Two pieces of news today that are probably each worthy of their own post. But since they both came from the ghost of Newsarama at GamesRadar.com, I'm combining them into this one post.

Thing 1: "Booster Gold: Inside the social media superhero who was 35 years ahead of his time" by Vaneta Rogers is a retrospective of what Booster Gold has meant to the writers who have crafted his adventures.

Rogers' oral history includes interviews with Dan Jurgens, Keith Giffen, J.M. Dematteis, and Jeff Katz, all ow whom clearly have a great deal of respect for the character they helped craft.

In fact, Giffen said that, when he and co-writer J.M. DeMatteis were told by editor Andy Helfer they had to use Booster Gold in their new Justice League run in 1987, it was this 'things-never-go-right' element that defined Booster.

"I'll be honest: I had no idea what to do with the character when we first had him," Giffen said. "Booster really didn't gel in my mind until he had the first 'bwa-ha-ha' moment and Beetle was laughing at him. I knew then that this character is going to know life's frustrations and is going to get knocked down a lot, but is always going to get back up again."

That's just a taste of the insight the piece provides into what has made Booster Gold so durable for the past three-plus decades. Good work, Vaneta.

Thing 2: "New DC Human Target is a 12-issue 'whodunit'" by Micheal Doran is essentially a sales piece to encourage fans to buy the upcoming Human Target series featuring the Justice League International.

The report lays out the basic premise of the series and quotes writer Tom King telling us how this is going to be just like every other prestige mini-series he's written for DC in the past half decade. But the important part for Booster boosters is the news about the variant covers.

The [Trevor] Hairsine and [Danny] Miki #1 and #2 variants connect to form the cover of a 'Whodunit' board game. The back cover features a pin-up calendar, "leaning into the mid-century feel of the comic," says DC.

When placed side by side, those variant covers will look like this:

Mid-century? No. Boosterrific? Very.

Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: covers danny miki gamesradar.com human target keith giffen micheal doran newsarama tom king trevor hairsine vaneta rogers

Max Lord is the big "winner" receiving a clear majority of the vote, so I feel comfortable declaring him Booster Gold's arch nemesis, Rebirth continuity be damned!

Last week's poll question: Which villain do you consider to be Booster Gold's arch-enemy? (47 votes)

(If you voted "someone else," who did you have in mind? Dirk Davis?)

While we're on the subject of villains, someone has been making Booster Gold's life miserable recently in the pages of Heroes in Crisis. (We all agree Booster is innocent, right? Right.) The identity of the real culprit has been the subject of much debate recently as the series nears its halfway point.

One popular Internet theory is that the real villain is Skeets. This is mostly based on one panel in Batman #50 that remains unexplained. The link between these two stories is writer Tom King. Could he have been dropping Heroes in Crisis clues in Batman? I doubt it. I just can't believe that he'd crib so blatantly from 52.

The manager of my Local Comic Shop thinks that the mastermind behind the murders is Psycho Pirate. For those who don't know, Psycho Pirate — a character with key ties to the biggest crisis, Crisis on Infinite Earths — has the ability to manipulate emotions, a power that fits well into a story advertised as being about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. (For what it's worth, PP is also in the aforementioned panel with Skeets in Batman #50. But then so was the Joker. Joker can't be behind all this, can he?)

Personally, I've decided that there aren't really any murders in Heroes in Crisis. I think it's all just one ongoing computer simulation designed to.... Well, I'm not sure what it's designed to do. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the matrix is. We'll all have to see it for ourselves.

If you need some evidence to support your pet theory, Vaneta Rogers put together a list of the clues at Newsarama.com. Take a look and see if you can't solve these crimes before Booster Gold does.

Comments (4) | Add a Comment | Tags: batman heroes in crisis maxwell lord newsarama.com polls skeets vaneta rogers villains

DC has finally confirmed the artist for Action Comics #993 . . . and it's exactly who we thought it would be.

Vaneta Rogers interviewed Dan Jurgens for Newsarama.com last week:

Nrama: Where the heck has Booster been?

Jurgens: Surfing the time stream. Like that wouldn't be enough to keep him busy?

Nrama: Good point. OK, so what's Booster's role in the story with Superman?

Jurgens: If Superman is going back to the moment of Krypton's destruction (which he is), he's putting himself in a very precarious position. What happens if he's stuck on Krypton when the planet blows? How would that change time? Because of that, Booster gets involved.

. . .

Nrama: You're getting to draw the covers for the Booster storyline. What's it been like penciling Superman and Booster Gold again with this run?

Jurgens: It's taxing, as I'm still writing a lot of stuff as well, but it's been fun to come back for the covers. I'm also drawing two issues, #993 and #994, which is also a lot of fun! I really wish I had more time to draw.

So now we have an extra reason to buy "Booster Shot." (As if we needed one!) "Booster Shot" starts in Action Comics #993, coming to a Local Comic Shop near you next week.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: action comics dan jurgens interviews newsarama.com vaneta rogers

Once upon a time, Booster Gold appeared quite regularly in the annual crossover events uniting the DCU. For example, it was just 25 years ago today that Booster Gold appeared in a supporting role in Action Comics Annual #4.

Words by Dan Vado, Art by Chris Wozniak and a team of inkers

Back then, Booster and other members of the Justice League International were on the scene to try and free Superman from the clutches of Eclipso. These days that job would go exclusively to Batman, because... well, Batman.

It might be interesting to note that Blue Beetle wasn't with the rest of the Justice League for this mission (he had gone missing in the JLA Annual the previous month). That is consistent with the approach to the character taken by the current Blue Beetle series.

According to writer Kieth Giffen in an interview with Vaneta Rogers for Newsarama.com, the modern "rebirth" incarnation of Ted Kord was never a member of any Justice League. But Giffen also says that the events of Justice League 3000 are in Blue Beetle's future. JL3k was openly stated to take place in the same continuity as the original Justice League International stories. So . . . I have no idea what all that means for the current status of Blue and Gold.

Congratulations, DC. I'm not even trying to make sense of your continuity anymore.

Comments (7) | Add a Comment | Tags: action comics batman blue beetle eclipso justice league international keith giffen newsarama.com superman vaneta rogers

Outside of time-travel shenanigans in the Stone Age, Booster Gold hasn't been seen interacting with DCnU continuity since Bat-Mite #4, released on September 2, 2015!

This prolonged absence has begun to make many Booster boosters wonder whether our hero might be playing some behind-the-scenes role in the universe-merging, timeline-shattering events of "Rebirth."

At Newsarama, Vaneta Rogers has done a little speculating of her own.

However, as we pointed out in our story exploring the possible new history of the Justice League International, there's one character who's aware of the universe before Flashpoint universe that's conspicuously missing from the "Rebirth" investigation and developments: Booster Gold.

It's possible that Booster and his JLI teammates have just been overlooked in all the "classic" returns in DC's "Rebirth" titles.

Yet there's another possibility - that Booster is actually part of the "Rebirth" mysteries but just hasn't been revealed yet.

Is it possible? Sure, anything is possible in comic books. Do I think it's likely? No. But it sure would be a fun twist, don't you think?

You can read the rest of Rogers' theory at Newsarma.com.

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: newsarama.com rebirth vaneta rogers