TGB posted on Jul. 2, 2010 at 9:45 PM
I would argue that Booster Gold is a truer American hero than most others. Check out my blog!

TGB posted on Jul. 2, 2010 at 9:46 PM
http://thegreatestblogyouveneverheardof.blogspot.com/2010/07/happy-4th-in-advance.html<br />Link didn't work...

 Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Jul. 2, 2010 at 10:50 PM
I swear I thought these comment forms worked until you got your hands on them, TGB. I see that your link from your name works, so I know that works as it should. Are you saying that you had trouble inserting an html <a> link in the comment field itself? Oh, just what I wanted to do for Independence Day: bug hunt. Heh. Though I suppose nothing is more patriotic than repelling invaders and saboteurs.

 Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Jul. 2, 2010 at 10:57 PM
And now that I've read your column, I must say that I like the parallel of Booster Gold as Paris Hilton. (Sorry, I would've posted at your comments form, TGB, but Google threw me an error and deleted my comment when I tried to post. Made me feel not so terrible about my comment form, that's for sure.)

TGB posted on Jul. 2, 2010 at 11:44 PM
No this is my fault and I apologize. I didn't realize that the name would link to the site; I assumed (obviously incorrectly) that it would link to the email.

 Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Jul. 3, 2010 at 1:30 AM
What? You don't think I'd really put your email address out there for spam-bots to discover, do you? Oooh, no, sir!

But seriously, no need to apologize. I don't make it clear what I'm doing with your link on the comment form, so how would you have known? As a partial solution, I've gone ahead and bold-faced your name to indicate that it is a url link. That's how some other comments forms do it, so we'll try it their way. If that turns out not to be good enough, I'll tweak it some more.

TGB posted on Jul. 1, 2010 at 4:47 PM
This is positive. Hopefully it will stick, especially as JL:GL exposes Booster. It was his appearance at the beginning of 52 (which I read to get back in to comics) that got me in to looking for more of him, and I'd imagine that this will happen for others, too.<br />Where do you get this information, out of curiosity...? Do you have numbers for JL:GL?

TGB posted on Jul. 1, 2010 at 5:04 PM
Ah, should've looked at the source at the top before I asked those last questions. Der.

Harry posted on Jul. 2, 2010 at 9:25 AM
It is a relief to see BG over the 20K mark again. With JL:GL over 40K and the Time Master's series starting up, you have got to think sales will remain steady over the next year. I wish Giffen runs didn't always start out so slow. It is hard to get people to jump on three to five issues in.

 Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Jul. 2, 2010 at 2:48 PM
@Harry: JLGL #1 sold 50,784; #2 sold 44,711. I'm sure the alt cover variants are keeping sales artificially high, so I look forward to seeing where these numbers settle in over the long haul. (That's why I haven't started tracking them yet. I'm looking for sales number for at least 4 issues before I start tracking trends.)

@TGB: I think you found it, but the link to the numbers above and more are here: http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/17679.html.

Erin posted on Jun. 30, 2010 at 10:41 PM
Interesting stuff, although I was under the impression that the ICBINTJL stuff was questionable canon-wise. I do think that Giffin and Winicks' version of Max and his relationship to the league reads truer than the previous evil Max stories. During the Blue and Gold arc Booster didn't seem to feel any conflict when facing Max, and Max seemed to think poorly of Booster. I think that if anyone in the league outside Batman would get Booster it would be the guy that pulled the strings to get him in the league in the first place.

Superman posted on Jul. 1, 2010 at 8:53 AM
You're spot-on about Giffen and Winick, Erin. This is what makes me care so much for JL: GL: not so much the Brightest Day stuff, although I enjoy that, and not for what it could mean to Booster and the JLI once this storyline is over, but for the chance to see Max resolved once and for all. There's just so much that happened to Max throughout his publication history, and right now I just want to get Giffen's definitive say on the character he made, who I love so much in the Giffen-era JLI.

TGB posted on Jul. 1, 2010 at 9:21 AM
But do you really think that Booster or some of the others could ever really come full circle on Max? For everything else, he DID kill Ted Kord, and that's something that Giffen will have a hard time erasing. Ted's death is almost the entire reason for Booster's maturing over the past several years. Perhaps they could make the readers more sympathetic towards the Max Lord character, but within the story, I don't know how they could accomplish the same.

Erin posted on Jul. 1, 2010 at 1:44 PM
Unless there's a twist I don't think they can redeem Max with Teds' death hanging over his head. DC insists it meant something and that the biggest impact of it was that someone he knew murdered him. But really showing that Max still cares on some level and that his actions affect the others means a lot. I think it will make a further impact on Booster who's already questioning the wisdom of the Time Masters rules and Max is preaching his "the end justifies the means" methods. I don't think it's so much about erasing what he did than exploring his reasoning and how the others cope with it.

KMD posted on Jul. 1, 2010 at 5:11 PM
Very good article--Max Lord is fascinating whether as a hero or a villian. I am very curious to see what he is up to here.

Harry posted on Jul. 2, 2010 at 9:22 AM
Anyone else under the impression that we will learn that the "bad" Max is not the "real" Max? Perhaps under the control of a Kilg%e-esque entitiy? I'm rooting for a living Ted Kord the be the key figure behind saving the JLI Max Lord.

 Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Jul. 2, 2010 at 2:53 PM
I really hate that sort of retroactive continuity "fix," as I think that it drastically damages character development and the attachment between reader and character that is required for sustained sales. Personally, I'd much rather have a rehabilitated Max than a retconned one.

Harry posted on Jul. 3, 2010 at 1:40 AM
Party-pooper. Besides, there is a gigantic hole in Max's history from the time he was Lord Havoc to the time he shot BB. Anything could have happened.

 Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Jul. 3, 2010 at 12:17 PM
Fair enough, Harry. There is at least an entire 7-year gap between the last appearance of questionably evil Max Lord Havox and his brief return as a good-natured cyborg in FKATJL before his second return as a fully evil human a year after that. No doubt, there is plenty of room for explaination in all that time span that would make a lot of people happy. Of course, Maxwell Lord was always a mysterious and driven character who would do whatever it took to accomplish his goals, no matter how drastic or morally questionable. So I don't really see a conflict between the Maxwell Lord of old and the modern characterization. It is really nice to see Lord in Giffen's hands, where the character expresses an affinity for his old team but refuses to allow his feelings to get in the way of his goals.

Kathleen posted on Jun. 30, 2010 at 1:03 AM
The question is whether it's a house pet or a sidekick like Krypto. For either purpose, I can't help but think of the golden retriever.

TGB posted on Jun. 30, 2010 at 8:28 AM
I'm a dog person, yet I think that I'd rather have Skeets than a dog.

Superman posted on Jun. 30, 2010 at 9:11 AM
Look, up in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane... No, it's BOOSTER DOG!