The Booster Gold News Of The Week is the tweet at the bottom of this short thread:

You know that tweet was shocking because it was covered by ComicBook.com, CBR.com, BleedingCool.com, ScreenRant.com, Looper.com, WeGotThisCovered.com, and for some reason, GQ.com, among many, many others, now including Boosterrific.com.

First of all, I'm not sure we can trust anything we read on Twitter these days. But supposing this tweeter is the real DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn, I think we have to assume all those people beating down his door are the angry fans of WB's Legends of Tomorrow, which was canceled before Donald Faison's Booster Gold could be redeemed. (He gets only one appearance, and sells out all the protagonists to the Time Police? What a dick!)

Frankly, I don't care whether those vocal Booster Gold proponents want more Faison, or want "The Greatest Story Never Told"'s Green Lantern, or want an Extreme Justice live-action movie (please, please, please!). More Booster Gold in any form is alright with me.

C'mon, James. Give the people what they want. Obviously, they have great taste.

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You know, for someone who says I don't like Tom King's work, I somehow dedicate a lot of space on this blog to him. What can I say? The guy's just kind of hard to ignore, especially when he tweets things like this:

That's the book cover under the dust jacket of the Human Target Volume 1 hardcover coming our way September 27. Yeah, we've seen that art before — it was created by Greg Smallwood for the interior of Human Target #1. But it's still Boosterrific no matter how many times we see it.

While I'm on the topic, this would seem to be a great time to mention that Russ Burlingame has an exclusive interview with Tom King in The Gold Exchange: The Boosterrific Deluxe Edition. With Russ's permission, I'm quoting starting from page 594 here:

Burlingame: You said earlier that you write Booster "wrong." That feels like a healthy way of internalizing audience feedback, just to crack the joke and say "I know 30% of everyone reading this are going to bitch, and that's fine."

King: I mean, I say "right" and "wrong," but I wouldn't change the way that I write. I just wrote Booster for Human Target, and I loved how those pages turned out. Yeah, my Booster's a little goofier and a little sillier, and I know it's not going to please everyone, but it's my job to make the best product I can, and that's the best product I see.

If I'm just trying to write the way everyone wants me to write, then I'll write crappy. I know it's going to turn out worse if I try to do it the other way.

My general opinion is that there are a lot of superheroes who are super-competent and super good in the DC Universe, and it's nice to have one who's not that way. It's what makes him interesting and funny. It's nice to have a guy who can make jokes, and that when you read him, it can make you laugh. That's what I like about Booster; he's not like all the other superheroes.

To me, it's the difference between what Iron Man was up until Robert Downey, Jr. and what he is now. He was just a generic, boring guy, and yeah, he had alcoholism, but that was basically it. And then Robert Downey, Jr. came along, and it was like, "What if we made this guy so arrogant it was funny?" And then we're like, "Oh, yeah. Now he's a [effing] great character."

Burlingame: In Human Target, it isn't just Booster, but the entire Justice League International. Do you approach Booster a little differently as part of that unit?

King: I knew I was taking the Keith Giffen/JLI version as opposed to the Dan Jurgens, more heroic version. I wanted to make sure I had it down, so I talked to Dan about it and he was like, "Well, Booster is a guy who doesn't mind making money off being a superhero," so I wanted to make a thing where he was making money off being a superhero, so I put Booster's Bagels in there.

I just started to put captions back in my writing. I haven't used captions since The Vision, so that's like seven years without captions. The whole point of Human Target is, he goes through each JLI member and kind of cuts to the core of them at some point and says why they're awesome, or what's at their heart. So it gave me a chance, using Chance's voice, to say what I love about the character.

So Booster is Booster. And "Yeah, Booster's a joke, but aren't they all? At least this one's funny" is I think his great Booster line.

We can agree on that, at least. Booster Gold *is* funny.

Thanks for the interview (and the book), Russ!

