Hmm. How to interpret this poll? Jaime has a small but strong following? Blue and Gold fans still mourn Ted Kord? Ah, I got it: give us back our Booster Gold, DC!

Last week's poll question: How would you respond to a new series pairing Booster Gold and the new Blue Beetle? (61 votes)

Yesterday's issue of Justice League International #12 confirms that the JLI will no longer have any support, financial or otherwise, from the United Nations. One international organization's mistake is another man's opportunity.

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Welcome to the Digital Age of comics, where you can try before you buy! Interested in how Dan Jurgens will wrap up his year on Justice League International? Take a look at DC Comics' 5-page preview before you travel to your Local Comic Shop! Curious how well the JLI will be integrated in Batwing? Check out the preview before downloading it at Comixology.com.

Whichever method you prefer, buy these issues and make Skeets happy! (Thanks to MetalWoman for the preview links.)

UPDATE 08/03/12: MetalWoman also dropped by the Boosterrific Forum to let us know that Booster puts in a surprise cameo appearance in Stormwatch #12 this week. And he's not alone: alongside the JLI is Skeets, in his first New 52 appearance!

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The best thing about fan art is that it gives us the opportunity to see things denied to us by official canon. Like NuBooster Gold and post-Crisis Blue Beetle.

Seeing the two together makes me suspect that perhaps DC won't bring Ted Kord back because Booster Gold is now wearing Ted's old pants.

This sepia-tinged watercolor (and its split-windshield Skeets, complete with rope ladder action!) was created by German artist therealRIZ. Riz has quite a bit of impressive, comic book-related work in his gallery at Deviant Art.

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Without Chris Sprouse, we might still have had Booster Gold in his black leather jacket as the leader of the Conglomerate, but he wouldn't have looked nearly as cool.

Justice League Quarterly #1 in 1990 was among Sprouse's earliest works for DC Comics, but by no means was it the last. While it may seem that Sprouse has gone underutilized since the DC reboot, his legion of fans will be pleased to know that he recently hinted on his website, SprouseNet, that he will soon be returning to a Tom Strong mini-series. That's good birthday news, indeed.

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Believe it or not, Booster Gold has appeared in 4 separate number 10 issues of ongoing series in the past 4 years. One of those series was his own, which made it through a run of 49 issues. Two of the others had already been canceled at the time the issue was published. The third is the current Blue Beetle series, which has sales numbers far worse than any of the other three series ever had, but has not yet been cancelled.

Granted, this random sampling of DC's production is hardly conclusive, but superficially it would seem that we should expect an ongoing with Booster Gold to sell right about 30,000 by the 10th month. (Booster gets the least face time in his one-page cameo in Blue Beetle, and it has the lowest sales. Coincidence or proof?)

Whatever else it may or may not say about DC's editorial policies, this chart does seem to demonstrate that cancellation is due more to editorial expectations or whims than just sales figures. Someone at DC must love Blue Beetle.

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