Longtime Booster booster Morgenstern recently asked me a very good question:

Did you ever write an article about this dropped idea of making Tim Drake Blue Beetle and the Death of Booster Gold by Scott Beatty & Chuck Dixon?

The answer is "no." And I'll correct that oversight right now.

Before I can explain, let me set the stage. The early 2000s were a lean time for Booster Gold. He made exactly two in-continuity, non-flashback appearances in 2001, both in very small parts (just a few panels) as set dressing for the "Our Worlds at War" and "Joker's Last Laugh" crossover events. Although Booster was still friends with Ted Kord, the Blue Beetle was finding much greater success as an associate of Oracle's Birds of Prey. That's where this story begins.

In Birds of Prey #39 (released in January 2002), Ted Kord is diagnosed with a heart condition that forces him to hang up his tights. However,Birds of Prey and Robin writer Chuck Dixon and his "Joker: Last Laugh" co-collaborator Scott Beatty didn't intend this to be the end of the Blue Beetle, just an opportunity for a passing of the mantle.

The plan, as Beatty revealed on his blog in a 2019 post titled "THE CLIP FILE: How Scott Beatty & Chuck Dixon *ALMOST* Turned Robin Into BLUE BEETLE!," was that "a gravely injured Ted Kord would find a replacement Blue Beetle while he convalesced... assuming that he would survive at all. It would be a *paid* position occupied by a cash-strapped Tim Drake (a.k.a. Robin III)." Christopher Irving's 2007 encyclopedic The Blue Beetle Companion confirms the plan, quoting Dixon as elaborating that eventually "an invalid Ted Kord would direct a half dozen Blue Beetles (all with different talents) to battle international crime."

What makes all of this relevant to Booster Gold fans is exactly how Beatty and Dixon intended to launch this enterprise in the pages of a proposed mini-series they called Blue Beetles. Quoting from the mini-series pitch proposal on Beatty's blog:

We throw down the gauntlet with the death of Booster Gold.

Really.

With ground-support from Ted, Danny and Star begin an investigation into the events surrounding Booster Gold's demise, a mystery which provides the backbone to the first few issues. Their trial-by-fire begins as Ted launches an ambitious campaign to reel in any Beetle foes still at-large, sending his apprentice Beetles to capture a string of rogues and offer them clemency if they swear to renounce villainy; otherwise it's a one-way ticket to the Slab. And now that it's tucked away in polar isolation at the bottom of the world, NOBODY wants to go to the Slab.

Meanwhile, Booster is celebrated on the evening news, showered in fifteen minutes of celebrity as unofficial biographies are published, how-to videos are hawked, and the promotional machine grinds dollars out of heroic sacrifice.

The kicker is this: Booster's death was faked by Maxwell Lord in order to capitalize on the cult of celebrity surrounding young stars dying young and leaving beautiful corpses. Lord plans on marketing the Booster Gold bio and telepic, then engineering a ballyhooed superhero resurrection.

Booster and Max are in cahoots, hoping to spike interest in the hero's eventual resurrection and subsequent product endorsement deals. What's worse, both Booster and Max were willing to silence Ted Kord in order to maintain the ruse.

That's... just.... Wow.

Although this particular pitch was denied by the Powers-That-Be at DC at the time for unspecified reasons — and I can't say I'm too saddened by that particular decision — it's amazing to see how many of these ideas presage what would actually unfold in the hands of other writers. Remember, this was 2002. Max's villain turn in Countdown to Infinite Crisis was still three years away, and Booster's death would be a key component of Infinite Crisis-follow up 52!

For more information on this particular footnote of DC history, I encourage you to read Beatty's full proposal for Blue Beetles on his blog, scottbeatty.blogspot.com.

Thanks for helping me correct my oversight, M.

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Last month DC teased us with a snippet of Booster Gold in attendance at the memorial service for the Justice League coming this summer to the pages of Dark Crisis #1:

We already knew there were going to be several specials tying into the event. Thanks to SyFy.com, we now know that there will also be a Dark Crisis: Young Justice mini-series as well.

