The following entry was originally posted on the Boosterrific! Blog as the very first in the series of "secret history" posts on July 2, 2013, when a youthfully naive USA was preparing to celebrate her 237th birthday and you could still trust everything you saw on the Internet.

On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress passed Virginian Richard Henry Lee's resolution for independence from Great Britain, and thus was born the United States of America.

The adoption of the declaration of that new-found independence two days later is what we now celebrate, but the real secret of America's independence is the role that Booster Gold played in ensuring it ever happened.

What really happened in Independence Hall in the summer of 1776? The world may never know.

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Thing 1: Regarding my conundrum of removing non-unique appearances from the Boosterrific! Database, Booster boosters seem to generally prefer that Boosterrific.com lists only comics with distinct Booster Gold appearances (option B). Rather than throw away that data forever, I've tried to ensure that there are now only two places on the site where you'll find links to those issues (the lists of books for specific advertisements accessible via the Advertisements page and the dropdown to select issues on the Comic Books landing page). Hopefully that will satisfy the largest number of critics, including the annoying little voice in the back of my mind that continues to complain about choices made by younger me.

Thing 2: As you're probably aware, Supergirl, um, underpeformed at the box office on its opening weekend. As the always-worth-reading ProgressiveRuin.com points out, there's probably more than one reason for that. (I'm part of the problem; I didn't see it either. Widely advertising that it's based on the work of my least favorite writer is a pretty good way to make sure I stay away.) Whatever the exact cause(s), there's no way the end result at the box office helps the development of the forever-in-the-works Booster Gold television show. Maybe people will respond better to Lanterns.

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Justice League America #86 from 1994 is the first issue by artist Dan Campos, whose style herein presents as an obvious attempt by DC Comics to ape the more, uh, "dynamic" styles of some of the more famous artists of the era. I consider this the dawn of the very-hard-to-look-at EXTREME era of the Justice League, which, perhaps not-so-coincidentally, coincides with the collapse of the 1990s speculation market.

(I'm not saying Extreme Justice single-handedly killed the 90s comics boom, but I might be suggesting that when staid, old DC Comics tries to get hip with what the cool kids are into, that bubble might be past ready to burst.)

All of which may be contributing to why my favorite page in this issue is the one that sees a resurrected Superman politely declining to rejoin the league.

Get out while the getting's good, Supes. Even Guy Gardner knows you're better than this.

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I have a dilemma, and I could use your feedback, Booster boosters. Let me explain.

When I first started the Boosterrific! Database in 2007, I intended it to track every Booster Gold appearance in a DC Comics comic book. At that time, I made no allowance for non-unique Booster Gold appearances, by which I mean advertisements, mostly DC house ads and other promotional backmatter.

Eventually figuring that few people ever collect every instance of an advertisement (and realizing that it's impractical for me to track down and buy hundreds of comics just so I can look through them for ads), I decided about a decade ago that it would be this site's policy going forward to not track non-unique appearances in the database but to indicate them, when known, as part of the Boosterrific! Advertisements page. That system works well enough, and I'm happy with it.

However, as a result of my original oversight and prior to my decision to intentional exclude them, some comics which contain only non-unique appearances have been included in the Boosterrific! Database, most visibly in cases featuring the 1985 advertisements of Booster Gold's debut appearance such as DC Challenge #4.

And now I find that discrepancy bothering me.

The solution seems binary. Either A) I change my position again and add books with just non-unique appearances to the database, or B) I remove the existing books with only non-unique appearances from the database.

Which brings me to you, the loyal Boosterrific visitor. Before I make my decision and make some pretty big changes to the database, which do you think I should do? A or B?

Please let me know in the comments below or via the Boosterrific! Contact page.

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DC Comics surprised yesterday with a Thursday announcement of books to be released in two months, and I'm happy to report that Booster Gold was indeed seen in the mix, specifically on the A cover of Action Comics #1102.

The remaining question is whether, as a Booster Gold collector, you can consider your comic collection complete if that's the only issue you buy in September.

See, in addition to Action Comics #1102, Artist Lucas Meyer also provides the A covers of Supergirl #17, Superman #42, and Superman Unlimited #17. They're all part of the "Kingdom of Zod" storyline, and those all link together to form a single quadriptych:

Does that mean they all count as a single image? If I buy only Action Comics #1102, am I'm missing 3/4 of what will likely be a single fold-out cover in the inevitable collected edition? Better to be safe than sorry, I guess.

Speaking of collected editions, the solicitations also announce that Superman: Action Comics: Vol. 2: Reign of the Superboys – Future Shock, collecting Action #1096 through #1100, should arrive in your Local Comic Shop just in time for your Black Friday shopping this November. Plan accordingly.

You can find more details for all the above issues as well as larger cover images at AIPTComics.com.

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