Early on in Time Masters #1, we are introduced to Rip Hunter's grandfather. The man we see is clearly not Booster Carter's father, but he very well could be Booster's father-in-law. (We still don't know who Booster will marry.)

But Booster boosters don't have to rely on retroactive continuity to find links to Booster Gold in the issue. Booster himself swoops in on page 15, and he is quickly given a demonstration of Hunter's latest experiments.

"Hard to trust anybody"? Hmm. Like father, like son.

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If there's one thing that Booster Gold loves, it's stealing time machines from Rip Hunter.

On this date in 1990, Booster Gold makes a 2-page cameo appearance in Time Masters #4 just so that he can help Animal Man get his hands on one of Hunter's prototypes.

To be fair to Booster, he didn't actually know he was stealing this one. Animal Man lied about reimbursing Rip from Justice League coffers for the totally understandable personal reason that he wanted to travel back in time to save his family from being murdered. Who wouldn't do the same? (For more details on how that goes, read Animal Man #22. Spoilers: not well.)

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Speaking of the Jurassic League....

Booster booster The Blot of TheBlotSays.com has his finger on the pulse of the world of collectibles and writes us with breathless anticipation:

Have you heard about the upcoming DC HeroClix series, Masters of Time!?! There’s gotta be a Booster figure in the set right? They haven’t unveiled the whole line up yet, but have shown a few figures. The series will include Rip Hunter and his chalk board!!! That’s basically a Booster Gold release right?

I cannot deny that's certainly a Dan Jurgens' Booster Gold Volume 2-era Rip Hunter drawing come to (still) life.

Rip is just one of the 15 pre-release pieces pictured at shop.wizkids.com/collections/masters-of-time, which says the set is scheduled for a 3rd quarter 2024 release, meaning we won't get a full list of figures probably until sometime closer to July and September. When released, the full set is advertised to contain

• 16 Common Figures
• 15 Uncommon Figures
• 12 Rare Figures (and 3 Rare Primes!)
• 13 Super Rare Figures (and 2 Super Rare Primes!)
• 7 Chase Figures
• 1 Ultra-Chase Figure
• 10 Colossal-Sized Jurassic Figures (exclusively in Jurassic Boosters!)

As you can see, the Jurassic League "colossal" figures are a central point of this "Masters of Time" set. Since we now know Booster will be crossing over with the Jurassic League in May (and Rip and Booster are family Time Masters), could a Booster Gold figure be in the set? We'll have to keep an eye out.

Thanks, Blot!

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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 time machine.

Power suit, energy rays, force field, flight ring... "Booster" Carter could steal every super power in the Space Museum, but none of those would make the citizens of the 25th century forget that he had committed the ultimate crime: shaving points in a college football game.

To move on with his life, Booster would have to think outside the box. He'd have to think in a sphere. Specifically, he'd have to think in Rip Hunter's Time Sphere.

Rip Hunter and his distinctive time machine, the "amazing" Time Sphere, made their debut appearance in Showcase #20, 1959. He and his 20th-century companions, calling themselves Time Masters, would continue to improve the Time Sphere's design as they traveled from one end of history to the other with many adventures in between.

At any given time, there were several operating spheres, any one of which could have ended up in the Space Museum of the 25th century for Booster to, um, borrow. Although Booster broke that first Time Sphere, he has since had the opportunity to use some of Hunter's other Time Spheres for other temporal journeys both with and without the Time Master, beginning in 1987's Booster Gold #13, and as recently as 2021's DC's Cybernetic Summer.

Though the story of the time-traveling globe doesn't end (or begin) there. As we will eventually learn, while Rip Hunter may have invented the Time Sphere, he certainly did not invent time travel. Or even spherical time machines.

As revealed in Booster Gold volume 2, #1,000,000 (2008), Rip Hunter is Booster Gold's son. Later issues of Time Masters: Vanishing Point will demonstrate that Rip traveled through time as a child with his father. That crates a paradox, since it's impossible that at some point in the future, Rip Hunter could have gone back in time to create the circumstances that led to his own birth.

But it's not impossible that at some point in the future, a super-intelligent alien from another planet could have traveled backwards in time and laid the groundwork for Booster to do so. That alien is Brainiac 5.

In addition to inventing the Force Field Belt and Legion Flight Ring that Booster liberated from the Space Museum, Brainiac 5 also worked with the 30th-century Time Institute, perfected the time-traveling Time Bubble that his fellow Legion of Super-Heroes would use to have time-travel adventures with Superman beginning with 1958's Adventure Comics #247.

Clearly, the Time Bubble precedes the Time Sphere. Since Brainiac 5's history is in no way connected to Michael Jon Carter's, it is no stretch of the imagination to speculate that Brainiac 5 or the Legion of Super-Heroes made trips through time that somehow created the impossible sequence of events that lead to Rip Hunter appearing to create the machine necessary for his own birth. Fortunately, Brainiac 5 also has the power to resolve such space-time paradoxes.

As seen in Time Masters Vanishing Point #3, Brainiac 5 has access to the uniquly powerful Miracle Machine, a device that turns imagination into reality. With a power like that, even the most difficult paradox can be untangled with a thought.

That panel makes it clear that time-traveling Rip Hunter knew Brainiac 5 from an early age, so it's probable that the future Time Master's time-machine design was influenced by the Legion of Super-Heroes' pioneering inventor. When a design works that well, why change it?

(Footnote: Amusingly, there is also a time-traveling globe from the future in 1951's Batman #67. Although the Batman of the 31st-century takes credit for inventing it, he wouldn't be the first person to steal a Time Sphere.)

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

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I hope everyone has awesome Labor Day plans, so I'll keep this brief.

Booster Gold may or may not be in Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths #4 this week. He's not in the preview at aiptcomics.com. He wasn't in issue #2, so maybe Booster is taking the even-numbered issues off.

UPDATE 2022-09-06: Nope, he's in there, smiling away in a one-panel cameo appearance on page 6.

Booster probably isn't in Flashpoint Beyond #5 this week, but Rip Hunter's pre-Flashpoint Time Masters definitely are, as is Rip Hunter's secret time laboratory and future-teasing chalkboard. All of those things are visible in the preview at aiptcomics.com, which also seems to provide some spoilers to the ending of Dark Crisis, so beware.

Booster is almost guaranteed not to be in New Champion of Shazam #2, but I recommend you take a look at it anyway. I bought the first issue last month, and I loved it. What can I say? I'm a sucker for Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, especially when drawn by Doc Shaner. Some comics can be good even without Booster Gold.

Thank you for your consideration. I now return you to your regular scheduled holiday.

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