Football season is now well underway, and naturally during the football season, thoughts turn to the greatest quarterback of all time: Booster Gold. At least, he should have been, if it hadn't been for a few bad decisions.

In the year 2462, Michael "Booster" Carter will be expelled from Gotham University for accepting bribes to intentionally lose football games. This is the cardinal sin in competitive sports: corrupted athletes rigging the outcome of games. However, given recent trends in college sports, how scandalous should this behavior be considered?

In the past year alone, the college quarterback who reportedly was "gifted" thousands of dollars in cars and cash in a violation of college rules was signed to a high-profile professional contract. The college quarterback who admitted accepting "gifts" was given a one-game suspension, a comparative slap on the wrist because at least 12 other players on his team were also guilty. And the Heisman Trophy-winning college quarterback whose father was accused of soliciting payoffs to steer his son to the highest-paying school was rewarded with a multi-million dollar contract in the National Football League.

That's just the tip of the iceberg: systemic scandals have begun plaguing colleges across the country. From Tennessee to California, Oregon to Florida, it seems that every state in the Union is showing the signs of corrupted athletics programs.

In this context, does Booster's crime of taking payments to pay for his mother's surgery still make him such a bad guy? Or was he just unlucky enough to commit his crime in a future of low-tolerance for college sports shenanigans?

Comments (3) | Add a Comment | Tags: football

Are you already nostalgic for the old DC Universe? Do you long for a Booster Gold who shook hands with President Reagan? Do you already miss his old costume? Well, Remembered Heroes has your back. Reintroducing Booster Gold, as you knew and loved him:

The above image of Booster Gold was drawn from memory by a professional artist with a bad memory. Maybe it's not entirely accurate, but at least it's period appropriate: Booster Gold the Beer Can has an old-fashioned pull tab.

For a complete story of why Booster Gold is a beer can with abs, visit rememberedheroes.tumblr.com.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: art rememberedheroes tumblr.com

Now that the final numbers are in, let's take a look at the roller coaster ride that was the monthly sales report for Booster Gold, Volume 2.

What can this graph tell us? Obviously those spikes are tie-ins to the crossover events Blackest Night and Flashpoint, respectively. That makes it pretty clear that whatever DC says about re-inventing the DC universe with this "New 52" reboot, mega-events sold books and will be returning sooner rather than later. Also, fears about fans abandoning books as the reboot loomed may have been appropriate: Booster Gold #47 did not sell as well as Booster Gold #46 did.

On the bright side, that chart represents sales of 1,345,643 individual comic books starring Booster Gold! If each of those issues averaged 2.0 ounces in weight, that's 168,205 pounds (76,296 kilograms) of comics. Since those comics are solid gold -- Booster Gold -- they should be worth $4,475,904,840 at current market price! But of course they are priceless to us Booster Gold fans, right?

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: graph sales

The drought finally ends this week as Booster Gold #46 finally hits the stands... at Comixology.com.

Ok, so maybe this isn't breaking news. In fact, this tidbit was reported at comicbook.com by Russ Burlingame. (I promise I am not stalking Burlingame across the internet. He just happens to be the world's only reporter whose beat is Booster Gold.) But that's not the real news: the real news is that when asked why the delay in release, the DC representative Burlingame spoke with simply said, "I blame Reverse Flash."

There you go. The Reverse Flash is the DCnU's equivalent of the Superboy Punch. But if he's behind getting Booster Gold available online, Professor Zoom can't be all bad.

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: comicbook.com comixology.com new releases russ burlingame

Raymond Master's interview with Dan Jurgens was posted last week at the GeekDad blog on Wired.com. The interview was conducted a few weeks ago and as usually the case with Jurgens' interviews, it is not exactly filled with ground-breaking inforamtion. However, it's not without it's value.

[GeekDad:] Aside from his creation, of course, what's your favorite Booster memory from the early days? And more recently?

[Jurgens:] My favorite memory is probably seeing the first issue on the stands. I was fairly new to the business and very, very raw as a writer. It was quite a hurdle to get the project moving and an even bigger thrill to actually see it through to realization.

But that's not all! An interview with Jurgens and Aaron Lopresti by Poet Mase appeared last week in IGN's series on the New 52. This interview is more recent than GeekDad's and is considerably more focused on Justice League International.

IGN: There was quite a bit of discussion about Wonder Woman's pants on the Justice League cover, but largely lost in the shuffle was the disappearing act pulled by the ninth member of the JLI cover. You said previously that it wasn't Wonder Woman or Donna Troy and that you were intentionally keeping things quiet. Now she's gone. What can you tell us about what happened and why?

Jurgens: This is one of those instances where cover art was prepared before we had finalized all the plans for the first issue's story. We continued to make some adjustments in the cast, shifting some story elements around and that mandated the change.

Note that response doesn't quite answer the question of who that brunette was. That Dan Jurgens: what a tease.

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: aaron lopresti covers dan jurgens geekdad ign.com poet mase raymond master wired.com woman in black