Behind every great man there is a great woman. In Booster Gold's case, that woman was Trixie Collins.

Theresa "Trixie" Collins was a red-headed Kansas girl hired to be Booster's original secretary at Goldstar, Inc. She would later move up in the organization to be the first to wear the Goldstar sidekick costume. Like all good Girl Fridays, she was an incredibly competent, level-headed voice of reason in an otherwise insane work environment. And she was far too professional to fall for her boss.

It seemed there were sparks between the two, but the coming of Millennium seemed to destroy any hope readers had of seeing their relationship come to fruition. I've always wondered if Dan Jurgens felt love was in the cards for his creations. So I asked him.

In the beginning, I saw Booster as having two voices that would serve as his conscience. Skeets was one, serving as more of his guide through aspects of the era they were in and against villains. Trixie would function more as his conscience in terms of how he dealt with people. There was plenty of room for both.

And while I never intended that there would ever be a romantic relationship, I did see a place for deep, friendly affection between them.

No matter what Jurgens intended, I have to believe that Booster would have charmed his way out the friend zone if he hadn't been forced to leave Metropolis on such short notice. But long-distance relationships rarely work out.

My eternal thanks to Dan Jurgens for stocking Booster's world with so many wonderful characters. (Happy Birthday, Dan!)

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It cannot be denied that the original cast of Booster Gold was pale. Michael Carter was white. Trixie Collins was white. Dirk Davis was white. About the only characters in the first six issues who weren't white were Booster's orange cats, Jack and Jill. (Hey, it's not Booster's fault that Metropolis was settled almost exclusively by Western Europeans and Kryptonians.)

The eventual introduction of supporting cast member Dr. Jack Soo in Booster Gold #7 finally provided an injection of some much needed color.

Soo was the best young inventor at Scientific and Technological Advanced Research Laboratories (aka S.T.A.R. Labs) when he was hired to create a new female super suit for Goldstar, Inc. He delivered on his reputation and earned his place in Booster Gold's supporting cast.

While Soo's specific heritage is never addressed, his tan skin, dark hair, and narrow eyes indicate Asian ethnicity. "Soo" also happens to be a Westernization of the fairly common Chinese surname "Su."

Of course, it's hard not to notice the sudden appearance of an ethnic minority in a comic full of white characters. But was Asian the right race for Booster Gold's first new supporting character? I mean, isn't "Asian scientist" a little cliched?

As always, I turned to creator Dan Jurgens for the answer.

Yes, we realized that we need to have a more diverse cast.

I would also add that "Asian scientist" might seem a bit stereotypical now, but it certainly wasn't 30 years ago.

Jurgens has a point there. While ethnic Asians make up almost 15% of all modern science, technology, engineering, and technology jobs in America today (second in percentage only to — you guessed it — whites), that number was closer to 5% in 1980 according to census.gov.

Thanks to Dan Jurgens for being both culturally sensitive and historically accurate.

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So Convergence is now over, and it represents a paradigm shift for our hero. We shouldn't be surprised; the first time DC tried a weekly, eight-issue event series, it, too, rewrote the book for Booster Gold.

By the conclusion to 1988's Millennium, Booster Gold was penniless and disgraced thanks to the machinations of his manager, Dirk Davis. It was revealed that Davis had all along been a sleeper agent for the evil Manhunters, and he had manipulated our hero into a corner. As a result, Booster lost his solo series and very nearly quit adventuring altogether.

Davis' personality was hard to nail down throughout Booster Gold volume 1. Some issues he was Booster's friend, and some issues he was in league with Booster's enemy or trying to steal Booster's girl. That might make readers wonder what creator Dan Jurgens might have intended for Davis if Millennium hadn't resulted in the series' cancellation.

Naturally, I put the question to Jurgens himself.

I was merely trying to write Dirk as a more complicated individual-- multifaceted, as so many people are. So, yes, he was a huckster. The MILLENNIUM crossover came somewhat out of nowhere and we were encouraged to use important characters as Manhunters. I plugged Dirk into that role as part of the story, but was never really thrilled with the concept of doing so.

In this case, it was more about the general notion that we use fairly important characters as the Manhunters. It was also thought that it would be more effective that we use someone who'd been there from issue #1, and I wasn't about to use Trixie.

When I would have started the series, there was no plan for Davis or anyone else to be a Manhunter because MILLENNIUM didn't even exist. All of it came later and in a situation like that, you do what you can do make things work.

Nearly 30 years later, Convergence reveals that DC is still flying by the seat of its pants. Would we want our comics any other way?

As always, thanks to Dan Jurgens.

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In the future, Booster Gold might one day marry a blonde, but he's had his share of other love interests in the past. Before Godiva and Gladys, before Firehawk and Blair Butler and Trixie Collins, there was Monica Lake. And she was a real piece of work befitting the Corporate Crusader.

Monica was a career-driven actress who only loved men who could, ahem, boost her career. She tolerated Booster's bad fashion sense, lame jokes, and camera-hogging tendencies only for the reflected glory it brought her. This did not endear her to anyone, including Booster.

Their relationship lasted for the first year-and-a-half of Booster Gold's superheroic career before Booster finally showed her the door. (Literally.)

Of course, the cliche of the "difficult" actress doing whatever was required to get to the top is nothing new. One actress in particular during Hollywood's Golden Age had a similar name and a terrible reputation. I had to know if Booster's Monica might have been based on a real person, so I naturally asked creator Dan Jurgens just that.

Not really, no. I always liked the way the name "Veronica Lake" rolled off the tongue. It had a great sound, so I went with "Monica". But that's where the similarity ended.

It has been said that The Blue Dahlia screenwriter Raymond Chandler disliked Veronica Lake so much, he nicknamed her "Moronica Lake." But if Jurgens says he didn't copy that on purpose, I believe him.

As always, thanks to Dan Jurgens.

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Everyone knows that the best super heroes have sidekicks that reflect some aspect of their personalities. Batman has his inverse with Robin, Captain Marvel has a palette swap with Captain Marvel Junior, the Red Bee has a real bee with Michael. So what kind of sidekick should a hero from the future have? A robot, of course!

We already know that it was no accident that Booster Gold's sidekick Skeets was shaped like a football. But what kind of name is "skeets"? To find out, I asked the little fella's creator, Dan Jurgens:

In my younger days, I did some hunting. As part of that, I often went skeet shooting. For those who don't know, skeets are small, frisbee sized objects that hurl through the air for target practice.

Given his size and way he flew around, "Skeets" seemed a perfect name.

So despite having no arms or legs, it turns out that Skeets is every bit as athletically inspired as his hero.

Thanks to Dan Jurgens (who I believe has a very good chance of surviving Convergence).

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