Today Judd Winick is 50 years old, and he has spent many of those years creating comic books. (Technically, he's spent most of the past decade creating best-selling Hilo graphic novels for middle schoolers, but c'mon. We all know graphic novels are just longform comic books.)

Though Winnick has rarely worked on stories involving Booster Gold, there is one notable exception:

Justice League: Generation Lost is the story of former Justice League International members efforts to bring their former mentor, Maxwell Lord, to justice for his subsequent crimes against humanity.

The series began in 2010 and for the most part took into account nearly two decades worth of shared-universe heroic adventures. To Winick's credit, if you'd never read a single issue of Giffen and DeMatteis's Justice League International or Johns' Countdown to Infinite Crisis and Blackest Night, I'm sure you can still enjoy Justice League: Generation Lost. It's as much a traditional superheroic action/adventure story as it is a revenge story.

And for Booster Gold, it was very, very personal.

art by Keith Giffen, Aaron Lopresti, Matt Ryan, Hi-Fi, Sal Cipriano

In fact, Booster's key role in this story is a huge part of why I included the series in my 2020 list of the 12 Best Booster Gold stories ever.

Unfortunately, the story's impact was promptly devalued as the established DCU was discarded for the New 52. That means there are a decade's worth of new DC readers who are unlikely to be familiar with this great tale, which is a real shame.

As a birthday present to Mr. Winick, how about re-reading this great series. Better still, recommend it to someone you think would like it. It'll be like Winick gave *them* a present for *his* birthday.

Comments (3) | Add a Comment | Tags: aaron lopresti generation lost judd winick justice league international

In 2011, before DC Comics decided that all of their comics had to take place in the darkest possible timeline, they ironically published two surprisingly optimistic series under the "Brightest Day" banner. One of those, Justice League: Generation Lost, should rightly be considered among the best Booster Gold adventures ever told, in no small part because it builds towards an inevitable (and incredibly satisfying) confrontation between Booster and Maxwell Lord, his former employer and the murderer of his best friend.

And that's why Justice League: Generation Lost #23 is number 11 on my list of the twelve best Booster Gold comics.

The dirty little secret about my list is that Justice League: Generation Lost #23 is *not* better than Justice League: Generation Lost #24. Number 24 just happens to be the final issue of the series, and I don't think anyone should begin reading a good story at the final page.

The entire series, all written by Judd Winick, reads like a water slide: once you enter the tube, you only pick up speed as you head to the big splash ending. (There are a few bumps along the way, such as Ice's entirely unnecessary origin retcon, but what's a water slide that doesn't give you a few bruises?)

So do yourself a favor and go read all twenty-four issues of Justice League: Generation Lost and enjoy the challenge of picking the one issue *you* think is most deserving of being included among the twelve best Booster Gold comics.

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: best of generation lost judd winick maxwell lord

Many, many of you seem very excited about this Cable vs Booster Gold DEATH BATTLE!, so let's just go ahead and watch it, shall we? (The really good stuff starts at about 13:20, just after the Blue Apron ad.)

Hmmm. Let's see. Booster Gold's force field is strong enough to stop Superman, so yeah, it'd stop whatever Cable could throw at it. But mind control? I'm not sure that scans.

Booster Gold traditionally has a real problem with mind control. See: Justice League Annual #1, Justice League #6, Justice League International #17, Eclipso: The Darkness Within #2, Justice League America #59, Time Masters: Vanishing Point #4, Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen, to name a few examples to the contrary.

For the record, despite what the video says, it wasn't Booster's force field that saved his memories in Justice League: Generation Lost. Booster himself assumes in issue #2 that the four members of the JLI that were unaffected by Max Lord's re-writing of history were saved by the mechanics of Lord's broadcast (much in the same way that radio waves directed outward from radio antennas fail to send a signal to the base of the tower). Then Lord seems to say in issue #5 that he left them their memories on purpose. Either way, the force field deserves no credit.

But why let a few technicalities distract from a fun time, eh?

(I *really* should keep my mouth shut here. Death Battle has 4.5 million subscribers, which makes it very likely that more people will see Booster Gold for the first time in this YouTube video than any other singe occasion in the character's history. For comparison, the Smallville episode "Booster" — broadcast on this day in 2011 — was watched by a mere 2.3 million people. Death Battle for the win!)

Thanks to all who sent me the link.

Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: cable death battle generation lost history justice league smallville youtube.com

On this day seven years ago, DC released Justice League: Generation Lost #1. It was a good story, proving that the "Bwah-Ha-Ha" era Justice League was more than just a bunch of clowns. They were a family who, even when the chips were down, always got the job done. (Eventually.)

The ending of this popular, year-long series promised us a new Justice League International only to see the events of "Flashpoint" erase this story from history one month later. (I still haven't forgiven Barry Allen.) The Justice League International of the New 52 technically fulfilled that promise, but that team had nothing to do with the one, true JLI.

Oh, well. We still have our back issues.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: generation lost justice league international

A few weeks back, Booster booster Eyzmaster and Waezi2 got together over at Comics In 5 Panels to discuss Justice League : Generation Lost. The premise of the site is to use 5 panels to recap a single series, but it's impossible to talk about the impact of Generation Lost without mentioning the New 52.

Waezi2: Even weirder is that despite Booster Gold being pretty popular the last couple of years before the Nu52, Johns made him... disappear. LITERATELY!

Granted, JLI was apparently not a big success, and Johns has a reputation for using C-List characters as canon-fodder to make them seem important, but when Frankenstein was cancelled, he was at least made part of Justice League Dark(can you believe how cheap DC is today?). So that's actually n52 in a nutshell: "Hey, kids! Sorry that you will never read about Booster Gold again, but it was SO important to make it clear how BIG an impact Superman and Wonder Woman making out has."

Bottom-line: third-stringers has no place in n52.

You can find the whole article at comicsin5panels.blogspot.dk.

Comments (5) | Add a Comment | Tags: cancellation comicsin5panels.blogspot.dk eyzmaster generation lost justice league reboot waezi2