This year's annual DC Christmas anthology, available at fine Local Comic Shops this week, is the rare tripled-apostrophed DC's 'Twas the 'Mite Before Christmas!

J, who has spent a lot of time helping me find and correct the many "its" and "it's" sprinkled throughout the Boosterrific Annotations, probably thinks I have no idea how to use an apostrophe. Au contraire!

DC gets an apostrophe plus an "s" because it has possessive ownership of what comes after. 'Twas gets a leading apostrophe because it is a contraction of the two words "it was," and the apostrophe replaces the dropped "i". And 'Mite has an apostrophe in front of it for the same reason as 'Twas but covering many more letters, which is pretty sensible, because re-writing Bat-Mite as ''''Mite looks pretty ridiculous.

But I'm not mentioning DC's 'Twas the 'Mite Before Christmas here just because I wanted to give an impromptu grammar lesson. I mention it because it's Golden. Specifically, it's Booster Gold-en, as you can see from the title page previewed at AIPTComics.com:

Buy this book and make Skeets happy.

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Some days you just need a hug.

And a handshake from Batman seals the deal: Page 22 is definitely my favorite in Martian Manhunter #4.

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I've mentioned Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville a few times here on the Boosterrific Blog, but apparently that's not enough. Fortunately for all other Booster boosters, Jake has taken me to task.

I have begrudgingly been keeping up with the Fire and Ice series DC is putting out, and while the comic itself isn't really all that for me, it's just nice to see the girls again, given that they are two near & dear favorites (a sentiment I'm sure many Booster boosters resonate with). So it has been particularly nice to come across mentions of Booster two issues in a row. Issue #3 (which overall did not meet the Gold Standard, but you can't ask for much these days) repeatedly brought up Kooey Kooey Kooey, and then directly mentioned those "dummies" by name, Booster and Beetle, as well as their "harebrained schemes".

Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville #3, by Joanne Starer, Natacha Bustos, Tamra Bonvillain, Ariana Maher, Andrea Shea

Issue #4 features a Booster Gold drag queen. Take that as you will.

Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville #3, by Joanne Starer, Natacha Bustos, Tamra Bonvillain, Ariana Maher, Andrea Shea

Thanks, Jake. I am also reading this series, and I also recognize that I'm not the target audience, although I'm not entirely sure who is. I didn't realize there was a market for LGBTQ+ friendly romance comics with extra cannibalism.

Target audience or not, I can't be too mad at a series that firmly restores Tora's Norse ice goddess roots (and features a bunch of the DCU's wacky lesser-seen characters). In other words, I'll take what I can get of my favorite womance.

It's only a six-issue mini-series, so I'm sure I'll keep reading... at least until we learn the Booster Gold drag queen's stage name. Goldie Nuff? Queen G? Trixie Collins? The suspense is killing me.

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Not so long ago, Rob Snow wrote in to let us know that the book, Strange and Unsung All-Stars of the DC Universe by Stephanie Williams "has a whole section for Skeets."

I still haven't managed to get my hands on a copy to confirm this, but I trust Rob.

What's strangest about this is how it seems that Skeets wouldn't seem to qualify. I mean, good for Skeets; even Booster rarely gives him the credit he deserves. But the little fella seems an odd choice for a book of "all-stars" given that he has had, like, zero solo adventures in four decades.

Other than that time he was possessed by a villain (and the occasional hint that he and Rip Hunter hang out off panel), Skeets has only been depicted having adventures apart from Booster Gold in the Extreme-era JLA when he and Oberon befriended Firestorm.

If Skeets is finally ready to spread his winglets and fly out of Booster's shadow to become a standalone hero in his own right, I'm all for it. Every hero's gotta start somewhere: maybe he should consider giving the Titans a call.

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If you didn't buy any DC Comics this week, you might not have seen Kevin Maguire's tribute to the late Keith Giffen surrounded by his creations (in the style of the immortal Justice League #1 cover) that appeared in each of DC's monthly titles.

As you can see, the famously irascible Giffen is in the center position originally occupied by the famously irascible Guy Gardner. Very fitting.

Also fitting, Giffen wearing a t-shirt with Booster and Beetle laughing. That image isn't new; it comes from a print that Maguire created for DC in 2014. Giffen didn't create either character, but he and his writing partner J.M. DeMatteis did create "Bwa-ha-ha" and build Blue and Gold into comicdom's greatest bromance.

The second page of the two-page tribute is quotes of Giffen's friends and co-creators. You can read them online at dc.com/rememberingkeithgiffen.

Thanks for the laughs, Keith.

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