Dan Jurgens created the character of Booster Gold and has written and drawn most of Booster's adventures since 1985. However, Dan wasn't the only artist working on Booster's first appearance.

I would suggest that the most significant early artistic collaborator was Booster's original inker, Mike DeCarlo, who has drawn, inked, and/or colored hundreds of books for DC (and elsewhere) since the early 80s.

For those of us who have been with Booster since the beginning, DeCarlo's Booster certainly has a place in our heart. That's why I was so happy to see Cameron Lentz's commission of DeCarlo's distinctive take on young Booster Gold recently show up at ComicArtFans.com:

Yep, that's our Booster!

If you'd like to admire more of DeCarlo's Booster Gold inks, ComicArtFans.com also has the first appearance of the post-Crisis Superman from Booster Gold #6 story page 7, as well as Booster's origin story on pages 17, 18, 19, and 20 of that same issue.

With art like that, it's no wonder that we consider the issue to be one of the 12 Best Booster Gold Stories Ever!

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The full title of the comic containing this week's^† long-awaited return of Booster Gold is Multiversity: Harley Screws Up the DCU #6. Note the "Multiversity" there.

To date, since 2014, DC has released 10 distinctly different "Multiversity" titles. The first nine of them identified on their covers which of the near-infinite Earths they took place on. The exception? This one, obviously.

So is the Booster Gold who appears in this issue "our" Booster Gold, the Booster Gold of Earth Prime or New Earth or Earth 0 or whatever they're calling it this month?

Sure. Why not? Does it really matter so long as we get some Booster Gold action?

Buy this issue and make Skeets happy.

^† This is the week the book appears in print for the first time. The book has been available as a digital edition to subscribers to the DC Universe Infinite app for the past month. Membership has its privileges, as they say.

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DC's 1988 event Millennium is not widely beloved for a variety of reasons — foremost among them for all Booster boosters is that it got Booster Gold cancelled. But what sealed its fate is that it doesn't stick the landing.

The concluding issue, Millennium #8, is 24 pages of just talking and new character introductions. It doesn't feel as much like a denouement for what came before as it does the first issue in a brand new comic book populated by a bunch of badly stereotyped characters with poorly thought-out powers. Blech.

Booster appears in several panels in this turkey, and he's featured equally as prominently as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Which is to say that they are all extras in the story of future household names Gloss, RAM, Extrano, Jet, Floro, and... Betty.

As it happens, I do have a favorite page in this issue. It's page 5, in which Booster Gold learns that everything he's gone through in the previous seven weeks — losing his fortune, his friends, and his good name — was leading to the creation of a superhuman with the power to arrange furniture for maximum harmony!

I have to believe that when Gloss says "You'll never regret this," she's being sarcastic.

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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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