San Diego Comic Con was this past weekend, and it would have been the perfect time for DC Comics to leverage Booster Gold's recent starring role in Heroes in Crisis into some new material. So what, if anything, did we learn about Booster Gold this year? Not much.

Let us count the ways.

1. Tom King continues to miss the point of how bad Heroes in Crisis was.

At the show, Tom King was awarded the 2019 Best Writer Eisner Award for Batman, Mister Miracle, Heroes in Crisis, Swamp Thing Winter Special. Congratulations to him. As much as I complain about his writing, he seems like a decent guy. But please, Tom, never write Booster Gold again, especially since you don't seem to understand (or maybe, to accept) the weaknesses in your stories as published.

Per Newsarama.com's coverage of the Tom King panel:

"I loved [HiC]," said King. "I think killing Wally was a tough pill for people to swallow." ... King says Wally did not actually murder anyone, and to him, Wally is the hero of Heroes In Crisis.

I really don't mean to rip the band-aid off the nightmare that was Heroes in Crisis (unquestionably the worst comic series I've read in the past 12 months), but if King is going to be rewarded for mischaracterization in pursuit of whatever it was he thinks he was doing in that story, I can't keep quiet.

Wally may not be a "villain" in a traditional comic-book-morality sense, but who tried to cover up an accident by framing other heroes? Who stole from his "friends"? Who took steps to reveal the secret identities of the Justice League to the public? Who was planning to commit murder of his future self? That would be the villain of the piece: Wally West.

The moral of Heroes in Crisis isn't that sometimes bad things happen to good people; it's.... Hell, I still don't know what the moral is, but I'm sure it isn't "if you're having a bad day, go ahead and frame your friends for murder."

Meanwhile, who was it that fought to find the truth despite a public manhunt against him? And who turned his friends for support when he needed help most? And who managed to avoid the worst possible outcome? That would be the hero of the story: Booster Gold.

Maybe the moral is that real heroes don't get the credit they deserve for their bravery, determination, and compassion. Yeah, maybe that's it.

2. Booster Gold will make at least a cameo appearance in Batman: Last Knight on Earth #2.

The Blot wasn't at Comic Con this year, but he did spot our hero in Twitter.com coverage of the DC Black Label panel featuring artwork for the coming book. See if you've got better eyes than The Blot. (I don't.)

That's kind of small. Here's the half with Booster.

Need a little more? Ok, here he is standing in front of... Evil Star, maybe?

You'll find Batman: Last Knight on Earth #2, with art by Greg Capullo, in your Local Comic Shop next week.

3. You can read all of Booster Gold volume 1 on the DC All Access mobile app.

Okay, fine. This wasn't actually announced at SDCC, but it should have been.

This news about the DC Comics All Access App actually came to my inbox this weekend by way of an update from Bob Rossetto, who originally alerted us to the app's Gold deficiency back in September 2018. I'm very pleased that DC has finally fixed that oversight and made Booster more widely available to new audiences. Hooray!

Thanks to Blot and Bob both.

Comments (6) | Add a Comment | Tags: 2019 batman blot bob rossetto comic-con conventions greg capullo heroes in crisis newsarama.com tom king twitter.com

DC Comics' solicitations for December don't give Booster Gold fans much to talk about. (Heroes in Crisis #4 is delayed to January, and The New Teen Titans Omnibus Volume 4 reprinting New Teen Titans #29 and #30 won't ship until May). But blogs abhor a news vacuum. Therefore, let's dig into the Boosterrific fan mailbag for a question very much related to yesterday's poll question.

On Monday, Bob dropped by to ask

Boosterrific-did you get DC all access? and if so what do you think of it? I got it and it only has 12 issues of Booster Gold's 45 issue second run. It has none of the first run. And none of Rip Hunters -Time Masters. I am curious to know your thoughts.

Hi, Bob! First of all, I have to admit that I'm not an early adopter. I'm also a cheapskate. Therefore, I like to hear from friends and critics if something is going to be worth $8 a month before I buy in to the DC Universe streaming service. I found Mike Sterling's review on ProgressiveRuin.com helpful, but I'm still waiting for a thumbs-up from a couple of my die-hard DC-fan friends before taking the plunge myself.

That said, it still might be a while before I check it out. I got the impression that the service wasn't going to give me much I hadn't already seen, and so far, it looks like I was right. Sure, I like Super-Friends and Batman TAS, but I don't feel the need to pay to watch them for the dozenth time.

The highlight for me would be access to comics I haven't read (and don't own), and I might be more interested in the service once a better selection of DC's back catalog of comics is online. I've read waaay too many comic books to need someone to "curate" my options for me. (By the way, Bob, anyone can currently buy and read Booster Gold volume 1 online at Comixology.com. Is Booster Gold not good enough for your streaming service, DC?)

In other words, I get the impression that the service isn't for me, at least not yet. But I'm willing to be patient about it. Good content isn't time-sensitive.

UPDATE 2018-09-19: Booster makes brief appearances (kind of) in today's Harley Quinn #50 and Mister Miracle #11.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: bob rossetto dcuniverse.com progressiveruin.com solicitations teen titans