This is the first page of released art.

art by Laura Braga

So we can be doubly sure that Booster Gold is at that memorial service!

If you're hesitant to buy that issue for just a cameo Booster Gold appearance, you should know that Booster also appears on one of the issue's variant covers. Or, more accurately, his shirt will.

art by Todd Nauck

I think that's supposed to be former Justice League mascot Snapper Carr wearing Booster's laundry. Which is cool.

Twice the reason to buy Dark Crisis: Young Justice in June!

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Booster Gold made only the tiniest appearance in Teen Titans Academy #4, but it was a pretty cool one.

The headshot you see in the above panel originated as a Cort Carpenter commission (for his Booster Gold Sketchbook, 'natch) from artist Steve Lieber, and Lieber later incorporated the piece into the issue in that issue's art.

If knowing that makes you also want to support Lieber's work, you should also know that issue #4 (and an even briefer peek in the following issue) should be now available at your Local Comic Shop as part of the Teen Titans Academy Volume 1: X Marks the Spot reprint collection.

Support your favorite artists!

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Blue and Gold #7 is coming your way this week, and AIPTComics.com already has the issue preview. And it looks like we're getting a very special Guest Star!

That bad guy monologing about ruling the Multiverse while making life miserable for poor Jaime Reyes can't possibly be anyone other than his greatest enemy... the Black Beetle!

While he hasn't been M.I.A. for quite so long as Theresa Collins was, we still hadn't seen good ol' Black Beetle since the cancellation of Booster Gold volume 2 in 2011, and his true identity remains one of that series' biggest unsolved mysteries. Boosterrific.com considered the possibilities in depth in a 3-part series in 2014 (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).

Is Dan Jurgens finally ready to pull off Black Beetle's mask and reveal the villain's true face? Will we believe it even if we see it? There's only one way to find out!

Buy this issue and make Skeets (and Buggles) happy!

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If you watched The Flash season 8 episode "Impulsive Excessive Disorder" on Wednesday night, you must have seen this:

Nicole Drum provides a recap of Booster's appearance at ComicBook.com, but the article fails to mention that the White House visit is clearly a nod to Booster Gold's comic book origin story (as told in Booster Gold #8 and #9).

Meanwhile, over at EW.com, Chancellor Agard got the behind-the-scenes story of how the cameo came to be directly from Flash showrunner Eric Wallace:

"It was just a kind of a fun coincidence," he tells EW. "I was in post working on episode 806 and I knew the kids, Bart and Nora, would be looking at future things in the Flash Museum. And the head of post for our show and for Legends is the same person, Geoff Garrett. He happened to mention, 'Oh, by the way, don't tell anybody, but Booster Gold is going to be appearing in the finale of Legends.' I'm big Booster Gold fan, and I went, 'Hey, have they cast that person yet? I have a crazy thought. What if we see our kids in this episode looking through newspapers and we see whoever you guys have cast really fast, kind of a connected thing?' And he said, 'Well, it's funny you should mention that, Eric, because the finale of Legends airs the week before Flash returns.'"

Wallace continues: "So we made a few calls. I called up Phil [Klemmer], the showrunner of Legends, pitched him the idea. After he stopped laughing so hard he's like, 'Of course, definitely do that.' And then it was a very simple matter of just talking to the actor Donald Faison and getting his permission just to use a picture. He was into it. Next thing you know, it's in the show. It all happened in literally 24 hours. It was hilarious."

Now that Donald Faison's Booster has been in two "Arrowverse" CW shows two weeks in a row, I'm starting to wonder if this isn't the beginning of a trend? I sure hope so. Personally, I'd like to see Booster Gold on every television show every day; I just can't get enough of that guy.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: chancellor agard comicbook.com donald faison eric wallace ew.com flash geoff garrett nicole glum phil klemmer television