The life of any comic book hero would be a lonely one if not for the many characters who have made up their supporting cast. Just as Superman has Lois Lane and Batman has Alfred, Booster Gold has also shared his adventures with quite a few people over the years. Today we look at one of those, Daniel Carter.

After a gruesome injury ruined his promising football career, Daniel Carter had became stuck in an unfulfilling job as Evergreen Insurance Company's fifth-best term-life salesman. He dreamed of being a super hero and reclaiming his lost glory. Perhaps it was that dream — or maybe it was fate — that lured him to Booster Gold's sparsely attended funeral in 52 #18.

Daniel was completely unaware that Michael Jon "Booster Gold" Carter was his descendant until Skeets told him the truth. Unfortunately for Daniel, that was the only truth Skeets told him (52 #19).

Skeets wasn't Skeets at all, but the villainous Mr. Mind in disguise. Fortunately for Daniel, Rip Hunter was already aware of Mr. Mind's schemes. Hunter enlisted Daniel to become the second Carter to don the mask of Supernova, world-famous super hero. Together with faked-his-own-death Booster Gold, Daniel defeated Mr. Mind and saved the multiverse (52 #52). Daniel Carter's dreams had come true!

Afterwards, Booster and Daniel became roommates (Booster Gold Volume 2, #1). Though Daniel meant well, he was also rather stupid. He was often left behind while Booster was out adventuring. This made it easy for Booster's ne'er-do-well father to steal the Supernova costume and use it for evil (Booster Gold Volume 2, #2). It would also present the opportunity for Daniel to meet his future wife, reporter Rose Levin, when she came snooping into Booster Gold's personal life (Booster Gold, Volume 2, #3).

Rip Hunter would eventually recover the Supernova costume, and Daniel would continue to play the role of hero for Rose. He traveled through time to find his wife the perfect gift — and only accidentally gave longtime Justice League foe Starro the Conqueror the ability to conquer all history (Booster Gold, Volume 2, #13). He would redeem himself by protecting Rose from a maurading Black Lantern Blue Beetle in Booster Gold, Volume 2, #27.

Supernova hasn't been seen since Flashpoint, but so long as Booster Gold is still around, Daniel and Rose have to be out there somewhere.

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As the first character introduced to the DC Universe after the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Booster Gold was too new for his own entry in the original Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe character encyclopedia. (Volume III: Black Lightning to Byth was cover dated May 1985, nearly a year before Booster's first appearance.)

While Booster would have to wait for the 1987 Who's Who Update to receive his own listing, Booster's impact on the DC Universe was felt much sooner. Therefore, Booster first appeared not in his own entry but in support of one of the DCU's more established characters (insofar as a seldom used star of a back-up feature in Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane in the early 1970s can be considered "established").

If you look closely, you'll see our hero in the background of the entry for Rose and Thorn in Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe Volume 19, released 31 years ago today.

Art by Dan Jurgens and Dick Giordano

(The less said about Thorn's costume the better. Obviously Thorn and Batman and the Outsider's Looker shopped from the same designer label in the 80s.)

Whereas Booster went on to become an integral member of the Justice League International, Rose has rarely been seen in the decades since. Maybe it's time for Booster to return the favor.

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There can be no more doubt about whether Warner Brothers is working on a Booster Gold movie. Yesterday, in an interview with Lacey Rose of the Hollywood Reporter, Legends of Tomorrow executive producer Greg Berlanti had this to say:

I'm attached to a few films [at Warner Bros.] now, and one, Booster Gold, is a DC property. Zack Stentz, who wrote an episode of Flash last year, just got the job, so he's writing the script now. I'd probably direct that, or I would want to.

Zack Stentz is perhaps better known as the writer of Thor and the new Power Rangers movie. I'm disappointed that Berlanti's associate Andrew Kreisberg, writer of Justice League Unlimited's "The Greatest Story Never Told" and SyFy's 2011 undeveloped Booster Gold television show, appears to be off the project, but I look forward to Stentz's take on our favorite hero.

(This interview confirms information first revealed earlier this week by birthmoviesdeath.com.)

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These days, the DC Universe seems to be chock full of secret organizations of dubious morality. There's nothing new about that. In fact, Booster Gold's 1985 nemeses, the 1000, was a rebirth of the 100, which originally debuted in 1970.

Of course, the 1000 did have something none of the other clandestine organizations have had: a Director of Death!

The Director was a typical power-mad dictator wanna-be who had a mad-on against Booster Gold. By making Booster's first archenemy a corrupt politician desperate for more power, was Dan Jurgens drawing an intentional contrast against Booster's origins as a corrupted athlete desperate for attention?

I put the question to Jurgens himself.

Somewhat, but not entirely.

If I'd gotten too close to Booster, it might have seemed too "one note".

So the actual difference worked well. The Director craved power whereas Booster simply wanted fame and money. I think one of the attractive things about Booster is that a simple desire for recognition and wealth is really easy to relate to.

The Director could have been the head of any number of evil organizations. As a follow-up question, I asked Jurgens whether it was determined the Director and the 100 would be Booster's first foes before or after it was decided that one of the organization's oldest foes, Thorn, would be Booster Gold's first guest star?

That was actually decided before the firm idea of adding Thorn.

I always thought the idea of Thorn fighting the new 100 and having the numbers to go with each one she took down was cool. Though I always wondered why they didn't just add more guys to replace the fallen.

There you have it. It takes a Director to have a direction.

Thanks again to Dan Jurgens, whose Booster Gold #1 hit newsstands 30 years ago today.

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It's a time-honored tradition: To get some respect, the new kid on the block has to prove his chops to an established hero. The two DC characters to debut in their own title in the decade before Booster Gold, Black Lightning and Firestorm, had their first DCU team-up with Superman. Booster Gold would encounter Superman, too. But Superman wasn't Booster's first team-up. That honor went to Thorn.

You remember Thorn, right? Whenever Rose Forrest fell asleep, her alternate personality came alive and fought crime. (The first rule of Rose and Thorn is don't talk about Rose and Thorn.)

Thorn specifically focused her wrath on the 100, a criminal organization responsible for her father's death. Moderately successful, she eventually teamed up with (who else?) Superman before fading into the background of DC's shared universe.

So why did every other DC character get a career booster from Superman, but Booster Gold had to settle for Thorn? I asked Dan Jurgens that question.

First of all, I found her to be an amazingly interesting character.

Plus, since [Rose and Thorn] hadn't appeared in such a long time, it was fairly easy to adjust the character a bit. Tweak the costume, etc. Tailor it to Booster a bit more, that kind of thing.

I also asked Jurgens why he didn't include a cameo for the 100's other major nemesis, Black Lightning.

We actually talked about it a bit but realized that we had Thorn already and were going to have Superman showing up quite soon, with the [Legion of Super-Heroes] soon after. We didn't want it to become a full time guest star series.

And there you have it.

Thanks to Dan Jurgens for answering "just one more follow-up question" over and over again.

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