Last night at midnight, Cartoon Network debuted the Robot Chicken DC Comics Special. The shot of Booster Gold versus Solomon Grundy that appeared in last month's episode trailer was seen in the episode, and Booster put in an additional appearance in the group shot at the end.

Teammates Ice and Firestorm each had lines, but poor Booster didn't have any dialogue. At least we were warned. On Friday, Vaneta Rogers of Newsarama.com posted an interview with Robot Chicken writer Kevin Shinick that included this paragraph:

"And I actually did a Booster Gold voice, but he got cut," [Shinick] said. "But we put the deleted scenes on the DVDs, so people will get to see that."

If we want to see 5 seconds of talking action figure Booster Gold, it looks like we'll have to buy a $15.00 DVD. Or visit PropJosh on YouTube for free.

Thanks to MetalWoman for warning us about Booster's cut scene on Friday afternoon in the Boosterrific.com Forum.

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Last month the DCnU Justice League made it's video-game debut in Justice League: Earth's Final Defense for the iPad/iPhone. While Booster Gold isn't a playable character, he (and Skeets!) do appear as one of the game's hidden, upgradeable Support Cards. (I found Booster Gold by beating Lex Luthor with Green Lantern on the game's Easy setting.)

The 5 playable heroes (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman plus unlockable Flash and Green Lantern) and characters in most of the 30 Support Cards wear their New 52 costumes, but Booster is wearing his classic power suit. Skeets, however, looks like he's gotten a bit of a the DCnU redesign treatment with unnecessary segmentation a new ventral fin! The artist of this piece is unknown, though odds are he is an employee of this game's South Korean game developer, CJ E&M. (Artist found! See update below.)

The game is not without its flaws, the most egregious of which is that by the time you've found the Booster Gold card and earned enough points to fully upgrade him, you're probably done playing. (Booster's card increases a character's maximum health and energy. It's a useful effect late in the game, but the cost to unlock the card is a significant obstacle.) That's not to say that it can't be fun for a few hours, and is therefore probably a better use of $2.99 than buying a New 52 comic book.

You can download the game for your portable iOS device via iTunes.

UPDATE 09/16/2012: Kim In Tae receives in-game credit for the game's 2D art.

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It's been a week, and I'm still pissed off about how bad Justice League International Annual #1 was.

Last week's poll question: Did you enjoy how Justice League International Annual wrapped up the series? (43 votes)

But enough about the present. Let's return to the topic of three weeks ago: classic artists. How you feel about the classic writer/artists teams? Each of the following pairs created an iconic hero with a discernible style.

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First of all, today's feature isn't exactly a new release; it was published 3 weeks ago. But given that Booster Gold doesn't seem to exist in the DCnU right now, we'll have to take what we can get. Lucky for us, what we can get is a delightful easy reader for second graders that is at least as entertaining as anything DC Comics has published in the DCnU to date.

The Man of Gold by Paul Weissburg and accomplished Batman: Gotham Adventures artist Tim Levins is not a comic, but a 5-inch by 7-inch book with illustrations. There's a lot to like in the book's simple, direct prose narrative of how Booster Gold's drive for fame and glory soon threatens both Superman and the safety of the Metropolis itself. While Booster's origin herein may not be exactly what Dan Jurgens wrote, this Booster's personality isn't too far afield from what we saw in his earliest comic book appearances. This Booster is a jerk with a heart of gold.

Booster's primary antagonist in this adventure is the Jack Kirby-created Stompa, a member of Granny Goodness' Female Furies of Apokolips. Despite both characters having decades-long careers in comic books, this is the first encounter between the pair. Their refreshing face-off results in a battle which sees Booster's force field creatively used as an offensive weapon.

Because this book was designed to encourage children to read via the Advanced Reader system in the classroom, it ends with Discussion Questions. Question 3 encourages readers to explain which of the book's 10 illustrations is their favorite. Tim Levin's JLU-inspired art deserves the attention. Detail-oriented readers may spot that Booster wears the collar-less version of his classic power suit in the published book, but Tim Levins' original art online at his Deviant Art page has the more familiar collared powersuit that Booster has worn in all of Justice League Unlimited appearances. The book doesn't have any Discussion Questions encouraging thoughts about the motivation for this change.

