Justice League: Generation Lost #22 is scheduled to hit stands today, with Power Girl, Batman, and one other "former-JLI member" joining the fight against Max Lord. This aspect of the story is covered in Vaneta Rogers' interview with Judd Winick over at Newsarama.com (part 1 and part 2). (It's a worthwhile read, but tread carefully, readers, there may be some spoiler-ish material over there.) Buy this issue and make Skeets happy.

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As Russ Burlingame pointed out yesterday in the forums (you are reading the forums, aren't you?), Vaneta Rogers has a new article up at Newsarama discussing Booster Gold's enduring popularity. Rogers has interviewed Dan Jurgens, Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, and Jeffery Katz -- writers for a combined 264 comic stories featuring Booster Gold! -- on their opinions about what makes Booster Gold great.

"I think it's pretty amazing that fans like him so much today because, if you think about the character and the way Dan [Jurgens] introduced him, he's a character you really shouldn't like, because he's so self-serving," said Keith Giffen, who has written the character several times during Booster's 25 years in comics. "And even though he's learning his lessons and growing as a person, there's still a little self-serving core in there. "But for some odd reason, fans just respond to it."

You can find the whole article, "Why They Endure: BOOSTER GOLD - the Self-Serving Superhero," at Newsarama.com.

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As Kevin pointed out in yesterday's comments, Newsarama.com has posted an article, "Comic Book Crossover Couplings: Hook-Ups on Infinite Earths," romantically pairing Booster Gold and Squirrel Girl. I agree with them that this pairing makes more sense than it may at first appear.

Both of these characters are treated like walking jokes by almost all of their superhero peers, despite consistently proving themselves as more than capable. Booster Gold's regular gig is fixing the timestream and you may have heard that one time Squirrel Girl defeated Dr. Doom.

Both characters are a product of his/her time that has grown into something more, largely thanks to underground fan support. Booster Gold was spawned as satire of corporate culture in sports in the early 1980s, and has gone on to almost single-handedly save the DC Multiverse. Meanwhile Squirrel Girl was created as a pointedly absurd Spider-Man parody (by one of Spider-Man's co-creaters, no less) to highlight the darkness of the 1990s comic books. Like Booster, she is incredibly powerful, but her cheerful, naive demeanor keeps her from receiving the deserved respect of her peers.

I was introduced to Squirrel Girl about a decade ago by a co-worker. He had purchased her first appearance in 1992, and had kept the book for years as a symbol of silly comics. The antics of Squirrel Girl, in his opinion, was an insult to Spider-Man and Marvel fans everywhere. I remain certain that there must be comic book fans who think the same thing about Booster Gold -- wrongly, of course -- and that is what makes Booster Gold and Squirrel Girl such a compelling crossover idea.

You can read more about Booster and Squirrel Girl, as well as more about other unlikely pairings by Newsarama's Albert Ching and Vanetta Rogers, here.

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For those of you who may want more information on Keith Giffen's plans after leaving Justice League: Generation Lost, Newsarama's got it here. I'm kind of surprised that he'd rather leave the JLI than Booster Gold, but he makes it very clear that he's having a lot of fun working with DeMatteis again. To those of you who are having a problem with the amount of silliness month to month in Booster Gold, beware that it won't be ending anytime soon. To those of you who are enjoying it, congratulations.

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Last week, in the Newsarama.com article appropriately titled "Judd Winick Goes Solo on Justice League: Generation Lost," Vaneta Rogers confirmed that Keith Giffen is leaving Generation Lost beginning in issue #8. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I've been a big fan of Giffen's breakdowns. They provide an experienced and even-handed tempo for the sequential art that proves invaluable, especially for ensemble artist series such as JL:GL. I expect that from this point forward, the series art is likely to become even more erratic from issue to issue. Hopefully, this will not unduly affect the story-telling in a title that is already looking a little too rushed.

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