so I'd say we're overdue. Fortunately for all of us, Cort just sent me a bunch of new artist commissions!

Darren Calvert

Max Dunbar

Rick Leonardi

Brent Schoonover

Those are just the headshots! I've got more, but I don't want anyone to overdose on too much Gold. I'll share the rest in the near future.

Thanks, Cort! Keep up the good work.

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Longtime Booster booster Morgenstern recently asked me a very good question:

Did you ever write an article about this dropped idea of making Tim Drake Blue Beetle and the Death of Booster Gold by Scott Beatty & Chuck Dixon?

The answer is "no." And I'll correct that oversight right now.

Before I can explain, let me set the stage. The early 2000s were a lean time for Booster Gold. He made exactly two in-continuity, non-flashback appearances in 2001, both in very small parts (just a few panels) as set dressing for the "Our Worlds at War" and "Joker's Last Laugh" crossover events. Although Booster was still friends with Ted Kord, the Blue Beetle was finding much greater success as an associate of Oracle's Birds of Prey. That's where this story begins.

In Birds of Prey #39 (released in January 2002), Ted Kord is diagnosed with a heart condition that forces him to hang up his tights. However,Birds of Prey and Robin writer Chuck Dixon and his "Joker: Last Laugh" co-collaborator Scott Beatty didn't intend this to be the end of the Blue Beetle, just an opportunity for a passing of the mantle.

The plan, as Beatty revealed on his blog in a 2019 post titled "THE CLIP FILE: How Scott Beatty & Chuck Dixon *ALMOST* Turned Robin Into BLUE BEETLE!," was that "a gravely injured Ted Kord would find a replacement Blue Beetle while he convalesced... assuming that he would survive at all. It would be a *paid* position occupied by a cash-strapped Tim Drake (a.k.a. Robin III)." Christopher Irving's 2007 encyclopedic The Blue Beetle Companion confirms the plan, quoting Dixon as elaborating that eventually "an invalid Ted Kord would direct a half dozen Blue Beetles (all with different talents) to battle international crime."

What makes all of this relevant to Booster Gold fans is exactly how Beatty and Dixon intended to launch this enterprise in the pages of a proposed mini-series they called Blue Beetles. Quoting from the mini-series pitch proposal on Beatty's blog:

We throw down the gauntlet with the death of Booster Gold.

Really.

With ground-support from Ted, Danny and Star begin an investigation into the events surrounding Booster Gold's demise, a mystery which provides the backbone to the first few issues. Their trial-by-fire begins as Ted launches an ambitious campaign to reel in any Beetle foes still at-large, sending his apprentice Beetles to capture a string of rogues and offer them clemency if they swear to renounce villainy; otherwise it's a one-way ticket to the Slab. And now that it's tucked away in polar isolation at the bottom of the world, NOBODY wants to go to the Slab.

Meanwhile, Booster is celebrated on the evening news, showered in fifteen minutes of celebrity as unofficial biographies are published, how-to videos are hawked, and the promotional machine grinds dollars out of heroic sacrifice.

The kicker is this: Booster's death was faked by Maxwell Lord in order to capitalize on the cult of celebrity surrounding young stars dying young and leaving beautiful corpses. Lord plans on marketing the Booster Gold bio and telepic, then engineering a ballyhooed superhero resurrection.

Booster and Max are in cahoots, hoping to spike interest in the hero's eventual resurrection and subsequent product endorsement deals. What's worse, both Booster and Max were willing to silence Ted Kord in order to maintain the ruse.

That's... just.... Wow.

Although this particular pitch was denied by the Powers-That-Be at DC at the time for unspecified reasons — and I can't say I'm too saddened by that particular decision — it's amazing to see how many of these ideas presage what would actually unfold in the hands of other writers. Remember, this was 2002. Max's villain turn in Countdown to Infinite Crisis was still three years away, and Booster's death would be a key component of Infinite Crisis-follow up 52!

For more information on this particular footnote of DC history, I encourage you to read Beatty's full proposal for Blue Beetles on his blog, scottbeatty.blogspot.com.

Thanks for helping me correct my oversight, M.

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In 2011, before DC Comics decided that all of their comics had to take place in the darkest possible timeline, they ironically published two surprisingly optimistic series under the "Brightest Day" banner. One of those, Justice League: Generation Lost, should rightly be considered among the best Booster Gold adventures ever told, in no small part because it builds towards an inevitable (and incredibly satisfying) confrontation between Booster and Maxwell Lord, his former employer and the murderer of his best friend.

And that's why Justice League: Generation Lost #23 is number 11 on my list of the twelve best Booster Gold comics.

The dirty little secret about my list is that Justice League: Generation Lost #23 is *not* better than Justice League: Generation Lost #24. Number 24 just happens to be the final issue of the series, and I don't think anyone should begin reading a good story at the final page.

The entire series, all written by Judd Winick, reads like a water slide: once you enter the tube, you only pick up speed as you head to the big splash ending. (There are a few bumps along the way, such as Ice's entirely unnecessary origin retcon, but what's a water slide that doesn't give you a few bruises?)

So do yourself a favor and go read all twenty-four issues of Justice League: Generation Lost and enjoy the challenge of picking the one issue *you* think is most deserving of being included among the twelve best Booster Gold comics.

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