Last week, DC released Super-Pets Special: Bitedentity Crisis, an anthology issue featuring such famous pet sidekicks as Krypto, Ace, Streaky, and Bitewing to name but a few. There are also many lesser known pets in here, some of whom don't even have any super powers! It seems every animal showed up for this party, every animal except two: Booster Gold's housecats, Jack and Jill.

That's right, Booster Gold has pets, and he always has. Jack and Jill debuted alongside Booster and his suffering secretary, Trixie Collins, in 1985's Booster Gold Volume 1 #1!

To be fair, calling them Booster's "sidekicks" might be a bit of an overstatement. Booster has never spent much time in the same room with them, and his robot buddy Skeets openly dislikes them.

Booster and Skeet's disinterest in them doesn't seem to much bother Jack and Jill. They clearly prefer to spend their time lounging around the Goldstar, Inc. offices with Trixie, where they help her manage Booster's adoring public (in Booster Gold #2), greet Jason Redfern and the alien Z (Booster Gold #6), and avoid the lecherous advances of comic book artists Benny and Marty (Booster Gold #7).

The cats spend so much time with Trixie that it would be easy to mistake her as the cats' proper owner (in as such as anyone can "own" a cat). However, Booster's self-serving manager, Dirk Davis, makes their relationship clear while rescuing them from a building collapse in Booster Gold #11. Whatever you do, don't call them "ordinary."

When Booster left Metropolis to join the Justice League International, he left Jack and Jill in Trixie's care (Booster Gold #25). They must like it there, as they haven't been seen since, not in stories with other super pets.

Other People in Booster Gold's Neighborhood:

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The life of any comic book hero would be a lonely one if not for the many characters who have made up their supporting cast. Just as Superman has Lois Lane and Batman has Alfred, Booster Gold has also shared his adventures with quite a few people over the years. Today we look at one of those, Mindancer.

They say you never forget your first time. First love. First paycheck. First stollen time machine you used to travel back in time to become a super hero. And even first defeat.

In Booster Gold's case, that means he'll always remember the first time he met Mindancer.

Blackguard gets all the fame for appearing on the cover of Booster Gold #1, but the real villain in Booster Gold's 1986 debut issue is the "unidentified, super-powered woman who," in the breathless words of WGBS television news reporter Cindy Miles, "took S.T.A.R.'s satellite guidance system from Booster Gold!"

That mysterious, garishly-costumed assailant is "an extremely dangerous" psychic mercenary codenamed Mindancer. According to Booster's sidekick Skeets, she can leach the mental energy from nearby bystanders to boost her innate telekinetic and telepathic abilities.

At the time she crossed swords with Booster Gold, she was working for The 1000, who also employed Blackguard. In fact, Booster's inaugural defeat of Blackguard led directly to his rematch with Mindancer when she was sent to spring Blackguard from Metropolis Prison in Booster Gold #2. They fight to a draw, and Mindancer escapes after Blackguard creates a distraction. Considering that escaping was her whole reason for being there, this should probably count as another win for Mindancer.

Their third encounter, inside the headquarters of The 1000 in Booster Gold #3, goes even worse for Booster, as he is left unconscious and placed in a 1000 death trap!

Booster escapes thanks only to the timely intervention of Thorn (Booster Gold #4), who also defeats Mindancer in hand-to-hand combat. Thorn tears off Mindancer's mask, revealing that her red hair is only a wig. Mindancer's true face underneath is... well, this:

Why does she look like that? We may never know. The humiliation of having her true face exposed empowers Mindancer, an "unskilled physical combatant" according to her entry in Who's Who Update '87 #4, to overwhelm Thorn and escape.

Mindancer has rarely been seen since. She next shows up in 1994's Green Lantern Volume 3 #52 as a (masked) inmate in Slabside Penitentiary for metahumans, indicating that at some point she was caught and brought to justice. It must have been a long sentence. She's not seen again until The Flash #800 (2023), where she is caught participating in a poker game with stolen goods and presumably re-imprisoned.

