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.

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Back in 2020, I created the following list of what I consider to be the best Booster Gold stories of all time. In the wake of Booster's introduction on Legends of Tomorrow, I'd like to dust that list off for new fans who are discovering our hero for the very first time.

Presented in reading order:

1. Justice League #4 (1987)
Booster Gold's introduction to the Justice League is the best place to for new readers to meet our hero. He's truly at his best here, showcasing his powers, fighting spirit, quick mind, and dedication to team. The best of the best. (Read more about it here.)

2. Booster Gold #6 (1986)
Want to know Booster's origin? So does Superman. Booster is a hero with feet of clay and his head in the clouds. Who can't relate to that? (Read more about it here.)

3. Booster Gold #18 (1987)
There are two sides to every story, and this is the flip side of Booster Gold's. The issue follows a federal agent, Broderick, determined to make Booster pay for his crimes. What price is justice? (Read more about it here.)

4. Justice League International #34 (1989)
If you've only heard one thing about Booster Gold, it's probably that he's best friends with Blue Beetle. This is the height (nadir?) of their misadventures as they turn an island paradise into a Justice League-themed casino. (Read more about it here.)

5. Justice League Quarterly #1 (1990)
Whatever his many flaws, Booster Gold has always been a born leader. His first real chance to show it was as leader of the Conglomerate. Booster was a perfect fit for this international super-team fighting not for truth and justice but the interests of Big Business. (Read more about it here.)

6. Superman #74 (1992)
The 1990s were mostly lost years for Booster Gold, and much of that can be blamed on the rampaging monster Doomsday. The fateful collision between the two can be seen here, and like many train wrecks, it's impossible to look away. Old-fashioned super hero slugfests at their best. (Read more about it here.)

7. Formerly Known as the Justice League #4 (2003)
With Countdown to Infinite Crisis in the near future, this mini-series represents the last gasp of both the Justice League International family and the Blue and Gold team. Their last adventure was among the best. (Read more about it here.)

8. 52 Week 15 (2006)
It's hard to single out any single issue of 52 as better than any other, but if one has to be the best, start at the end: Booster's end. That's right, he dies in this issue. It's powerful stuff. (Read more about it here.)

9. Booster Gold Volume 2, #1 (2007)
Spoiler alert: Booster survived 52 (*cough* time-travel *cough*), and the experience molded him into a better hero than ever. His new adventures as champion of established history begin here. (Read more about it here.)

10. Booster Gold Volume 2, #5 (2008)
What are the rules of time travel? What would it take to break them? What kind of hero would try? A groundbreaking issue justly remembered as one of the best of its generation. (Read more about it here.)

11. Justice League: Generation Lost #23 (2011)
Like 52, it's hard to choose just one Justice League: Generation Lost issue as the best, and readers should start at the beginning and read the whole thing as the old JLI reunites to clean up their own legacy. But the payoff come at the end, starting with this penultimate issue. (Read more about it here.)

12. Action Comics #995 (2018)
Everything that Booster ever was or ever will be is in this multi-part Superman epic written by Dan Jurgens. It's the best Booster Gold story of the New 52/Rebirth era. (Read more about it here.)

Keep in mind that this is a completely subjective list; it's *my* list. I strongly encourage to read all the Booster Gold comics you can find and form your own opinion.

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Everyone has read Blue and Gold #6 by now, right? Good. Because I can no longer not talk about the issue's most shocking revelation!

No, I'm not talking about the outcome of the fight to the death between Booster Gold and Blue Beetle. Sheesh. "Death" is only a temporary problem in comic books. (Personally, I blame Superman.)

What I *am* talking about is this sequence from pages 11/12:

Let's clarify what happens here....

A. Rip Hunter establishes that a threat to the life of his parents is also threat to his own life.

B. Teresa Collins jokes that he might have to kill her.

C. Rip Hunter makes it clear that it would be "healthier" if she doesn't die.

Idioms are funny things. We are expected to assume that Rip's reponse means that it would be "healthier" for Terri if he didn't have to kill her. Sure, that would be bad for Terri, but what if Rip wasn't talking about her health but his health.

Because, as he just said, parents are pretty important.

Oh, I think you know.

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Whether or not I'm a fan of CW's programming, I have to admit that Donald Faison's portrayal of Booster Gold on DC's Legends of Tomorrow season 7 finale has certainly raised the profile of the character and introduced him to a whole bunch of people who have never actually set their hands on a DC comic. That's an objectively good thing.

So it is a worthwhile experience to read how the show's executive producer Phil Klemmer finally got around to adding Booster to his long-running show.

Here he speaks to Chancellor Agard for ew.com:

EW: Arrowverse boss Greg Berlanti has reportedly been working on a Booster Gold movie for years. How did the character wind up on Legends?

Klemmer: As you might expect, through the side door you'd least expect it [to]. I just remember [co-showrunner Keto Shimizu] and I were on a call with Kim Roberto at DC, and we were just talking about fun characters. I think somebody threw it out there, of course never [imagining] in a million years would we get Booster Gold. And then it felt like 15 minutes later, DC called us back and was just like, "Hey, Booster's yours." And just you have a moment of being like, "Okay, this is clearly a prank of some sort, because..." We were all giddy and in disbelief and then it just became a quest of finding an actor who was worthy of the character.

EW: Why was Booster Gold on your mind to begin with? Were you just looking for a DC character to bring in at the end of the season? How did Booster end up fitting the needs of the story?

Klemmer: It's always the tonal fit and just knowing, I don't know, there's just something so lovable and unexpected. You just knew that he was going to work as kind of a bit of the merry prankster, a bit of a BS artist.

Klemmer was also quizzed by Joshua Lapin-Bertone at DCComics.com:

DC: How familiar were you with Booster before this?

Klemmer: I just knew about him from the early days of Legends, when I would hear of various projects, whether they were TV shows or movies, in the same halls where I was working. And obviously dealing with Rip Hunter in early seasons as well. I just assumed that he was going to have his own project. I never imagined that he would come into our world.

DC: For building this version of Booster, did you draw upon any particular stories? Or did you build him from the ground up?

Klemmer: The creation of a character really takes place over the course of that first season, and then seasons to come. It's going to really be a correspondence between us as writers and Donald as a performer. We definitely wanted someone who is a little off center, and like, a little bit mischievous. But we also just wanted a charisma bomb.

And we round out our media tour with Klemmer's conversation with Damian Holbrook of TVInsider.com:

TV: Is the plan to keep Donald on the board?

Klemmer: For sure. We're not gonna let Booster get away. I'm really excited to write him—he's the kind of character you wish you could be. You could get away with murder and be so charming that you never really have to suffer the consequences. He's the antithesis of a writer. Writers are deeply neurotic and self-loathing self-doubting, etcetera. I think that's why we writers are drawn to those characters—because those are our secret alter egos.

Season 8 has not yet been announced. Will there be another season of Legends of Tomorrow? If I were a betting man, I'd bet yes (especially if Michael "Booster" Carter is on the field). Legends of Tomorrow is one of the few CW shows that has improved its ratings season-over-season, so I think we should prepare to see more of Klemmer and Faison's Gold come fall.

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