Even by comic book standards, "Booster Gold" is kind of a funny name. In the now-classic origin story in Booster Gold #9, Booster himself tells us that the name was an accident!

I always wondered if there was any real-world truth to this scene. Was Goldstar the original working title for Booster Gold? Did Booster Gold creator Dan Jurgens flub the pitch to DC executives, resulting in a "Booster Gold" comic instead of the intended "Goldstar" comic? For the answer, I went straight to the source and asked Jurgens directly. In a nutshell, the answer was "no." Here's what he said:

I was really hooked on "Booster Gold" right from the start. I liked the way it rolled off the tongue and, more importantly, touched on two aspects of his character:

1) "Booster" signifies both the concept of stealing something (to boost a ring, for example) as well as the the self-promoting aspect of it.

2) "Gold" clearly pertained to his quest for star status and money.

In other words-- it fit!

There's only one Booster Gold. Accept no imitations.

Thanks to Dan Jurgens for indulging my quest to document every little thing I can about the history of the original Corporate Crusader.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: dan jurgens goldstar origins ronald reagan true story

You guys visit more often than Google does, so I'm going to try to keep you happy.

Last week's poll question: What device do you most often use to visit Boosterrific.com? (60 votes)

If you couldn't tell from the "Movie Poster Variants" on shelves this month, DC has fallen in love with variant covers. (DC may be celebrating the 80s with Convergence, but their marketing strategy is clearly from the 90s.) But do all these alternate covers that have nothing to do with contents work to sell more comics?

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: covers polls website update

Available today:

If you visit your Local Comic Shop, ask for the Justice League Dark #40 "Movie Poster Variant" edition.

I don't expect Booster Gold to be in the book, but I'm satisfied to find him on the book. (It's becoming a trend at DC.)

Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: covers justice league dark new releases

Mark Millar has found the secret to success: think up a killer idea, turn it into a comic mini-series, sell it to Hollywood. That formula has worked for Wanted, Kick-Ass, and Kingsman. Next up: Chrononauts, which hasn't even seen three issues yet.

More than one person has noticed a similarity between Chrononauts protagonist Danny Riley and Booster Gold. Matt Kamen asked Millar about their similarities for Wired Magazine UK.

Kamen: One of Chrononauts' leads, Riley, struck me as a Booster Gold riff -- both blond, narcissistic time travellers. Was that deliberate?

Millar: The funny thing is that Booster Gold came a little too late for me. He came in during the late 80s. I read Justice League way before then, so had no idea who he was. My DC period was from the ages of nine to about eighteen, so I kind of missed him. I dropped DC a little after Crisis on Infinite Earths. I didn't come back apart from dipping in on special projects like Kingdom Come.

So it's just an accident that the two characters are a lot alike? Is that the truth, or just what Millar has to say to stay clear of DC's legal department? Whether the similarities are intentional or not, things could get sticky for DC fans if Chononauts lights up theaters with a character sharing most of Booster's schtick. How likely is DC to make a movie including Booster Gold if it looks to the public like they're cribbing from Mark Millar?

You can read the rest of the article at Wired.co.uk.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: chrononauts mark millar matt kamen wired.co.uk

Late last week, Vaneta Rogers interviewed Keith Giffen about the coming changes to Justice League 3000. Giffen was upfront about why everyone's favorite superheroic comedy duo was added to the title:

Rogers: [L]ooking back at what's made the comic successful, you have to admit that your Justice League International characters brought a lot of eyes onto the book. You started with Booster and Beetle, then added Fire and Ice. Do you like how those additions are turning out?

Giffen: Yeah, I'll be honest. We brought Beetle and Booster in to get people to pay attention to the book, or to at least be aware that we existed. Our original idea was to bring back Fire and Ice, but then that evolved into bringing back Beetle and Booster too.

Of course, if we were going to use Beetle and Booster in the book, of course we'd want to use the Beetle and Booster that we're familiar with. It's Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, so it just makes sense.

If our book existed in the New 52, though, it wouldn't make sense. We would have to be using different iterations of those characters.

So we took the leap, and DC had no problem with it.

We're exploring a universe that hasn't been explored yet — the "Bwa-Ha-Ha" universe or whatever. And DC was amenable. So we said, let's do it!

It sounds like we might never have ever seen the return of Blue and Gold if it hadn't been for the launch of the New 52. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all?

You can read the rest of the article at Newsarama.com.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: blue beetle justice league 3000 keith giffen newsarama.com vaneta rogers