Booster Gold as drawn by coolpuppy601 on DeviantArt.com:

Yes, I would buy this if DC published it.

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With DC Comics moving on from Convergence, I was worried that we'd seen the last of Russ Burlingame's "Gold Exchange" columns. But Burlingame was on the ball, and his interview with Dan Jurgens over Convergence Booster Gold #2 was published last week.

Burlingame:Last thing's first: How long have you known what Older Booster's final fate would be? It feels really organic to Convergence but at the same time, he was a HUGE player in Time Masters: Vanishing Point where Waverider's corpse played a big role.

Dan Jurgens:I've always had a couple of thoughts in mind for Booster's fate. This is the one that worked.

It seemed a natural evolution. And, because this was an older Booster Gold, there are still a huge number of stories left to tell that would have existed between the end of Time Masters and the events of Convergence: Booster Gold #2.

Burlingame: Do you have an idea how Booster Classic ended up working with A.R.G.U.S., or is that just a mystery of the New 52 era?

Jurgens:Yes, I have a definitive idea. It really has to involve the notion of that particular Booster crossing over from the pre-Flashpoint universe to the New 52 Universe.

Booster had some lines in these last two issues along the lines of, "The things I've seen, the things I've done..." There are a number of stories that would have taken place, one of which would have led to the A.R.G.U.S. suit.

Will those stories never get told? Argh! I need to know!

If you haven't already, you should head over and read the whole interview at ComicBook.com. Clearly Jurgens has a lot of ideas for Booster Gold stories but not a lot of places to tell them. Someone should talk to DC about that.

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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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I like the New 52 Booster Gold less every time I see him, but that doesn't mean I'm ready to give up on the character just yet.

Last week's poll question: Do you intend to keep buying Booster Gold comics now that you know New 52 Booster isn't pre-Flashpoint Booster? (49 votes)

The big DC Comics news these days is all about either Arrow/Flash/Legends of Tomorrow on television or the Superman V Batman movie. It seems like these are two separate universes, and characters from one are excluded from the other. If that's the case, what part should Booster Gold play?

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I'm not done with Special Edition 2015 just quite yet. Check out this sketch by Bill Walko:

On DeviantArt.com, Walko explains that the dialogue is "a private cosplay joke." Any chance that's what the two fellows we met yesterday were saying?

UPDATE 2015-06-10: It turns out that Walko drew more than one Blue and Gold sketch last weekend! You can find the other here: billwalko.deviantart.com. (It's really the better of the two.)

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