There was far more diversity than I would have expected in the previous week's answers. I wonder how that breaks down further by age and location. Maybe that's fodder for future polls.

Last week's poll question: When other people find out that you read super-hero comic books, what is their most common response? (40 votes)

As you probably know from the media blitz, Batman: Arkham City was released this week to much, much fanfare. I haven't played it yet, but I already know it has one big flaw: no Booster Gold. Get on that, DC.

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The numbers are in for September, and DC has been crowing about how well they've been doing with the New 52. Rumor has it that digital sales have been blockbuster, and reportedly, September saw the best sales for DC Comics since 1991. That's good news for everyone who loves comic books.

According to Comichron.com, Action Comics #1, Volume 2 sold about as well in 2011 as Action Comics #1, Volume 1 in 1938. An impressive feat, indeed. Justice League International #1 didn't do quite as well, but still sold approximately 61,079 issues. That's a good number for a 21st-century comic book! It's certainly better than the 53,685 issues that Booster Gold, Volume 2, #1 sold in 2007.

But how does that stand up against Booster Gold, Volume 1? DC never releases sales numbers directly, so I asked an expert: Dan Jurgens.

Boosterrific.com: I was wondering if you had any knowledge/memory of sales figures for BOOSTER GOLD v1 from the late 1980s that you could share with Boosterrific.com?

Dan Jurgens: Whew-- I really don't have those numbers. I do know that BG did relatively well in the direct market, less well on the newsstand, from what I recall. I also know the last couple of issues did around 125,000.

Thank you, Mr. Jurgens. That's certainly more than we knew before. The final issues of Booster Gold were crossover issues with the Millennium mini-series, which probably gave a significant sales boost. But that still means that Booster Gold, Volume 1, #25 in 1988 would have sold far more issues than anything Booster-related in recent years (including the 57,096 estimated sales of Blackest Night tie-in Booster Gold #26 in 2010).

Hopefully this "New 52" thing will catch on, and Booster can reach new heights in sales.

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This has been covered elsewhere (from mainstream sites like Bleeding Cool to blogs like Exploring the Time Lab to the Boosterrific Forum), but I would be remiss not to mention it here: the woman in black is back.

The mysterious lady on the right side of the advance solicitation cover for Justice League International #5 released by DC earlier this week was last seen on the solicited cover to Justice League International #1. She was removed from the cover and eventually replaced by Godiva in the published issue (as seen here).

While we still don't even know who she is, we can probably assume that it must be Godiva's evil twin, Godiva Dark! Will Justice League International #5 really be her bittersweet introduction to the JLI, or did DC fudge another solicitation image? Find out when the issue hits stands on January 4, 2012.

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Regular Boosterrific.com visitors will know the name Russ Burlingame, as he is both a frequent site visitor himself and the web's foremost Booster Gold reporter. (After all of his news stories about Booster Gold, we'd have to suspect that Burlingame might be hiding an alter ego if Booster's public identity wasn't already well-known.) However, in his latest coverage of DC's announcement that Dan Jurgens will be taking over the reigns of Superman, Burlingame's single-minded adoration of Booster Gold seems to be warping his point-of-view:

As the creator of the character Booster Gold in the 1980s, Jurgens was approached to pencil the book when it was relaunched with superstar writer Geoff Johns and film executive Jeff Katz a few years ago; four years on, he spent the better part of the comic's 49 monthly issues drawing and later writing the adventures of a Booster Gold that was both a natural extension of the one he had written twenty years previous, and radically different in his personality and the storytelling approach to anything Jurgens had written in the series' first incarnation.... The result, most fans and critics agree, was a Booster Gold who came out stronger and more interesting than he had ever been. Can he do it again with the most storied character in all of comics?

Is Burlingame really asking Dan Jurgens if he can turn Superman into a star as big as Booster Gold? That's a pretty tall order.

You can read the whole article and see video of Burlingame's New York Comic Con interview with Dan Jurgens at Comicbook.com.

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David Uzumeri covered the "DC ALL ACCESS: Justice League" panel at New York Comic Con for Comics Alliance and turned in the following quote about Booster Gold:

[Dan] Jurgens and [Geoff] Johns confirmed that Booster Gold doesn't remember the pre-New 52 DC Universe.

However, Vaneta Rogers also covered the panel for Newsarama, and her article implies a starkly different conclusion:

Jurgens said Booster's experiences from Flashpoint seem to be relatively intact, but he said the fact that he has those memories in his head somewhere doesn't necessarily mean he can remember them consciously.

Johns said, "If Booster remembers anything, he's not going to tell anyone."

Johns: "Does Skeets remember?"

Jurgens: "No, Skeets does not."

Johns: "Does Rip Hunter remember?"

Jurgens: "That's a story still waiting to be told."

(Is it just me, or does Johns' response to Jurgens' announcement that Booster remembers sound like something a super villain would say to a hero who has just discovered his world-ending plot?)

Josie Campbell's article for Comic Book Resources verifies Rogers' report.

[DC Senior Vice President Bob] Wayne then asked Jurgens on behalf of the online fans about Booster Gold's continuity and whether Booster remembers the timeline from before Flashpoint. "Booster's experiences are still relatively intact," said Jurgens before continuing, "But it's one thing to have those memories, it's another thing entirely to recall those memories."

"Is Rip Hunter coming back?" Johns asked him.

"There are still stories to be told," said Jurgens, before dashing Johns hopes that Skeets would reappear anytime soon.

Funny that three reporters covering the same event would hear three different stories, isn't it? In any event, it seems likely that Booster does remember Flashpoint, even if his lips are currently sealed. This isn't the first time that history has been changed around Skeets (or Booster, for that matter). It is interesting to speculate how Rip Hunter, DC's resident Time Master since the Silver Age, is dealing with the changes to history. Certainly, that's a story I'm looking forward to reading.

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