After nearly four decades, it doesn't look like Booster and Mindancer will be crossing paths again anytime soon. Therefore, the final record stands at Mindancer 3, Booster Gold 0, a result so lopsided, I'm sure Booster Gold would prefer to forget.

Other People in Booster Gold's Neighborhood:

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I keep an eye on the Google search queries that lead people here to Boosterrific.com. Most of them are usually what you might expect: "best Booster Gold comics," "Booster Gold powers," "why do people like Booster gold?" But last month I spotted something odd: searches looking for information on "Rani."

As it happens, we haven't seen Rani in a comic book since 2011, so I can't guess what would have anyone searching her out in 2023. But mine is not to question why.

Instead, in order to help out whoever out there might be curious about Booster Gold's "daughter," let me re-run a post that I originally presented in 2019 as part of my "People in His Neighborhood" series on supporting characters in Booster Gold comics.

The life of any comic book hero would be a lonely one if not for the many characters who have made up their supporting cast. Just as Superman has Lois Lane and Batman has Alfred, Booster Gold has also shared his adventures with quite a few people over the years. Today we look at one of those, Rani.

In the 30th century, when the evil god Darkseid will take over the planet Daxam in what will become known as "The Great Darkness Saga," time-traveler Booster Gold will do what he can to save innocent lives (as seen in Booster Gold Volume 2, #32). Unfortunately for everyone, Booster is no match for an army of billions of super-powered Daxamites, and he manages to save only one child, little orphan Rani.

With Rani's foster parents having fallen victim to Darkseid's invasion, Booster has little choice but to take the poor girl home with him to 21st-century Arizona where she could be cared for by Time Master Rip Hunter, who unbeknownst to Booster is his real son. Rani nicknamed Rip "Boppy" after her own grandfather (Booster Gold #33). Hunter is concerned that Booster had damaged the space-time continuum by bringing Rani back into her past, but Booster's twin sister, Michelle, refuses to allow them to send the little girl back to a death sentence in the future (Booster Gold #34). Just like that, Rani became part of Booster's family, having free rein of Hunter's Arizona Time Lab compound.

Despite her young age, Rani has an advanced knowledge of technology (Booster Gold #35) and a drive to join the family business. In Booster Gold #38, she pilots a stolen time sphere to 1943 to confront Maxwell Lord's parents before he was born, and would later "borrow" Michelle's Goldstar costume (Booster Gold #39). In response, Michelle grounded her for two whole days.

Rani was mature for her age, but she would understandably continue to be traumatized by her experiences on Daxam. For example, when Doctor Nishtikeit and his time-traveling Nazis attacked Hunter's Time Lab (in Booster Gold #41), Rani suffered a prolonged PTSD episode that only resolved when Booster returned to "rescue" her. As seen in Booster Gold #42, Rani cried for the entire duration of Booster's 25th-century prison sentence (though Booster was away for only 10 minutes of her relative time in the 21st century). So far as she is concerned, Booster is her new daddy, and he treats her like the daughter he never had.

In the last days before Flashpoint changed history and destroyed everyone's memories of the history of the world that was, Rani was fittingly last seen in Booster Gold #43 on 30th-century missing child poster.

"The Great Darkness Saga" is still in Booster Gold's future. Will Rani be there? Will Booster Gold save her? Only time will tell.

Other People in Booster Gold's Neighborhood:

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The life of any comic book hero would be a lonely one if not for the many characters who have made up their supporting cast. Just as Superman has Lois Lane and Batman has Alfred, Booster Gold has also shared his adventures with quite a few people over the years. Today we look at two of those, Benny and Marty.

From the moment Booster Gold made his public debut, publisher Skip Andrews realized the larger-than-life hero would be a perfect addition to the Blaze Comics universe of characters. And thus did Andrews unwittingly set in motion the events that would lead to the death of his star writer/artist team of Benny Lindgren and Marty Kramer.

This is their story.

Booster Gold #4, 1986

Booster Gold #7, 1986

Booster Gold #9, 1986

Booster Gold #10, 1986

Being a comic book creator is a dangerous life!