This book is just one in a series of similar books published under the DC Super Heroes license by Capstone Publications (who also re-publish DC Comics with "durable hardcover" bindings for grade school libraries). While your Local Comic Shop may not carry "real" books, you can find a copy of this book at Amazon.com. I'd like to see DC publish 81 pages of story for $5.95! Thanks to Eyz for bringing this book to my attention.

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The final of 5 parts continuing my interview with Booster Gold cosplayer Nicole (Demyrie).

BOOSTERRIFIC: What statement do you think you are making about sexual politics by dressing as a gender-bent version of a male fictional character?

NICOLE: Haha! Wow, you opened a door. I have to say, this constant question is perfectly encapsulated by one guy at SDCC who saw us, did a double-take, crowed "AWESOME!", and then "... why?". Why, indeed, dress in a male superhero suit/persona with full intention of portraying the character... just, female?

First, it comes down to possible cosplay options. I don't like many female characters, therefore I don't spend the effort to cosplay Supergirl and Batgirl and so on. Also, if I'm going to strut around in public, I'd like to be dressed in a little more than a bikini and thigh-highs, so that eliminates most other super-females!

But it becomes a little bit more than simple process of elimination when you consider that I've been gender-bending since day one, and don't see it ending anytime soon. It's obvious that male heroes get the lions-share of characterization and compelling story-lines, so I sync with them completely and want to portray them in a way that tricks fans into believing they could exist for just a little while. If I were a dude, I would just do it, but as a girl I have a few problems. This conundrum would be a great deal easier in, say, Japan, where effeminate heroes make cross-playing (dressing up as a fictional character of the opposite gender; essentially "drag") both easy and widely-accepted, but the American ideal of hyper-masculinity really doesn't allow for a smooth or believable transition from female to male if we're talking comics.

I mean, can you imagine how much that muscle-suit would cost? And I like my chin, but Booster's was chiseled out of granite.

Therefore this interesting gender-queer middle-space is created by the virtue of alternate universes (which comics are so fond of), where a woman can essentially appropriate the history, authority, presence and strength of a male character, and the result is very, very excited fans. More often than not, the cosplayers of genderbent heroes appear far more approachable than cut-and-dry female heroes (Rogue, Wonder Woman, Black Canary) which I believe stems from the fact that it's the costume equivalent of a girl walking up to a shy guy and suggesting a night of beer and football. We aren't hyper-sexualized — we're more nerds than girls, because I'm NOT talking about the "prostitute She-Robin" Halloween costumes on Ebay — and we clearly know comics well enough to successfully translate one of YOUR favorite characters to Earth #11, preserving back-story, motivations, super-powers and that smug, smug smile.

So, you wanna talk about Chocos?

That said, I think that gendered polarization of cosplay in comics is a terrible thing. Especially because I respect the hell out of women who cosplay who they want, I hate that those who cosplay female heroes are reliably treated as sex-objects because objectification is built into the super-heroine design. Either that, or that it's assumed these women know nothing of comics and just want the male attention that only a leotard with a boob-window can afford. I don't want that kind of attention and I felt nauseated when I received it as Silk Spectre II: men touched me differently, talked to me differently and I swore never again. Guy nerds have long-since become suspicious that their sex-drives are being taken advantage of at places like Comic Con (the Booth Babe trend has absolutely no pretense on this) and frequently see cosplaying women as disembodied boobs when that fails, so gender-bending is a way of cutting through the ritual sexualization of women, escaping the Nerd Dismissal, and actually getting to talk with some damn fans about some damn comics.

Though gender-bending is my natural inclination, I honestly wish I didn't have to prove my nerd-dom like this. I dearly wish that more female characters were both respectably clothed and more developed akin to male characters. If you need any proof of the difference, just look at how many men genderbend to presumably just-as-awesome female characters (although Beetle and I are honorary members of the Genderbent Justice League and that saw some of the first serious MtF bends) and google "Women in Refrigerators". I may be ridiculously gender-queer and keep doing my weird thing regardless, but that imbalance just ain't right, which is why it found its way into my Honors thesis. And that was 50 pages!

I owe a huge thank you to Nicole for her participation in our Q&A. Follow these links to parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 of this interview.

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