By my count, Booster Gold has appeared in over 770 comics. That's a lot of pages!

I think it'll be fun — and maybe even enlightening — to give them another look, one page per book, in chronological order of publication, in a new series I'm calling:

There's no better place to start than where it all started, on the first page of Booster Gold volume 1, number 1, released on October 29, 1985.

You might be surprised that I chose as my favorite page from his first appearance one that has so little actual Booster Gold in it. What can I say? I'm a sucker for metatextuality in fiction.

From the moment I picked this issue out of a convenience store magazine rack in early 1986, I've always loved that the first Booster Gold comic book opens on the idea of a Booster Gold comic book, specifically a comic book that publisher Skip Blaze hopes will save his entire company. Though I didn't realize it at the time, that's an especially bold start for a character designed to break the mold of what DC Comics was known for producing.

Fortunately for Booster boosters everywhere, Skip Andrews' (and Dan Jurgens') big gamble in 1985 sure has paid off.

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On the very first panel of the very first page of the very first Booster Gold comic, readers were introduced to Blaze Comics. "BC" would go on to produce the Booster Gold comic within the DC Universe, making Booster Gold a comic book character who appeared as a comic book character in a comic book.

Before Booster Gold, the most famous story to include a comic-within-a-comic must "Flash of Two Worlds" (The Flash #123, 1961). That story introduced the multiverse to readers of DC Comics when Barry Allen of Earth-1 read comics about the adventures of his predecessor Jay Garrick of Earth-2.

Because Booster Gold debuted after the multiverse-killing Crisis on Infinite Earths, his comic-within-a-comic must be about his own adventures. If you think about it, this sets up a meta-textural Droste effect, an infinite recursion of Booster Gold comic books including Booster Gold comic books.

(Could Grant Morrison have been inspired by this concept? His Animal Man stories in which superhero Buddy Baker learned he was a comic character wouldn't be published until several years later.)

What was Dan Jurgens thinking by starting his new comic with the story of the creation of a comic? Was Jurgens revealing the true, behind-the-scenes story of the creation of Booster Gold volume 1? To find out, I asked him.

I took that approach because I thought it was something readers might genuinely enjoy. There was something fun about the idea of a comic within a comic.

In retrospect, I kind of wish I had taken a couple of issues to actually build up to it.

Jurgens must have done something right. Blaze Comics has gone on to appear in both video games and movies in the years since its debut.

I also asked Jurgens whether Blaze editor Skip Andrews or artists Benny and Marty were intended to be representative of any particular real-world people. Benny and Marty evoke referenes to Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, creators of the bestselling Teen Titans comics. Did Wolfman and Pérez ever return the favor and put Jurgens in one of their comics?

I wouldn't go that far with Benny and Marty, though there may be a hint of truth to it. In a way, they were based more on the idea of team books and their creative teams of that era.

Skip Andrews was more of an amalgam, based on several editors I knew at the time.

As for any Dan Jurgens doppelgänger, that's a story still waiting to be told!

I'm sure I'm not the only one who looks forward to reading that story.

Thanks to Dan Jurgens for putting pencil to paper and giving us such great comics.

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Maybe you've heard that the newest Batman video game, Batman Arkham Knight, has had a rough launch. Chock full of bugs, it is reportedly all but unplayable on PCs and can lock-up PS4s.

The game doesn't get everything wrong, though:

That screenshot, taken from the 11:24 minute mark of the Youtube video "Batman Arkham Knight - Justice League Easter Eggs" by Scerebro, shows that (a picture of) Booster Gold is in the game. If you look close, you'll see Skeets is there, too!

I should also mention that Blaze Comics signs can be seen throughout the city:

via "BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT-Blaze Comics Easter Egg" by Jamie Styles on youtube.com

Now we have a reason to play. Assuming we could get our hands on a playable version.

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No, Booster Gold does not appear in Batman: Arkham Origins. What does appear in Batman: Arkham Origins, according to ComicBookCast on YouTube.com, is a reference to Blaze Comics, the fictional publishing house of Booster's DCU comic book.

Screencap of Batman Arkham Origins via Barry Allentheslowestmanalive

Batman: Arkham Origins was released two weeks ago. If you haven't picked it up yet, maybe this will be the incentive you need to do so.

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If you haven't heard the news yet, Scott Johnson over at ComicBook.com has found an Easter Egg in the latest Man of Steel trailer. As you might have guessed from seeing it referenced here, it's Booster Gold related.

At the two minute and twenty-seven second mark in the third Man Of Steel trailer, Superman and General Zod are shown flying directly at each other with the Metropolis skyline in the background.

In the Metropolis skyline, there is a building with a blurry yellow and white neon sign. Comicbook.com blew up a hi-res version of the image, and the blurry yellow and white sign is actually for "Blaze Comics." In DC Comics, Blaze Comics is the comic book publisher that publishes the Booster Gold comic book series.

Johnson goes on to speculate about what this news might mean and why Blaze Comics was chosen for inclusion. I'm just happy that Booster has found a way to crash Superman's movie.

Elsewhere on the Internet, Geoff Johns told Steve "Frosty" Weintraub at Collider.com that the Booster Gold television project isn't officially dead yet.

Booster Gold TV series: still in development, Andrew Kreisberg is working on it right now.

"Still in development" isn't really revealing very much, but at least it's better than "not still in development!" Is the show headed somewhere other than SyFy, which didn't even mention it in their 2014 upfronts last month? Skeets' fins are crossed that the show comes to TV sooner rather than later!

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