I gave you the new cover to Batman #46 Friday, and the DC Batman Panel at C2E2 this past weekend gave us some exciting news about what you might find behind that cover.

Fair warning: the following post has light spoilers for next week's Batman #45, so cover your eyes if you don't want to know too much before you have the issue in your hands.

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Still here? Ok. One additional warning! The preview images DC has released for this issue that can be found at any of the following links are uncommonly violent. (I might be getting prudish in my advancing age, but golly gee, maybe the Comics Code wasn't such a bad thing.)

Now, as I was saying, according to Newsarama's coverage of C2E2, quote

DC Comics has confirmed during their Batman panel panel at Chicago's C2E2 convention that the Booster Gold team up arc starting in April 18's Batman #45 will take place in an alternate world where Booster Gold has gone back in time to save Thomas and Martha Wayne - and inadvertently prevents Bruce Wayne's birth.

That news seems to come directly from writer Tom King himself. Rich Johnson has more detailed spoilers at BleedingCool.com for those of you who really want the dirt.

The rest of us will find out what the big deal is next week when Batman #45 will be in our Local Comic Shops. I advise reading it on an empty stomach.

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Last Wednesday, CBR.com ran Jeffrey Renaud's interview with Dan Jurgens about the Booster Gold appearance in Superman's Action Comics #993. The interview included the following tidbit from Jurgens:

It's kind of weird in a way, because if you go all the way back to Booster Gold, Volume One, Superman was a part of Booster's origin story. Right about then, John Byrne came to DC to reboot Superman, and we had to do some surgery to the book so it fit what John was doing.

I still have the unused pages from the book, which are still waiting for the Booster Gold hardcover so they can see print. No. That is not a hint. Uh-uh. Not at all. Nope.

Superman was supposed to be in Booster Gold #1?!

I probably shouldn't be too surprised. For those of you who don't know, Booster's origins, as originally conceived, were tied to the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Silver/Bronze Age Superman mythos. Booster was supposed to have stolen his equipment from the Superman Museum (not the Space Museum). His force field belt would have belonged to the original Braniac, his costume would have been made from Lex Luthor's power armor, and his Legion Flight Ring would have been Superboy's. That would certainly have given an extra edge to the Booster Gold/Superman rivalry.

I have to wonder, did any of that make it into the script or pencils of Booster Gold #1 before Byrne's post-Crisis plans to streamline Superman continuity? Even if Superman only made a cameo appearance in the book, it still would have been his first post-Crisis appearance as well as the first time Jurgens drew Superman. What a treat!

Hey, DC! Give us that book already!

(Thanks to Damian Damex for ensuring I saw this particular bit of news.)

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In case you missed it, the movie Justice League is opening this week. In cross promotion of the event, Entertainment Weekly's Darren Franich interviewed Justice League International co-creator J.M. DeMatteis.

EW: How did the specific tone of Justice League International develop?

JMD: No one ever said to me when we started, "Oh, we're doing Funny Justice League." It just evolved naturally. The more we went along, the more we realized that what we had on our hands was a superhero sitcom. But we never set out to do that. The minute you sit down and think, "I'm going to be funny," you're probably screwed.

Around the same time, I was writing "Kraven's Last Hunt," which is as dark a Spider-Man story as has ever been written. I wasn't thinking, "Now I'm doing this in clever contrast, we are answering the grim and gritty stories with our version of light and happy!" We just followed the characters. Keith [Giffen] would write the plots and set up these situations, I would start writing the dialogue, and the characters would start talking to each other. Beetle and Booster really created that team, not us.

Shh! Don't let Booster hear you say that. He'll get a big head!

You can read the whole interview at EW.com. (And you can see Justice League in theaters Friday.)

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DC's August solicitations, released Monday, don't show any signs that Booster Gold will reappear in the DCrU anytime soon (other than the reprint of Booster Gold/The Flintstones Special to be included in the DC Meets Hanna-Barbera trade due September 20).

However, in an interview with Terrence Sage, Dan Jurgens gives us a reason to hope:

Sage: For the last question, people are wondering and trying to figure out when will we see Booster Gold under your pen again?

Jurgens: I keep looking for a good spot to sneak Booster in here and there and I have a couple of thoughts about where and when it'll work best. Obviously, I have a lot of love for the character, but when he shows back up I want it to be in a meaningful spot.

Later is better than never, I guess.

You can read the whole interview at Comicosity.com.

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Monday, Kieran Shiach of ComicsAlliance.com recapped Booster Gold's first appearance. His article is very good and mostly accurate. His only mistake is saying that Booster Gold #1 was first released on November 2, 1986. It wasn't.

For the record, Booster Gold #1 was released to comics specialty shops (the emerging "direct market") on October 29, 1985. We know it's true because Dan Jurgens says so.

But that one little nitpick aside, it's great to see Comics Alliance celebrating our hero. Just one more things to give thanks for this week.

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