In Justice League International #16, a crack team goes undercover on a mission of international espionage.

Maybe "crack team" is a bit of an overstatement, especially when Booster Gold and Blue Beetle are involved.

Page 6 is chock full of references to classic movies in television. Peter Lupus was a bodybuilder and actor in the original Mission: Impossible television series. And Beetle has assumed the identity of George Bailey, famous worldwide as the protagonist character from the classic film It's a Wonderful Life.

Interestingly, Beetle looks less like Wonderful Life actor Jimmy Stewart and more like silent film comedy star Harold Lloyd. I don't think this is an accident.

This often-silly issue explicitly namechecks the comedy duo of Bud Abbot and Lou Costello, and unless I am very wrong, that's Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel (in a fez) watching Booster fumble the luggage in the fifth panel of page 6. Those two were experts in mishandling packages, as hilariously recorded in 1932's The Music Box.

Having Beetle dress as the clock-dangling star of 1923's Safety Last! is a nice nod to the silent era of Hal Roach Studios comedies as much as it is to Clark Kent's famous glasses disguise... which Superman's creators Jerry Siegel and Joel Shuster modeled on Harold Lloyd. That's a full circle disguise!

Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: blue beetle cbr.com favorite pages harold lloyd

Ok, look, you know that even when I'm desperate for new blog topics because Booster Gold didn't appear in any new comics, I still try really, really hard not to re-post clickbait Internet listicles, but CBR has a new one titled "Every Version Of Booster Gold, Ranked."

Despite that title, it's hardly a ranking of every incarnation of Booster Gold (no Justice League Action, for example), and it's not even a ranking of every incarnation of Booster Gold in comics. (What, no evil future Booster Gold from Justice League America Annual #10 or evil barista Booster Gold from JLA Classified #8? Bah!)

And if you're listing Booster Golds, you do your audience a disservice not to mention that Dan Jurgens has been the creative force behind most of them (and Giffen/DeMatteis most of the rest). Give his creators some love!

But I can't really be mad about a "best" Booster Gold countdown that puts "1980s Booster Gold" from Booster Gold #1 in its top spot. He's my favorite, too. And the more people who learn about him, the better.

And if anyone really wants to know more about the various adventures of different incarnations of Booster Gold, I might know a website they can visit....

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: cbr.com listicles

As you may have seen on the usual comic news sites like CBR.com, the complete Warner Bros. animated feature film Scooby-Doo! and Krypto, Too!, featuring a crossover between Hanna-Barbara's canine crime-solver and the Justice League, was leaked to the Internet this past weekend.

The leak is an undisputed fact. (I've seen the file. More on that in a minute.) What's not clear to me — or apparently to anyone else — is the motivation behind the leak.

These are other undisputed facts: Warner Bros. cancelled Scoob! Holiday Haunt¹ and Scooby Doo! and the Haunted High Rise² late last year as part of their tax write-down strategy. Last week, they also cancelled a third project, Scooby-Doo! and the Mystery Pups³.

But so far as I can tell, no one officially connected to Scooby-Doo! and Krypto, Too!, either at Warner Bros. or production company Digital eMation, has said anything publicly about whether or not Krypto, Too! has actually been cancelled. That's what CBR and almost every other website reporting on this story has said, but not a single one of those reports provides a single source confirming the cancellation. I think that's weird. (For the record, I also think it's bad journalism, but we seem to be losing that fight on a daily basis.)

Frankly, I can think of a lot of reasons why the movie might have been leaked, especially in light of WB's recent instability. I'm not yet convinced that the movie won't one day be released through official channels. For example, the film has a 2023 copyright date in its credits, and there's still listing on Amazon UK for a September 25, 2023, PAL DVD release.

I'm holding out hope for a public release because, as Booster booster Koby first notified me, Skeets is in the movie! As I said above, I've seen enough to confirm that DC's Number 1 Robot Sidekick appears in the background inside the Hall of Justice Trophy Room, right beside a model of the Blue Beetle's Bug. It's a pretty cool Easter egg. Maybe one day, everyone can enjoy it.

[Sources: ¹ gamerant.com, ² comicbook.com, ³ tvseriesfinale.com. See, that's not so hard.]

UPDATE 2024: Rob Snow lets me know that the movie is now available on Max, so here's a legal screenshot:

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: amazon.com cbr.com comicbook.com gamerant.com koby krypto rob snow scooby-doo skeets tvseriesfinale.com

I spotted an unexpected Booster Gold appearance in CBR.com's preview of this week's Dark Crisis: The Dark Army one-shot:

Just in case you don't have your magnifying glass handy, here's a closer look.

That's just the first of two pages in the preview with Booster in it! Could there be more? Only one way to find out.

Buy this comic and make Skeets happy.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: cbr.com dark crisis new releases previews robin

I love praise, and I also love seeing Booster Gold in comics. So I especially love this message I got last week from Rasalonn:

Hi. Love the blog. In the new Catwoman book, Zatanna is shown working at a casino. And there is a single image of the casino and it has to be owned by Booster Gold . Does that count? Even if it's not him, it is a clear reference to him.

The book Rasalonn is talking about is Catwoman: Lonely City #4, which takes place ten years after the death of Batman. Pictured on page 4 of that issue is this sequence:

written, drawn, colored by Cliff Chiang

So is that "Gold's" casino a reference to former gambler Booster Gold? I don't know. The last time we saw a Las Vegas casino of the future (in 2019's Old Lady Harley #3), the Booster Gold connection was more clear.

Lonely City gives us no more hints than what we see in those panels, but CBR.com certainly agrees with Rasalonn. Too bad issue #4 is the finale. I hope DC greenlights a sequel just so we can find out for sure.

Thank you, Rasalonn, for bringing this to our attention.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: casinos catwoman cbr.com cliff chiang las vegas lonely city rasalonn zatanna