The Internet's premier Booster Gold reporter, Russ Burlingame, is writing another book, this time an oral history of DC's Legends of Tomorrow television show.

Now, I've always been a little ambivalent about Legends. I watched a few episodes the first season because it had a "Rip Hunter" in it, but when I discovered Legends' take on characters in the pages of DC Comics (especially "Rip Hunter") was a bad match for my headcanon, I lost interest quickly.

That said, Booster Gold did appear in the series' final episode, and any oral history of the television show will have to cover how Booster was introduced just in time for the show to get canceled. I could definitely read more about how all involved felt about that.

I asked Russ what else Booster Gold fans should expect, and he said:

I already talked to Dan Park (who wrote the BG backup comic [Earth-Prime: Legends of Tomorrow #3]) and to some folks about the direct influence of Time Masters: Vanishing Point and Booster Gold #5 (which seems to have clearly been the emphasis for the episode "The Fixed Point"). So while Booster isn't a huge presence in the book, he's definitely a bigger presence than you would expect from a Legends book.

That's good enough for me.

If you'd like to join me in helping Russ, you can pre-order a copy of his book at Kickstarter.com.

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Big announcement today about our favorite hero coming to HBO! Says the press release:

The story will center on Booster Gold, a washed-up athlete from the future who travels back to the present in hopes of becoming the greatest super hero of all time. Instead of chasing criminals, however, his main priority is chasing fame and money. But Booster Gold discovers that being a hero takes more than just a megawatt smile, and that the future doesn’t happen without first protecting the present.

Oh, wait. Sorry. That one was from the press release from 2011 when Booster Gold was coming to SyFy. Obviously, that one never materialized. I'm sure this new one by *checks notes* James Gunn is totally better and will really happen this time.

Don't let my snark fool you. I'm pleased as punch that Booster might be finally coming to a... whatever screen it is you can watch HBO Max on. Tablet? Cell phone? That seems appropriate for Booster.

You can see for yourself Gunn's announcement of DCEU "Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters" — which one is Booster? God or monster? — on Youtube.com, and you can read a pretty good write-up about what all it entails on Variety.com. In both Gunn describes the upcoming Booster story as:

Booster Gold is one of comics really popular cult heroes. He is a fascinating guy. He is a loser from the future who uses future technology to come back to present day and become a superhero so that people will love him. It is basically a superhero story of Impostor Syndrome on an HBO Max series.

That does sound like an angle that HBO would want to tackle. And I don't disagree with that take on the character, although I might have worded it a little differently. Personally, I prefer how Booster's creator Dan Jurgens described his hero to Russ Burlingame at ComicBook.com:

With a character like Booster, who's more complex that many people realize, clarity is essential. Many writers have made the mistake of treating him like an idiot, which he most certainly isn't. It's just that his journey from problem to solution sometimes gets a bit tangled up, which is what happens to most of us in our own lives.

Heck, that might be the best, most succinct description of Booster Gold ever. Nobody gets him like Dan does.

If the ten different projects Gunn mentioned are released in order, it sounds like we shouldn't expect Booster Gold sooner than 2025. We've all got plenty of time to get excited.

Thanks to all who made sure I knew the news.

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As all Booster boosters of a certain age know, when Michael Jon "Booster" Carter first came to the 20th century back in 1985, he started a company he called Goldstar, Inc. in honor of his originally intended alter ego (which he fumbled naming in front of the United States president).

The name "Goldstar" was used a lot in the first year of Booster's adventures, eventually becoming the name of Booster's sidekick. And then, after a trip back to the future, Booster renamed his company "Booster Gold Incorporated" with very little explanation why.

Which is not to say that there wasn't a reason.