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Several people have just brought this to my attention, and I don't see much reason to wait until Monday:

twitter.com/mcfarlanetoys/status/1550934047966302210

I'll be keeping my eye out for that pre-order opportunity.

UPDATE 2022-07-27: Pre-order links are now available on McFarlane.com. I'll post more about this on Friday.

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In response to one of my tweets earlier this week, @Space_Lt_Josh commented that there is a "real Boosterenaissance beginning to unfold right now". I couldn't agree more (except for the fact that I would spell "Boosterrenaissance" the Boosterrific-endorsed way: with two "r"s!).

Our hero has come off his own Blue and Gold mini-series to play a role in Dark Crisis, DC Vs. Vampires, and Human Target. While I have grave reservations about how he is being portrayed in some of those series, I certainly think it is for the best that the character is in position to be seen by larger audiences.

Booster booster Joe Carlo informs me that at least someone at DC Comics' parent company, DC Entertainment (a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery!) is also aware of Booster's rising visibility. He knows because he got a promotional email putting Booster in the "character spotlight."

The email directs readers to the DCComics.com character page for Booster Gold (www.dccomics.com/characters/booster-gold).

It gives Booster a glowing write-up, though I have to wonder why the article's accompanying headshot is this:

Aw, come on, guys. Couldn't you find a picture where Booster hasn't spent a year trapped in an alternate timeline hell of his own making? Oh, well. I guess you can't have everything.

Viva la Boosterrevolution!

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Last week on Twitter, the image of a 1938 house advertisement for Action Comics #1 inspired Russ Burlingame to compare it to "that Direct Currents-style book that circulates as '1: Booster Gold' from time to time."

For those of you who don't know, Burlingame was talking about this, DC Releases Vol.1, No. 21, February, 1986:

DC Releases was a free handout for customers in the nascent direct comics market of the mid-to-late 1980s. (No. 48 was the final issue before it was replaced by Direct Currents, which continued to promote DC products for another decade.) This is called the "February" issue because it was promoting books with a "February" cover date, although they were mostly being sold to consumers in October/November 1985.

The solicitation text — likely written by DC's promotional copywriter extraordinaire, Paul Kupperberg — is pretty Boosterrific:

He's In It For The Bucks!

Talk shows! Prime-time commercials! Opening night bashes! T.V. guest appearances! Product endorsements! Where does this guy come from?

Just between you and me, the other heroes in the DC Universe aren't too hot on Booster Gold's strivings for star-status. But Skeets, on the other hand, is loving it! Skeets? Oh. He's Booster's flying, computerized companion. Who knows where he came from, either. But wherever it is, all the gossip columns have it that he and Booster came together!

As Metropolis goes goo-goo and ga-ga over this empowered hunk (ya gotta hand it to the guy), he keeps his priorities straight! He knows that being a celebrity super-hero means being a super-hero first, and when B.G. puts his powers into drive—watch out!

In this premier issue, Booster must recover a satellite guidance system stolen from S.T.A.R. Labs (I hope he doesn't miss his contract negotiation meeting because of that!) And: Action explodes in the streets of Metropolis when the incredibly strong Blackguard meets our affluent hero face-to-face!

Dan Jurgens, penciller on The Legion of Super-Heroes, Sun Devils, and Warlord, and Mike DeCarlo, who inked Dan on Warlord, promise a super-action series, seasoned with just the right blend of satire, urbane wit, and humor. So, as Booster Gold would say, buy, buy, buy!

While the widely-seen house ad for Booster Gold #1 that was included in Crisis on Infinite Earths #11 (and almost every other book DC published in October 1985) is more famous and much more widely seen than DC Releases, this handout was created specifically to promote books released on October 8, 1985 (including Crisis on Infinite Earths #11). Therefore, as Russ said, Booster's cover panel here is very likely the character's very first public appearance.

That's why you'll find copies going for $500 on eBay.

Personally, I'd rather spend my money on comics rather than advertisements for comics, but you do you.

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