Maybe DC isn't giving us any new Booster Gold comics, but that doesn't mean that they aren't publishing anything worth reading. My pull list is short, including only three titles from DC: Dan Jurgens' Action Comics, Kurt Busiek's Astro City, and Mark Russell's The Flintstones.

As disparate as they are, all three titles all have something in common, and it's not subject matter. Action and Astro City are both classic super hero fare. The Flintstones is a beautifully subversive view of modern society in the same cynical vein as Russell's all-too-short Prez in 2015.

What these comics have in common is that all are predicated on an understanding of what has come before. Action builds heavily on the differences between the shared universe environments of the New 52 and the post-Crisis era. Astro City is an exploration of the impact of Silver/Marvel Age style comic-book situations from the point of view of real humans. Flintstones uses characters and situations explored in a famous cartoon to poke its finger in the eye of traditionalists.

In all of these titles, knowledge and familiarity with the referenced source material only makes them better. This is something that DC failed to do in its New 52 reboot. The goal there was to retread old tires without bringing anything new to the experience. If endless reruns worked as a business model, DC wouldn't be trying a Rebirth now.

So while I wait (impatiently) for DC to give me another Booster Gold comic (which is not happening this week), I've still got some comics to read. I hope you do, too.

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My second book is now available.

Prince Thorgils' War is the second book in a trilogy that begins with The Wizards of Ranaloy. The trilogy is an adaptation of a high-fantasy role-playing game I created and ran about 15 years ago. Book 3 will be available in November.

If fantasy novels (or supporting Booster Gold website webmasters) is your thing, consider dropping by www.CentralKingdomsChronicles.com, where you'll find a free preview of the first chapter of each of the three books. You'll also find links to purchase Kindle eBooks from Amazon.com and paperbacks from CreateSpace.com.

Thank you for your consideration.

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Russ Burlingame, the Lois Lane of Booster Gold journalism, recently posted his own picks for the Booster Gold stories best suited for adaptation into a live action movie. His list included:

• Booster Gold Volume 1 #6 ("To Cross the Rubicon"): the origin story of Booster Gold. Every super hero's first movie has to be his origin story, right?
• Booster Gold Volume 1 #10 ("Death Grip of the 1000"): Booster Gold vs The 1000. It was his first comic adventure!
• Booster Gold Volume 2 #41 ("Booster - Busted!"): The trial of Michael "Booster" Carter for crimes against time travel. We're long overdue for the first super-hero courtroom drama.
• Justice League International #34 ("Club JLI"): Blue and Gold hijinks on KooeyKooeyKooey. Four words: Fire in a bikini.
• 52: Booster Gold saves the Multiverse. This sounds ambitious, but keep in mind that this entire story took place by design without DC's heavy hitters.
• Booster Gold Volume 2 #1 ("52 Pick-Up"): Booster Gold as The Greatest Hero You've Never Heard Of. Pretty much the same as the current NBC television show Timeless. If that's a hit....

You can read Burlingame's justification for these stories at ComicBook.com.

And once you've done that, come back here and vote for your favorite!

This week's poll question: Which story would be best adapted for the Booster Gold movie? Please visit the Boosterrific Polls page to view results for this week's poll.

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Boosterrific.com tracks a lot of things about Booster Gold. Most of the things it tracks (if not all the things it tracks) are trivial. Some of them aren't even directly about Booster Gold but how his fans interact with him.

Among the many things Boosterrific.com keeps its eye on is the list of characters in the DCU who have crossed paths with our hero. The site tracks how many "clicks" those character links get in a 30-day span. You can see the most popular in the "SITE INFORMATION & STATISTICS" box on the home page. Since I started tracking this in 2012, one unusual name in particular has almost always been at or near the top of this list. Kilg%re.

For those of you who don't know, Kilg%re is a minor Flash villain (debuting in 1987's Flash #3), an alien artificial intelligence determined to make the Earth safe for machine kind by exterminating humanity. Kilg%re was retroactively integrated into the biography of Maxwell Lord in Justice League International #12 in 1988.

Kilg%re has only a tangential relationship with Booster Gold. So why does he keep topping my click-through list? Is it because people see the name "Kilg%re" and wonder who that could be? Is there a huge Kilg%re fan group following Kilg%re's adventures online? Is it because Kilg%re has infiltrated the Internet and keeps Googling itself? I have no idea.

Every once in a while, I clear my history table, yet Kilg%re always finds his way back. Forget Lex Luthor, Joker, and Darkseid. For my money, Kilg%re is the one villain that just won't stay down.

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Steven Murphy of ScienceFiction.com has put together a likely list of suspects we might find revealed as prisoners of the mysterious Mr. Oz. (Mr. Oz has been making appearances in random DC Comics since Rebirth started. His real identity and motivations remain unknown, but he's obviously a huge fan of L. Frank Baum.)

Chief among Mr. Murphy's list of prisoners is someone who hasn't been seen in the DCnU in 418 days and counting:

Booster Gold is a favorite classic character typically paired with Blue Beetle Ted Kord. Rebirth is an event largely about bringing favorite classic characters back and while Ted has been reestablished, Booster has not. That can't be an oversight.

Sounds plausible to me. There has to be some reason DC is ignoring Booster Gold even as they continue to press forward with developing a movie for the character, right?

You can read Murphy's reasoning at ScienceFiction.com.

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