Booster Gold gets another oblique mention on page 21 of this week's Justice Society of America #4:

words by Geoff Johns; art by Mikel Janin, Kerry Ordway, Jordie Bellaire, John Kalisz, Rob Leigh

Although, given that Booster is a secret member of the Time Masters, even Mister Terrific probably doesn't know he's talking about Booster Gold.

I know it's not much, but we Booster boosters have to take what we can get these days. Thankfully, Multiversity: Harley Quinn Screws Up the DC Universe is still scheduled for next week, and as we previously discovered, our boy is definitely in there for three whole panels!

Like I said, we'll take what we can get.

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I had little choice but to order a copy of the San Diego Comic Con exclusive "Silver Screen Edition" reprint of Booster Gold Volume 1 #1 from eBay, making it the most I've ever paid for a single comic book.

But somehow no one told me it was polybagged.

I had to order another just to open one of them up (just like Superman #75 all those years ago). So now I've paid the most I've ever paid for two single comic books! And they're both reprints! Living in the future is expensive.

As you can see from the first-page indicia above, these shouldn't be called "Silver Screen Edition Booster Gold #1" because they are officially Booster Gold 1 (SDCC 2023 Facsimile Edition). "Facsimile Edition" is how DC has been labeling all of their recent single-issue reprints of classic comics. Could there be a non-foil Booster Gold #1 Facsimile Edition coming to comic shop near you in the near future?

To its credit, other than the foil wraparound cover, this Facsimile Edition is a very faithful reproduction of the original material, including commercial ads (for the likes of M.A.S.K. and Voltron) and house ads (for 'Mazing Man and the 1986 DC Wall Calendar), with only some small deviations.

• The book is 3 millimeters taller and 2 millimeters wider than the original, identical to modern DC Comics proportions.
• The price and bar code box have been removed from the original cover (reproduced on traditional cover stock) underneath the outer foil.
• The interior paper is much better quality than the original newsprint.
• The story pages use the remastered and recolored art used to produce 2019's The Big Fall.
• Unlike The Big Fall, which removed all ads and condensed the page count, all pages here are laid out on the left and right as originally presented except for the "continued on 2nd/3rd page following" editorial boxes, which have been removed from the bottom of story pages 4, 8, 16, and 20.
• Many, if not all, the full-page ads have been blown up to cover the entire page, minimizing and sometimes removing their original borders. (In the original printing, story pages and ads had the same border spacing on each page.)

Speaking of the ads, I'm not sure I enjoyed being reminded that we're exactly half way in between Halley's Comet visits. (And some friendly time-traveler might want to go back and warn the Red Cross about making that endorsement deal.)

Expense aside, I'm otherwise very happy to have this issue in my hands. It's gorgeous. I just wish I could touch it without getting fingerprints on the foil.

Considering that my very first, newsstand-purchased floppy Booster Gold #1 has long been what might politely be called a "reader's copy," I'd love for DC to release yet another "facsimile edition," preferably without the foil and priced at a more reasonable $5 ("reasonable" being a very relative term). If they do, I promise to buy another one. Two, if they come polybagged.

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Not so long ago, I was asked where a new reader interested in learning more about Michael "Booster" Carter's twin sister, Michelle, should start. That's a pretty reasonable request, if an especially rare one.

Michelle doesn't have many fans who haven't already read a bunch of Booster Gold comics, mostly because Michelle really hasn't appeared in all that many comics.^† She's never appeared in a book without Booster in it.

In fact, she doesn't even appear in her first appearance! That's because we first see her portrait in a holographic globe alongside the twins' mother in Booster Gold Volume 1 #5.

Michelle's early life in the 25th-century is seen via brief glimpses during Booster Gold origin-story flashbacks in (ordered chronologically relative to Michelle's life) Booster Gold Volume 2 #0, Secret Origins #35, Justice League Quarterly #10, and Booster Gold Volume 1 #6.

We don't get to meet Michelle in person until Booster Gold Volume 1 #15, when like a God in the Machine, she descends from the heavens to save her brother's life (plus the lives of Rip Hunter, Jack Soo, and original Goldstar Trixie Collins) and return with them to the 20th-century. Not bad, so far as grand first entrances go.

Now living in the "present" day, Michelle takes over the Goldstar costume from Trixie and appears in most following issues of Volume 1 until the unfortunate events of Booster Gold #22 where — spoiler alert — she dies.

But being the twin sister of a Time Master means that there's always time for more adventures. Michelle is granted a reprieve in Booster Gold Volume 2 #1,000,000.

Thereafter she played a recurring spring role in many issues of Booster Gold Volume 2, Time Masters: Vanishing Point, and Convergence.

We haven't seen her since Rebirth-Death Metal-Infinite Frontier-Dark Crisis fully restored the DC Multiverse, but we can be sure that she's still out there helping her brother make the world(s) a better place.

For more information about Michelle, read my "Character Spotlight on Michelle Carter."

^† Michelle has appeared in a total of 42 comics since her debut in 1986. Most were written by her creator, Dan Jurgens. The rest were by Mark Waid, Geoff Johns & Jeff Katz, Chuck Dixon, Rick Remender, J.M. DeMatteis & Keith Giffen, and Jeff King & Scott Lobdell.

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Booster booster Marty directed me to this image on The App That Used To Be Twitter:

The whatever-it-is that-we're-calling-tweets-now implies that cocktail menu comes from "the #BlueBeetle after party", whatever that was. As you can (barely) see at the bottom of the list, there's a drink there named for Ted Kord's best buddy, Booster Gold.

The ingredients read "Mezcal, Ancho Piña Shrub, Grapefruit, Lime, Close Honey, Angostura." Full disclosure here: I'm an absolute teetotaler. I haven't had an alcoholic beverage since the Olympic Games were held in Atlanta, Georgia. (It was a Tom Collins.) So my working knowledge of cocktails is a little rusty, and I have no idea what that tastes like, much less what some of those ingredients even are.

But my Google skills are strong. Allowing for typos — "close" should be "clove" — and a brand-sponsored tequila substitution, it seems those ingredients combine to make what Difford's Guide calls a Mercado Roma and The Educated Barfly calls an Oaxacanite. Here's a picture of a good-looking presentation of those drinks on Instagram:

It's certainly the right color.

As for whether this hints at any role Booster might play in the movie... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . I guess we'll find out when the film hits theaters on August 18.

Thanks for the drink, Marty.

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Nothing.

Specifically, I mean, we learned nothing about upcoming Booster Gold appearances and/or projects.

DC's slate of announcements were heavily biased towards Batman and Superman. That was to be expected, especially in the vacuum created by the simultaneous writers and actors guilds strikes that derailed any potential discussion of whatever James Gunn might be planning for his announced Booster Gold television show.

Considering that DC produced that shiny Booster Gold reprint that I just won't stop talking about (currently selling for about $75 on eBay), I'm sure they haven't entirely forgotten about our hero. Dan Jurgens will definitely be working on some Superman books in the near future. (Yet *another* 30th anniversary Death of Superman retrospective? That last one must have sold great! DCs going to keep killing Superman *forever*.) Maybe Booster Gold will pop up then.

Here's looking to the future.

UPDATE: Might as well append here that Booster Gold appears in no new comics in DC's October 2023 solicitations (as seen at AIPTComics.com). So... that's not encouraging. Thanks to Rob Snow for that news.

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