Booster Gold

Cover Description: There are two covers to this issue: on the common cover drawn by Dan Jurgens, Booster Gold holds the power battery of the Green Lantern Sinestro as Sinestro recites his oath to the Green Lantern Corps and recharges his power ring. On the alternate cover by Art Adams, Booster is being attacked by Sinestro.

Brief Synopsis: Booster Gold begins his newest job as a policeman of time by interceding in Sinestro's first visit to Earth.

Booster Gold's role in this story:
Featured (Booster Gold plays a prominent role)

Costume Worn: MARK I.v2 power-suit

Issue Notes: Booster's comment on the cover of this issue, "Oh, boy!", is likely an allusion to the catch phrase of the time traveling main character of the television show Quantum Leap. The premise of Quantum Leap, a man traveling through time to "put things right that once went wrong," is thematically similar to Booster Gold's new objectives. This issue also has a variant cover by Art Adams that was published at a 1:10 ratio with the standard cover.

This story has been reprinted in:
Booster Gold: The Complete 2007 Series Book One (2024)
Booster Gold: 52 Pick-Up (2008)

Page 2, panel 1
As Booster Gold, Skeets, and Rip Hunter travel through time in Hunter's Time Sphere, they pass rips in time showing historical events in the DC Universe. From left to right, these include Black Lightning fighting his arch-villain, Tobias Whale; the New Titans (including Deathstroke, Nightwing, Pantha, Phantasm, Red Star) confront their rebuilt comrade Cyborg, and Aztek with his first foe Bloodtype.

Page 4, panel 2
Hunter and Gold use Professor T. O. Morrow's "Time Screens" to view the past events of Guy Gardner's life. The villainous Morrow, who met Booster and Hunter at the conclusion to the events of 52, invented television screens that would allow him to monitor broadcast images from the future. Apparently, Hunter has adjusted them to view the past as well.

Page 8, panel 1
Guy Gardner, a graduate of the University of Michigan, holds a ticket to a Rose Bowl game featuring the University of Michigan (Wolverines) and University of Washington (Huskies) football teams. These two teams have played one another in the early January college football bowl game in 1978, 1981, 1992, 1993. It is unclear which year this takes place.

Page 10, panel 1
Booster's flying tackle of the Green Lantern Sinestro is the first meeting between the two. Fittingly, in Booster's years of fighting super-villains, Booster has never come face-to-face with the villain Sinestro. Instead, Booster's first confrontation with Sinestro is a battle between the two while Sinestro is still technically on the side of angels in the days before he was expelled from the Green Lantern Corps for his abuses of power.

Page 11, panel 3
If Sinestro's Green Lantern ring is vulnerable to the color yellow as Skeets will claim on the following page, how does it cut through a yellow goalpost? (Some college football stadiums have white goalposts, but the Rose Bowl had yellow uprights in 1978, 1981, 1992, and 1993.)

Page 12, panel 1
Skeet's quip, "No man escapes me," is a paraphrase of the motto of the Manhunters, foes to the Green Lantern Corps. During the "Millennium" event, Booster joined the Manhunters in Booster Gold Volume 1 #24.

Page 13, panel 1
As Rip Hunter goes "time diving," the reader sees Team 13 (from left to right: Traci Thirteen, Lord Andrew Bennett, Infectious Lass, Doctor Thirteen, Anthro, Genius Jones) griping about "popular fellows" like Booster Gold and Klarion the Witch Boy. This is a joke about the relative popularity of B-list heroes compared to the truly obscure members of Team 13. Anthro laments not having a jacket like JSA member Mister Terrific. This joke will be revisited in Booster Gold, Volume 2, #8 (noted by Morgenstern).

Page 16, panel 3
SPOILER WARNING!: As part of Booster's attempt to placate Sinestro, he inadvertently refers to the Sinestro Corps. The Sinestro Corps was formed following the events of 52 and has been a major threat to the Green Lantern Corps. Was Booster Gold perhaps Sinestro's inspiration for his deadly Corps? Reveal

Page 17, panel 5
As Booster Gold and Guy Gardner meet for the first time (from Gardner's chronological point of view), a television in the background shows Superman in action. Even in recent revisions to the DC Universe's timeline, Superman was an active adventurer for several years before Guy Gardner became a Green Lantern.

Page 19, panel 4
HIS STORY: Booster confirms that his father was "a crook" and a gambler. Booster has very rarely spoken of his father.

Page 20, panel 8
Booster Gold and Skeets encounter Supernova III. As seen last issue, the Supernova costume was stolen from Booster's ancestor Daniel Carter, and now appears to be in the hands of someone who is using it to manipulate history.