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Boosterrific.com: The Complete, Annotated Adventures of Booster Gold
Boosterrific.com: The Complete, Annotated Adventures of Booster Gold

It has been 135 Days since Booster Gold last appeared in an in-continuity DCU comic book.

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Wednesday, February 12, 2025

This Day in History: Clarrrrrk Kennnnnnnt

On this date in 2020, in the pages of Superman: Heroes #1, Booster Gold was among the first to tell the world that Superman had always secretly been...

© DC Comics

Everyone in the DCU would know that Superman was Clark Kent for almost two full years... until Lex Luthor and Manchester Black forced most to forget that fact in Action Comics #1050. In that issue, Batman makes it clear that "the Justice League, reservists, and the Titans all have psychic defenses set up by Martian Manhunter," so we can be sure that Booster Gold still remembers.

The real question is how he knew something that everyone would forget.

The answer to that, I think, is that the psychic suggestion that forced this forgetfulness influences living minds to ignore any evidence to the contrary that Superman and Clark Kent are the same person, but it does not actually erase that evidence. Considering how widespread the psychic suggestion is, it is probable everyone just stopped talking about it.

Therefore, the historians of the 25th century, unaffected directly by the psychic effect, will learn from primary sources exactly when Superman revealed his identity, and a young Michael "Booster" Carter will be taught exactly when Superman revealed his secret identity without realizing that the information was ever again restricted.

See? No retcon is necessary. There's nothing to see here. Move along.

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: history retcons superman

Monday, February 10, 2025

Art Dump

Start your week with Booster Gold fan art!

First up is this image drawn by Jose Holder, a professional concept artist for Warner Bros Games. I know it says "TikTok," but clicking on the image will actually take you to the "making of" video on Instagram.com.

Booster Gold by Jose Holder via Instragram.com

Second is this Justice League International vs X-Men re-imagining of Jim Lee's 1991 X-Men #3 cover by professional comic artist Kevin Maguire (drawn as a commission for Megacon, spotted on X.com by Rob Snow):

X-Men 3 by Kevin Maguire via X.com

Third, because I don't want anyone to think that Booster Gold should only be drawn by pros, here's a pic of Booster (and Skeets!) by artist jaywani (whose work I have posted before) found on DeviantArt.com:

Booster Gold by jawyani via deviantart.com

Keep drawing, everybody!

Comments (4) | Add a Comment | Tags: commissions conventions deviantart.com fan art instagram.com jaywani joseholder kevin maguire megacon rob snow x.com

Friday, February 7, 2025

A Respectful Difference of Opinion

I'm firmly on record supporting the official DC Comics position that Booster Gold and Blue Beetle are platonic friends. My mind hasn't changed. But I cannot deny that a large and vocal potion of the Booster Gold fanbase would very much like to see the two friends establish a romantic relationship. As we are one week away from Valentine's Day, now seems like a good time to give that perspective its due consideration.

Recently, on an old Boosterrific post about how the television show Teen Titans Go! has leaned into the Boostle, SLW posted a (very long) comment that I think made a pretty good case for a non-traditional interpretation of Booster's romantic preferences beyond simple, prurient wish-fulfillment fantasies. Therefore, with SLW's permission, I'm reposting much of it here (edited for clarity and conciseness):

I've been reading DC for decades now myself and Booster and the JLI cast for just as long, and Booster has never come across as straight to me. He's only had one canon [heterosexual] relationship (Firehawk), one that was retconned (Gladys), one that's speculated—not actually canon yet—for the future (probably Terri). And that's it, in forty years. A handful of dates. He's pretty inept at flirting past his first solo and at least half the time he tries, it comes across as awkward and a little desperate. ... He gets regularly sexually harassed by female villains and doesn't like it, which I find it easy to sympathize with, albeit from the angle of being a woman who's been harassed by men before.

But anyway, to me, he acts about like how a kid who got dropped into the 80s during the height of the AIDS panic and rampant homophobia and the wholesale death of gay men might, especially if he were queer himself. I'd probably try to straight-wash myself, too, in his boots. (... I do remember being in high school when a boy was murdered for being queer by being tortured and left tied to a fence to die[1], though. It was that kind of world back then for people like us. In some places, it still is.)

Still, where Booster fails at any hetero romance (oh god does he), he's so devoted to Ted that a big part of his second solo was dedicated to him either trying to save the man or actively *mourning* him. It's heartbreaking and amazing and really actually quite good stuff, from a literary POV. Whether DC meant it or not, somehow they managed to write one of the greatest love stories I've ever seen in a comic.... And not just a great queer love story, it's a great love story period. A person can make a credible argument for it being a one-sided—romantic and therefore non-platonic—love, but it's pretty hard to argue it's not a very intense one regardless.

You and I both love the same guy and have loved him a hell of a long time. And like, seriously, I think Booster has one of the most interesting and deep character arcs of any canon comics character: From growing up in deep poverty ... and all that does to a person for the rest of their life (they've done studies on this)—including inclining them to take serious risks they might not otherwise—to the various reads one can make on his given backstory evolving (I personally think the first several times he told it or sanctioned Skeets to were so brutally self-punishing because he'd rather have been castigated than vulnerable, this kid who doesn't tell anyone his given name for something like a whole year after landing), to how he both rises and falls (to the point of homelessness in Countdown), to what he's willing to sacrifice for the sake of love, whatever color you want to color it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: This is another read on him. And I think also a very valid one. He's one hell of an amazing character, I wish DC had handled him half as well post-Flashpoint as they did pre-Flashpoint, and I don't think a queer reading of him detracts anything from how amazing he is. If anything, I think it makes the older stuff several shades deeper, and I think if they decided to write him as explicitly queer now, not too many people would actually be all that surprised. With or without Ted. ...

As you can see, with each of us colored by our own personal experiences and expectations, SLW and I have different perspectives on Booster Gold's inner thoughts and desires. And whether I agree with that take or not, it's a good reminder that there are multiple legitimate interpretations of Booster's in-universe social behaviors and motivations.

Fandom is a big tent with room enough for everyone to find their own reasons to appreciate the characters they identify with. There are no wrong takes in head canon. So long as both of us draw our interpretations of Booster Gold from the stories depicted in comic books published by DC Comics, I'm perfectly willing to agree to disagree, at least until such time as Booster Gold is seen in an explicitly romantic relationship.

[1] SLW and I must be pretty close to the same age. Though we come from different parts of the country, I also remember the unsettling, widespread reporting about Matthew Shepard, whose death eventually led to revisions of US federal hate crime laws.

Comments (18) | Add a Comment | Tags: boostle slw


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SPOILER WARNING: The content at Boosterrific.com may contain story spoilers for DC Comics publications.