At the risk of turning Boosterrific into a blog of apparently random, marginally Booster Gold-adjacent comic book panels, here's another one. The twist is that this one, although published in January 1988, is brand new to Boosterrific!

Presenting Firestorm, the Nuclear Man #71, page 10:

I had somehow previously overlooked this page until FZ called my attention to it in a recent email.

I say "somehow," but I'm not too broken up about it. Nineteen eighty-eight was Pre-Internet, and back in the day the only way to be sure who was in what comic book was to read them all yourself, which I did not. Disclaimer: I still don't. That's why I need other people to keep me informed when they spot Booster Gold somewhere out of the ordinary... like in a background panel of an incomprehensible Firestorm comic book.

Thanks, FZ! Keep up the good work (by which I mean read more comics)!

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One of the casualties of the 1992 "Death of Superman" story, other than Superman, was Booster Gold's original costume. Destroyed by Doomsday, Booster's power-suit was soon replaced by a series of ungainly, lesser armors which became mandatory when Booster lost his arm in a battle with Devastator.

Booster was understandably bummed by the tech downgrade. You would be too, if you had to wear this:

Words by Ivan Velez Jr., Art by Rio, Branch, Burton, Leigh, and Loughridge

(Imagine being forced to use an iPhone 2 now that you're used to your iPhone 8. *shudder*)

Fortunately for our hero, his best pal, Ted Kord, worked diligently at developing better and better suits of armor. The best armor Ted would ever devise debuted on this day in 1995 in the pages of Extreme Justice #10:

Kord's "Mark X" armor was based on a pre-existing alien technology stolen by the Wonder Twins. When Ted reverse-engineered it for Booster's use, he incorporated Skeets' AI for its onboard operating system.

Though the suit made its first appearance in Extreme Justice #10, Booster wouldn't actually put it on until after his arm was replaced with cybernetics courtesy of the villainous Monarch in Extreme Justice #14. (It's a long story.) He also wouldn't wear it for very long. It was destroyed a year later.

And I think we're all okay with that.

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If you missed them the first time around, Booster Gold and the now-defunct Justice League International's appearances in The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men issues #9 and #10 will be collected in today's The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men Volume 2: The Firestorm Protocols.

To be clear, The Firestorm Protocols collects issues #7 through #12 and #0 of the series and contains none of Dan Jurgens' work on the title. This volume represents the second half of Ethan Van Sciver's year on the series. Van Sciver's art was well received, but his story not so much.

Come to think of it, it has been about a year since these issues were published, and already Jurgens' New 52 reinterpretation of the JLI and Van Sciver's New 52 reinterpretation Firestorm have already been largely forgotten. Firestorm looks and acts much like his pre-Flashpoint self as a member of the Justice League, and Booster is rumored to be returning to his own title again.

It's beginning to feel like old times again at DC!

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If we want to see Booster Gold in comics again, it would be in our best interest to support the work of Booster's creator and biggest champion, the writer who has scripted more Booster Gold adventures than anyone else, Dan Jurgens. After all, who else can get away with answering Twitter calls for more Booster Gold with a "Bwah-ha-ha?"

DC may have taken Justice League International away from him, but Jurgens landed on his feet with The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Man. Firestorm fans, like the Irredeemable Shag! over at FirestormFan.com, seem quite pleased that Jurgens has jettisoned much of the New 52 re-interpretation of the character to draw Firestorm closer to his pre-Flashpoint roots.

If you're a fan of Jurgens or Firestorm -- or if you just want to keep Jurgens employed until he can tell us who the Black Beetle is -- consider picking up The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Man at your Local Comic Shop today.

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Why was Justice League International volume 3 cancelled? Probably because by issue 12 it was selling about as well as Booster Gold volume 2 was selling at issue 47.

If Booster can do as well alone, why stick him with a bunch of dead weight like Guy Gardner and Batman? (Note that while our old pal Shag at FirestormFan.com will attribute the sales bump beginning at issue 9 to an appearance by Firestorm, but it's really do to a change in DC's return policy.)

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