My mailbox is full with "news" sites reporting that in an exclusive interview with CBR.com, Chris Pratt has broken his silence on whether or not he'll play Booster Gold!

"As far as DC characters pan, I don't know. I will let the fans tell me what they would want me to do. I don't have anything official to announce. I haven't spoken to James Gunn in any capacity to where he's offered me anything like that."

So there you have it. If you want Chris Pratt to play Booster Gold, tell him. If you don't, tell him. Apparently, he's listening.

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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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Over the weekend, a friend who does not read superhero comic books sent me a screenshot of a link to an online article teasing "Top Gun: Maverick's Glen Powell Wants to Play Booster Gold in the DCU."

Well, of course he does. Who wouldn't want to play Booster Gold?

More importantly, this should serve as a reminder that the mere announcement of a Booster Gold television show instantly reaches far, far farther into pop culture than four decades of comic book storytelling has. Even without a director or actors or even a second of screen time, my friends and family are now engaging with a character I doubt any could pick out of a police line-up. That's the power of TV!

That's why my inbox is now filled with links to articles like "11 Facts About DC's Time-Traveling Superhero Only Huge Fans Will Know" and "Who is Booster Gold in the DC universe and what are his powers?" It turns out that not everyone in the world is a Booster booster... yet.

My brother used to say that what sounds like pointless repetition to me is someone else hearing the news for the first time. He was right, of course. There are 8 billion people in the world, but no more than a few million have ever held a Booster Gold comic book.

So have a little patience with non-comic-reading people who are just now getting up to speed on how terrific Booster Gold is. If you're lucky, they'll remind you of how and when you first became a fan yourself.

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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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A primary motivation for my maintenance of this blog promoting DC Comics' Booster Gold is to build a catalog of Booster references outside the world of comic books. So, of course, when I saw yesterday's CBR.com article, "Going For Gold: Booster Gold’s Long History Of TV Appearances," I knew I'd have to mention it here.

The article briefly covers the television shows that have included significant Booster Gold appearances, from Justice League Unlimited (2004) to Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2009) to Teen Titans Go!, which gave Booster his first speaking part just this year. It also mentions Booster's two live-action appearances, in the final season Smallville episode "Booster" (2011) and the final season Legends of Tomorrow episode "Knocked Down, Knocked Up" (2022), which had a very, very brief follow-up in The Flash episode "Impulsive Excessive Disorder."

To its credit, the article contains no inaccuracies. However, I expected more, especially considering that there really aren't that many televised Booster Gold appearances. Boosterrific.com maintains a whole page tracking them. I mean, while the article spends a whole paragraph on an obscure cameo appearance in from the 2006 Legion of Super-Heroes, it doesn't mention other cameos in Cartoon Networks' MAD or DC Super Hero Girls. Oh, well, we can't have everything.

If we wanted everything, we'd have to mention things like Booster's 52 cover cameo in MTV's long-forgotten The Hard Times of RJ Berger or Booster's participation the 2012 Robot Chicken DC Comics Special. By the way, Booster almost had a speaking part in that one, a sketch in which he badly defends *not* going back in time and killing Hitler. The sketch was cut for being "too talky," but you can currently see it on Youtube (starting at 5:34).

Anyway, nitpicks aside, I offer congratulations to article writer Alex Russell for spreading the gospel of Booster Gold to those who may not be inclined to read comic books. Russell is a real Booster booster whose CBR bio says he's "still waiting on a Booster Gold movie." You and me both, buddy.

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