By the way, in 2015, I asked Booster Gold writer Dan Jurgens whether Benny and Marty were based on real world New Teen Titans creators Marv Wolfman and George Pérez. Jurgens answered:

I wouldn't go that far with Benny and Marty, though there may be a hint of truth to it. In a way, they were based more on the idea of team books and their creative teams of that era.

Thanks, Dan. And thanks to Marv and George for being so inspiring!

Are you interested in meeting other "People in his Neighborhood"? Follow these links to get to know Mrs. Carter, Daniel Carter, Michelle Carter, Trixie Collins, Nurse Devlin, Dirk Davis, Rani, Skeets, Jack Soo, Mackenzie Garrison, Rip Hunter, Monica Lake, Doctor Shocker, Blackguard, and Mister Twister.

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The life of any comic book hero would be a lonely one if not for the many characters who have made up their supporting cast. Just as Superman has Lois Lane and Batman has Alfred, Booster Gold has also shared his adventures with quite a few people over the years. Today we look at one of those, Mister Twister.

Who is Mister Twister, you ask? Here's the man himself, from his first (and so far only) confrontation with Booster Gold in 1987's Booster Gold #5:

That Mister Twister was a "bizarre lunatic" with a giant bomb who attempted to hold the Metropolis Mammoths ice hockey team and its arena full of fans hostage for $3,000,000.

But was he really "The one, the only"? It's hard to tell.

As it happens, the very first person to use the alias Mister Twister was a novelist named Dan Judd who took to a life of crime and bedeviled Superman... in 1946 on Earth-2!

Judd was only as criminal as was necessary to get material for his book, and hung up his alter ego when his manuscript was published. For more details on this bit of alternate-Earth history, track down a copy of Action Comics #96!

Many years later, someone more significant — and much more malignant — would adopt the name Mister Twister. His story began when the government of a typical American community called Hatton Corners declined to respect a contract made by their founders.

The Brave and the Bold #54, 1964

When Hatton Corners didn't make good its debt, Bromwell "Brom" Stikk did what any wronged landowner would do: he used mysticism to control the weather and enslave the town's teenagers!

Unfortunately for Stikk, Hattons Corners' teenagers had friends in the teenaged sidekicks of the Justice League. Mister Twister ultimately proved no match for Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad. The teens' teamwork in saving Hatton Corners paved the way for the formation of the Teen Titans, but the horrible Mister Twister was arrested by the authorities and would not be seen again for some time, at least not as Bromwell Stikk.

When Twister finally reappeared in the months after the Crisis on Infinite Earths re-wrote the entire DC Universe in 1985, his mystical powers had been replaced by technology. Twister's face and powers may have changed, but his methodology hadn't. His goal was still holding young men and women hostage for money. And he was still no match for sidekicks.

Was this mad bomber calling himself "Mister Twister" the post-Crisis incarnation of Bromwell Stikk? It's possible. It certainly wouldn't be the craziest twist in Stikk's story.

Years after the Metroplex bombing attempt, the Teen Titans would learn (in Secret Origins Annual #3, 1989) that their longtime foe Gargoyle was actually Stikk disguised and empowered by a cosmic entity called the Antithesis. Stikk would finally free himself from the Antithesis' control and beg Roy Harper for forgiveness for his past wickedness (in Justice League of America #16, 2008).

As so often happens in the DCU, past wickedness would not be forgotten, and Mister Twister was reborn again in the wake of Convergence as a literal demon — and the explanation for why the New 52 Titans hadn't remembered their past adventures together.

Titans Hunt #8, 2016

Even as a demon, Mister Twister was defeated by a team of former sidekicks. Some things *never* change.

Are you interested in meeting other "People in his Neighborhood"? Follow these links to get to know Mrs. Carter, Daniel Carter, Michelle Carter, Trixie Collins, Nurse Devlin, Dirk Davis, Rani, Skeets, Jack Soo, Mackenzie Garrison, Rip Hunter, Monica Lake, Doctor Shocker, and Blackguard.

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