Regular Boosterrific.com visitors will know the name Russ Burlingame, as he is both a frequent site visitor himself and the web's foremost Booster Gold reporter. (After all of his news stories about Booster Gold, we'd have to suspect that Burlingame might be hiding an alter ego if Booster's public identity wasn't already well-known.) However, in his latest coverage of DC's announcement that Dan Jurgens will be taking over the reigns of Superman, Burlingame's single-minded adoration of Booster Gold seems to be warping his point-of-view:

As the creator of the character Booster Gold in the 1980s, Jurgens was approached to pencil the book when it was relaunched with superstar writer Geoff Johns and film executive Jeff Katz a few years ago; four years on, he spent the better part of the comic's 49 monthly issues drawing and later writing the adventures of a Booster Gold that was both a natural extension of the one he had written twenty years previous, and radically different in his personality and the storytelling approach to anything Jurgens had written in the series' first incarnation.... The result, most fans and critics agree, was a Booster Gold who came out stronger and more interesting than he had ever been. Can he do it again with the most storied character in all of comics?

Is Burlingame really asking Dan Jurgens if he can turn Superman into a star as big as Booster Gold? That's a pretty tall order.

You can read the whole article and see video of Burlingame's New York Comic Con interview with Dan Jurgens at Comicbook.com.

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David Uzumeri covered the "DC ALL ACCESS: Justice League" panel at New York Comic Con for Comics Alliance and turned in the following quote about Booster Gold:

[Dan] Jurgens and [Geoff] Johns confirmed that Booster Gold doesn't remember the pre-New 52 DC Universe.

However, Vaneta Rogers also covered the panel for Newsarama, and her article implies a starkly different conclusion:

Jurgens said Booster's experiences from Flashpoint seem to be relatively intact, but he said the fact that he has those memories in his head somewhere doesn't necessarily mean he can remember them consciously.

Johns said, "If Booster remembers anything, he's not going to tell anyone."

Johns: "Does Skeets remember?"

Jurgens: "No, Skeets does not."

Johns: "Does Rip Hunter remember?"

Jurgens: "That's a story still waiting to be told."

(Is it just me, or does Johns' response to Jurgens' announcement that Booster remembers sound like something a super villain would say to a hero who has just discovered his world-ending plot?)

Josie Campbell's article for Comic Book Resources verifies Rogers' report.

[DC Senior Vice President Bob] Wayne then asked Jurgens on behalf of the online fans about Booster Gold's continuity and whether Booster remembers the timeline from before Flashpoint. "Booster's experiences are still relatively intact," said Jurgens before continuing, "But it's one thing to have those memories, it's another thing entirely to recall those memories."

"Is Rip Hunter coming back?" Johns asked him.

"There are still stories to be told," said Jurgens, before dashing Johns hopes that Skeets would reappear anytime soon.

Funny that three reporters covering the same event would hear three different stories, isn't it? In any event, it seems likely that Booster does remember Flashpoint, even if his lips are currently sealed. This isn't the first time that history has been changed around Skeets (or Booster, for that matter). It is interesting to speculate how Rip Hunter, DC's resident Time Master since the Silver Age, is dealing with the changes to history. Certainly, that's a story I'm looking forward to reading.

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Beginning today the weekly Boosterrfic Poll will be merged in line with the blog. This was partly done to give the poll new prominence by making it a weekly talking point. But it was also done partly because I decided to overhaul the polls page and went "all in" on the back-end script overhaul. In any event, expect to see polls on Friday posts from now on.

Last week's poll question: Which is the most appropriate anagram of Booster Gold? (12 votes)

This was probably the silliest poll at Boosterrific to date. We're not out of poll ideas here just yet, I just thought it'd be nice to joke around with some word play after all these months of pulling our hair out over the DC reboot. I'm not in the least bit surprised to see that "got so bolder" is the winner, as I also think that it sums up Booster's journey through Booster Gold, Volume 2.

I was struggling to think of an appropriately weighty question to kick off this new poll format, so I asked my mother for suggestions. She replied, "why don't you ask people what they think about Booster Gold's new hat?" Which simultaneously proved that despite my having run this site for years, mother still has no idea who Booster Gold even is and inspired this week's poll question.

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On Tuesday Vaneta Rogers asked Dan Jurgens the question of the week in her column "JURGENS Talks Fast-Moving JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL" at Newsarama.com:

Nrama: Does Booster really have a "Booster Cave?" Will we see it soon?

Jurgens: Of course, the "Booster Cave" is real! In a sense, anyway. And, yes, you will see it.

I'm already giddy with anticipation, but Jurgens is coy as usual. If that answer is still too vague for you, there's still time to make travel plans to meet Jurgens at this weekend's New York Comic Con.

Dan Jurgens' website, danjurgens.com, indicates that Jurgens will be at the convention for 2 days, October 14 and 15, but the convention website, newyorkcomiccon.com, only notes that Jurgens will be present for the "DC All Access: Justice League" panel on Saturday, October 15. Maybe Jurgens is attending on Friday as a fan.

No doubt Jurgens will talk about Booster Gold and the rest of the Justice League International as part of the "DC All Access: Justice League" panel. Jurgens will be one of many creators on the one hour panel, including Brian Azzarello, Brian Buccellato, Cliff Chiang, Yildiray Cinar, Tony Daniel, Geoff Johns, JT Krul, Jim Lee, Francis Manapul, Joe Prado, Ivan Reis, Philip Tan, and Eric Wallace.

Despite that stellar line-up, the panel is scheduled to last only one hour, from noon to 1PM. Fourteen creators on one panel for one hour? That means that each creator should get to speak for just about 3 minutes each. Choose your questions wisely, attendees.

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The collected second-half of the very entertaining Justice League: Generation Lost series (issues #13 through #24) will be released today in a $39.99 hardcover edition. No doubt you already have the entire collection of single issues, but this is your chance to own them all again in a hardcover edition that will look far better on your bookself than those individually stapled periodicals.

But that's not all! Booster also appears in this week's Absolute Identity Crisis collecting the 2004 Identity Crisis mini-series and Birds of Prey: The Death of Oracle collecting issues #7-#13 of the second volume of Birds of Prey. That's a lot of Booster Gold cameos!

Buy them or not; Skeets is already quite busy handling things in the Booster Cave.

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