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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In my ongoing efforts to make Boosterrific.com the best blog it can be, I find it useful to look back at which posts over the previous year made the biggest splashes with readers. Here, in descending order, are the 5 most read blog posts of 2019:

5. Friday, May 3: No Laughing Matter
In which we wonder if Booster Gold might play a role in the "Batman Who Laughs" story in coming issues of Batman/Superman. We now know the answer: he doesn't.

4. Monday, August 19: New Heroes of the Millennium
In which we get a good look at Bryan Hitch and Alex Sinclair's combined covers for Legion of Super-Heroes: Millennium. Booster Gold, front and center!

3. Monday, April 29: Statler and Waldorf in Blue and Gold
In which I shared fan art by Neil R. King of the two best Muppets cosplaying as Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. That's not something you see every day. (Thank goodness!)

2. Monday, December 16: Why Don't They Just Get Married Already
In which we learn that Booster Gold will be returning to the pages of Harley Quinn in March 2020. People just love that Harley Quinn.

1. Monday, March 25: Was DC Looking to Boostle?
In which we learn that Check Please! creator Ngozi Ukazu came surprisingly close to working on a Blue+Gold Boostle comic for DC. We got Heroes in Crisis instead.

See you in 2020.

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Legion of Super-Heroes: Millennium #2 is in stores today. Not only is Booster Gold in the book, he's on the cover!

This is the second half of the Bryan Hitch diptych. The first half was on issue #1 last month, but Booster Gold isn't on (or in) that one. You can see what the two of them look like when put together here.

If for some reason you need more incentive to pick this one up — I mean, hey, you're already visiting a Booster Gold fan site — ComicsBeat.com has a preview of the issue's entire Booster Gold chapter. Yes, the entire chapter. And it looks great.

words by Brian Micheal Bendis, art by Nicola Scott'

Okay, I admit. If you like Booster Gold but you don't want to participate in *another* Legion of Super-Heroes reboot, ComicsBeat has taken away your reason to buy. But you'd like to see more Booster Gold comics, right? So you're going to pick this up anyway to send a message to DC, right? Right?

Buy this issue and make Skeets happy.

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SPOILER WARNING: Today's topic could be considered a spoiler for Legion of Super-Heroes: Millennium #1, so scroll no further if you want to be surprised.

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Still here?

Okay. Let's continue.

Brian Michael Bendis has been very careful to disguise the identity of his series protagonist, a character familiar to longtime DC Comics enthusiasts. However, I don't think I'm giving much away to say that character is the split personality anti-hero(s) Rose and Thorn, who has somehow gained immortality and is left wandering through the "future" timeline of DC mainstream continuity on her way of reintroducing the Legion of Super-Heroes to a new generation of readers.

I think that's a pretty cool way to immerse an audience into the deep-end of continuity, in no small part because Rose/Thorn played the same role for Booster Gold back in 1986.

In 2015, I asked Dan Jurgens why he chose to use Rose in his original Booster Gold series. He said

First of all, I found her to be an amazingly interesting character.

Plus, since [Rose and Thorn] hadn't appeared in such a long time, it was fairly easy to adjust the character a bit. Tweak the costume, etc. Tailor it to Booster a bit more, that kind of thing.

As you can see, Bendis is taking a page from Jurgens' playbook here. We're not mad; Bendis is including Booster Gold in the next issue to re-encounter his old partner. Although Booster will be younger and Rose will be much, much older than their last meeting. Such are the pitfalls of time travel.

You'll find Legion of Super-Heroes: Millennium #2 in your Local Comic Shop on October 2.

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