One of the biggest cliches in American superhero stories is that the superheroes are often, by default, champions of the status quo. But what if the status is not quo? Should superheroes be using their powers to build a better world? That question is at the heart of Booster Gold #17.

The issue themes will be familiar to fans of Roger Moore's James Bond: A mad scientist plans to improve the world by killing a bunch of people, and the Americans and Russians stand on opposite sides advocating for their own interests while a lone hero struggles against all odds to save the day.

The Russian agent is the amoral mercenary Cheshire. The issue's interesting twist is that the American agent is also a villain; the superhero Hawk's good intentions have become warped by his political ideology. Caught in the middle is Metropolis' own Corporate Crusader, Booster Gold, who is just trying to mitigate the collateral damage.

When it all builds to a head, Booster is forced to play his opponents' hardline games against them with a bluff that only an unknown wildcard could hope to pull off, as seen in this very dramatic sequence of panels:

Can superheroes make the world a better place? Booster Gold is still fighting to find out.

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The bad news is that Booster Gold is nowhere to be seen in this week's installment of DC's twenty-one-parts-and-counting Dark Crisis saga, Dark Crisis: War Zone.

The issue is an anthology of vignettes all taking place during the melee that's been raging in front of the Hall of Justice for two months now. We know Booster is in that fight, but somehow he's just never captured on panel herein.

The good news is that we can confirm our hero is still hard at work saving innocent lives because he gets a name drop on the very first page:

words by Jeremy Adams; art by Fernando Pasarin, Matt Ryan, Matt Herms, Troy Peteri

A wise man once said, "Whenever Booster's not on panel, all the other characters should be asking 'Where's Booster?'" This is close enough.

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I'm sure I'm not the only one who saw the Mess Hall in the Justice League Hall of Justice in last week's Superman: Kal-El's Return Special #1 and thought, "That looks just like Warriors!"

If you don't remember Warriors, it was a bar filled with memorabilia from Guy Gardner's crime-fighting career. (Warriors is not to be confused with Planet Krypton, the superhero-themed restaurant found on multiple Earths.)

Booster Gold visited Warriors on several occasions, most notably on December 5, 1995, when Guy Gardner threw the DCU's largest Christmas party in the pages of Guy Gardner: Warrior #39.

As you can see, almost everyone who was anyone in 1995 made this party, including Booster in his Extreme Justice-era Mark IV power armor. It's no tuxedo, but it *was* keeping Booster alive at the time, so come as you are, I guess.

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The Booster Gold News Of The Week is the tweet at the bottom of this short thread:

You know that tweet was shocking because it was covered by ComicBook.com, CBR.com, BleedingCool.com, ScreenRant.com, Looper.com, WeGotThisCovered.com, and for some reason, GQ.com, among many, many others, now including Boosterrific.com.

First of all, I'm not sure we can trust anything we read on Twitter these days. But supposing this tweeter is the real DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn, I think we have to assume all those people beating down his door are the angry fans of WB's Legends of Tomorrow, which was canceled before Donald Faison's Booster Gold could be redeemed. (He gets only one appearance, and sells out all the protagonists to the Time Police? What a dick!)

Frankly, I don't care whether those vocal Booster Gold proponents want more Faison, or want "The Greatest Story Never Told"'s Green Lantern, or want an Extreme Justice live-action movie (please, please, please!). More Booster Gold in any form is alright with me.

C'mon, James. Give the people what they want. Obviously, they have great taste.

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It's a big month at Boosterrific.com for Doomsday fans! (Or fans of Dead Superman. Either way.)

We all know that Booster Gold was on multiple covers of Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special #1 a few weeks back. (And, as it happens, he'll be on the cover of a few more when the second printings arrive after Christmas.)

Whether or not the 30th Anniversary Special was the inspiration, Booster booster J got to reading other Doomsday stories and discovered the following Booster appearance was missing from the Boosterrific.com database:

That's from Superman's nightmare sequence at the beginning of Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey #1. I'm sure I've seen that before, but somehow I failed to track it. Oops. (I wonder if I decided once upon a time that it didn't count because it's not really Booster Gold? Oh, well. Whatever. Never mind.) Fixed now.

And, as it happens, that's not the only Doomsday-related Booster appearance that's been added to the database this week. The cover to Justice League America #69 showed up in this week's Superman: Kal-El Returns Special #1:

Superman and Doomsday (and Booster Gold) together forever!

Thanks to J for setting me straight.

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