I woke up yesterday to find this very important email from Marty:

Booster sighted in Superman's story in DC's Legion of Bloom anthology! He and Beetle seem to have summoned imp versions of themselves, making Superman's day just a little bit more annoying.

Sure enough, here's the panel:

Ooh, that's a good panel. Good enough to get me to buy a full book!

(Full disclosure: I was already going to buy the book because it has a Captain Carrot story in it. Although, come to think of it, I buy all the DC anthology books because I'm a sucker for short stories. So from that point of view, getting a bonus Booster Gold panel is icing on the cake. If anthology books were slot machines, I won!)

Obviously, Marty interprets "chibi" Blue and Gold to be 5th-dimensional imps. And it's certainly true that Mr. Mxyzptlk makes several appearances in Dave Weilgosz's (delightful) 10-page story Superman story.

However, I interpret these two as the Blue and Gold from Earth-42. The Li'l Justice League played a significant role in Grant Morrison's 2015 Multiplicity event, and they returned to action as recently as 2020's DC' Very Merry Multiverse. We've not seen the Booster Gold and Blue Beetle from that world before, but Booster is certainly capable of traveling through the Multiverse, so... why not now?

Whatever the case, thanks to Marty for being sure all Booster boosters can all enjoy the latest Blue and Gold (and Blue and Gold) hijinks!

Buy this issue and make Skeets happy! (Is there a chibi Skeets? There has to be, right?)

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Look! Booster Gold made a surprise appearance in this week's Justice League vs. The Legion of Super-Heroes #3:

It's only a cameo appearance, but if you buy this issue, it will make Skeets happy.

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Hey, DC, your website, dccomics.com/comics, is hard to use when I'm standing in my Local Comic Shop with my smart phone trying to figure out whether or not they should have received a particular new comic this week. Seems you might want to work on that.

For example, apparently you just released the trade collection Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 1: Millennium, reprinting Booster Gold's appearance in Legion of Super-Heroes: Millennium #2. That's great! It's a delightful Michael "Booster" Carter appearance written by Brian Michael Bendis and drawn by Nicola Scott.

SPOILER ALERT: He does.

Every Booster Gold fan would enjoy that!

Fortunately, I now have the opportunity to browse my Local Comic Shop on Tuesday and report on my latest misadventure the next day. That part of the new distribution scheme, that part I like.

So 2020 is not *all* bad.

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What makes a hero super? The super powers! From awesome strength to zero-to-sixty speed, great superpowers are the most useful tricks in every famous costumed crime-fighter's tool kit. Michael Jon Carter knew this, and that's why he started his career with a telepathically-controlled flight ring.

As a student of history, Michael "Booster" Carter modeled his superhero persona on Superman. In addition to strength, invulnerability, and long-range energy beams, he'd also need to be able to fly. To that end, he stole a Legion of Super-Heroes Flight Ring, created by Brainiac 5 in the pages of Adventure Comics #329 (1965).

In its original design, the ring was a simple metal band that provided a telepathically-controlled anti-gravity effect for those Legionnaires who could not fly under their own power. They soon became standard issue equipment for all Legionnaires. Even Superboy had one, though he rarely had need of it except in those few cases where he lost his powers, such as the time he visited Earth's past and found it lit by a red sun.

(If you squint at the panel above, you can see a flight ring there on Superboy's hand in this panel from Adventure Comics #133, also in 1965. This is the first time Superboy wore a Flight Ring.)

Brainiac 5 wasn't content with having a ring that only allowed flight. He eventually gave the ring other abilities, including sending emergency distress signals. He also improved its appeal by converting it to a gold signet-style ring showing a raised letter "L" in the center (first appearance in Adventure Comics #347). That's how the ring looked when it found its way into Booster Gold's arsenal in Booster Gold #1 (1985), and that's more or less how it looked when Booster Gold joined the Justice League in Justice League #4 (1987) and escaped from a Bialyan prison in Justice League International #17 (1988).

Booster's ring was originally depicted with a letter from the Roman alphabet. However, it sometimes was seen showing Interlac, the "inter-galactic universal language of the 30th century" which first appeared in Adventure Comics #379 (1969). By Booster Gold volume 2 #1 (2007), Booster's ring had changed to the stylized "L" on a black background that had been in use since Legion of Super-Heroes #41 (1993).

How could one ring alter its appearance so much? Well, the Legion of Super-Heroes have a tendency for getting involved in reality-warping time travel shenanigans. In fact, that's how a Legion of Super-Heroes ring from the 30th century ended up in the 25th-century Space Museum in the first place.

When Booster's debut in the 20th century drew the attention of the Legion of Super-Heroes, Brainiac 5 realized he had to leave his own flight ring in 1985 for Booster to be able to steal it in 2462 (as seen in Booster Gold #6). Therefore, the ring was available for Booster Gold to steal only because he had already stolen it. (It's best not to think too hard about that.)

If it sounds like Booster Gold creator Dan Jurgens was making things up as he went along, he was. His original plan, as revealed in Booster Gold: The Big Fall, was that instead of stealing Brainiac 5's ring from the Space Museum, Booster would have stolen Superboy's rarely used original ring from the Superman Museum!

That plan was scuttled by the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths, which erased Superboy's adventures from history. Thus the original origin of Booster Gold's flight ring became just one more casualty of the universe-destroying Anti-Monitor. What a jerk.

If you'd like to read about the origins of other powers in Booster Gold's arsenal, check out previous spotlight posts on his Force Field Belt and Booster Shots.

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You all know Cort, who has graciously shared his Booster Gold commissions with us. Well, Cort doesn't just get Booster Gold sketches from professionals. He also gets them from his friends. Check 'em out:

DNR_L (Twitter)

Laowrart (Twitter)

nerdmurder (Twitter)

mangonisium (Instagram)

Cort Carpenter (Twitter)

Thanks for sharing, Cort. You've got some pretty talented friends. (Dare I say they all look Boosterrific? I dare!)

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