The answer lies in Russ Burlingame's exclusive interview with Dan Jurgens in a book I'm sure I haven't mentioned around here yet, The Gold Exchange: The Boosterrific Deluxe Edition:

Burlingame: It's funny. I was talking to someone younger than me, recounting the story of how Booster was originally Goldstar. And I said that I always wondered whether that was because of Goldstar, the electronics manufacturer, and whether you had really made that change, rather than it just being a throwaway gag. But that person was younger than me, so they had no idea what the company was that I was even talking about.

Jurgens: Yes. Yeah, it was, by the way. That's exactly what it was: we were into it, I had done Goldstar, and Booster's sister as well, but ultimately, they said "We've got to work away from this," and it was because there was a company out there called Goldstar, which none of us were aware of when I first started using that name. So I was like, "Okay, we've got to roll with that one too."

So yes, that is 100% true.

To be clear, United States trademark law protects a "word, phrase, or design" that distinguishes a company's goods and services from its competitors' similar goods. Therefore, while it was in Booster's best interest to rename his licensing company to avoid confusion with pre-existing international electronics company GoldStar (which you can tell your kids became part of what is now known as LG Corporation), there's no reason DC can't keep using "Goldstar" as a character name.

And now you know... the rest of the story.

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Wednesday, I recalled my opinion about the short-lived Booster Gold / Harley Quinn romance. More important than my feelings about this topic, though, are the feelings of Booster Gold's creator, Dan Jurgens, who revealed them in an exclusive interview with Russ Burlingame, as quoted in The Gold Exchange: The Boosterrific Deluxe Edition pages 603-4:

Burlingame: [In an earlier interview, writer Tom King] did seem to suggest that, had he known he was doing The Gift at the same time you were doing Booster Shot over in Action Comics, he likely would have gone a different way with it, since it was so strange to see [Booster] doing two opposing things at the same time.

Jurgens: Yeah. At the same time, I do think characters have to have a little bit of elasticity to them, and it was kind of a fine line in terms of how it might have worked. I also thought that in a book like Heroes in Crisis, it was nice to have Booster included, and I thought it became a good mix of characters that way. I thought that Booster and Harley made a really interesting pairing that was interesting to read, and they played off each other very well, I thought.

Burlingame: I didn't think about it until now; I probably should have tried to talk to the Harley Quinn creators who had Booster as her boyfriend for a minute there.

Jurgens: Which I think the internet reacted to quite badly, is that right? Or at least a good portion of it?

Burlingame: I think it was less about Booster and more about the feeling that they had just set up Harley to have this amazing relationship with Poison Ivy, and they were killing her off. And then probably part of that was jettisoning a same-sex relationship for a heterosexual one.

Jurgens: Right. I think... could Booster and Harley work? Yes. Could you possibly attract fans who are interested in that relationship? Probably also yes. I don't think there's a right and wrong. I think that if you write it well, you can get people invested in it.

Burlingame: That one just didn't have time to be written well, because the blowback was so instantaneous, and DC didn't seem to see it coming.

Jurgens: Yeah, I think that's right.

Jurgens is such a nice guy. If he doesn't have a problem pairing Booster and Harley, I shouldn't have one either. I can live with that.

Thanks to Russ for asking the question and giving permission to reprint it here.

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To borrow another quote from Tom King's interview with Russ Burlingame exclusive to The Gold Exchange The Boosterrific Edition book:

Booster puts up a lot of shields — he's got forcefields; it's a good metaphor — but he puts up a lot of shields around himself, and some of those shields hide a lot of depth.

I couldn't agree more with that. If there's anything that Booster Gold is known for, it's his over-the-top confidence, but that confidence is often just an act, a projection of how Booster *wants* people to see him.

Rarely is the difference between Booster's private and public persona more visible than in my favorite page from Booster Gold volume 1 #9, the scene in which Michael Jon "Booster" Carter officially becomes Booster Gold.

Golly, I miss thought balloons in comics.

That "At least it's... different!" really sums up another key aspect of Booster's personality: his determination to make the best of every situation (even when he's responsible for making the current situation so bad).

He might be a time traveler, but Booster Gold is always looking forward.

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