Two pieces of news today that are probably each worthy of their own post. But since they both came from the ghost of Newsarama at GamesRadar.com, I'm combining them into this one post.

Thing 1: "Booster Gold: Inside the social media superhero who was 35 years ahead of his time" by Vaneta Rogers is a retrospective of what Booster Gold has meant to the writers who have crafted his adventures.

Rogers' oral history includes interviews with Dan Jurgens, Keith Giffen, J.M. Dematteis, and Jeff Katz, all ow whom clearly have a great deal of respect for the character they helped craft.

In fact, Giffen said that, when he and co-writer J.M. DeMatteis were told by editor Andy Helfer they had to use Booster Gold in their new Justice League run in 1987, it was this 'things-never-go-right' element that defined Booster.

"I'll be honest: I had no idea what to do with the character when we first had him," Giffen said. "Booster really didn't gel in my mind until he had the first 'bwa-ha-ha' moment and Beetle was laughing at him. I knew then that this character is going to know life's frustrations and is going to get knocked down a lot, but is always going to get back up again."

That's just a taste of the insight the piece provides into what has made Booster Gold so durable for the past three-plus decades. Good work, Vaneta.

Thing 2: "New DC Human Target is a 12-issue 'whodunit'" by Micheal Doran is essentially a sales piece to encourage fans to buy the upcoming Human Target series featuring the Justice League International.

The report lays out the basic premise of the series and quotes writer Tom King telling us how this is going to be just like every other prestige mini-series he's written for DC in the past half decade. But the important part for Booster boosters is the news about the variant covers.

The [Trevor] Hairsine and [Danny] Miki #1 and #2 variants connect to form the cover of a 'Whodunit' board game. The back cover features a pin-up calendar, "leaning into the mid-century feel of the comic," says DC.

When placed side by side, those variant covers will look like this:

Mid-century? No. Boosterrific? Very.

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Booster Gold has topped yet another CBR listicle, this time "10 Most Bizarre Alter Egos DC Heroes Have Used" by Scoot Allan.

Quoth the article:

1 Booster Gold Faked His Death And Disguised Himself As Supernova During 52

DC launched a weekly comic series called 52 following the events of Infinite Crisis that explored a year in the DC Universe without Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman. A mysterious new hero known as Supernova appeared in Metropolis that kicked off an ongoing mystery about the man behind the mask.

While many thought it was Superman, it turned out to actually be Booster Gold, who had faked his death in order to stop his corrupted robotic pal Skeets. What's really bizarre bout the Supernova identity is that it was also used by Booster Gold's ancestor Daniel Carter and then stolen by Booster Gold's father from the future, making it a multi-generational costumed alter ego.

First of all, let me say that if you have not yet read 52: why not? It's no accident that issue 15 made my list of the twelve best Booster Gold stories.

Secondly, the Supernova identity is more bizarre than even Scoot's two understated paragraphs imply. (Hint: it involves Superman pretending he's Batman.) For more information on the Silver Age comic book origins that inspired Supernova, I strongly encourage you read the July 2019 Boosterrific Blog post "Sunshine Supernova."

And thirdly, I'd say that Supernova isn't Booster Gold's most bizarre alter ego. That honor goes to Bloodspot.

JLA: Incarnations #6

Comic books are the best kind of weird.

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We were told to expect Blue and Gold #3 this week, and DCcomics.com still says it's coming. But — and this is a big "but" — DC's distributor, LunarDistribution.com, says otherwise. And Comixology.com has removed the issue from their site entirely.

So what I'm saying is don't expect to find Blue and Gold at your Local Comic Shop this week. Maybe next week? Maybe?

However, there is some good news for Booster boosters. Both Booster and Beetle are on the David Marquez cover of this week's Justice League #68!

(If this looks familiar, it's because we took a first look at the grinning mugs of Booster Gold and Blue Beetle in the original line art back in June.)

At least the boys have a good excuse for being late. It's not every week they get to hang out with the A-listers.

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Long before they became breakout stars on the Batman: The Long Halloween, the team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale honed their long-form revisionist mysteries style on Challengers of the Unknown.

The limited series focuses on the aftermath of an unintentional tragedy that disbanded the titular Silver Age super team. Booster Gold never appeared in any of the mini-series' 8-issues, but Skeets did. Kind of.

Challengers of the Unknown #5, 1991

Metal Men? Inferior Five? Ragman? Brother Power the Geek? That's quite an odd assortment of lesser-known DC heroes. And that's Guy's point. When he made the statement in 1991, those characters had been barely seen for years.

Other than a single panel cameo alongside other Silver Age castaways in Millennium #8 (1988), the Challengers hadn't been seen since Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1986, and few of the others had done much better.

In fact, the only character Guy lists who had accrued any significant post-Crisis continuity was Skeets, who had been the sidekick of DC's first post-Crisis hero in 1986. Skeets was mothballed after the cancellation of Booster Gold volume 1 in 1988 and had ever since been stored in a JLI closet (as revealed in Adventures of Superman #476, 1991).

So while it seems like Guy is just being a jerk to reporter Harold Moffet, I like to think he's really concerned about the missing Skeets' welfare. What a good Guy!

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At the beginning of the month, Rob Snow noticed this listing at amazon.com/gp/product/B09D8S3T78/:

As you can see, it is a pre-order for the Kindle-only edition of Russ' compilation of his Gold Exchange interviews with the creators of Booster Gold Volume 2 a decade ago. It's about time Russ collected them for modern readers; the always-entertaining columns originally ran on several different websites, few of which still exist. (The Boosterrific Blog's "Gold Exchange" posts are littered with dead links.)

I've been waiting to advertise that link to other Booster boosters until Russ was ready to announce physical editions of the book. And he finally has. Per an email Russ sent earlier this week to Indiegogo supporters of his Josie and the Pussycats oral history The Best Movie Ever: A Totally Jerkin' Book:

In October, The Gold Exchange will be available to buy as an ebook or a paperback on Amazon. In January, Dispatches From Chicago -- just like The Gold Exchange, but with Savage Dragon interviews -- will be available in the same way. Both of those can currently be bought in very limited quantities in "special edition" hardcovers over at josiebook.com.

Rob pre-ordered his Kindle edition weeks ago, and I've now pre-ordered a special edition copy for myself. I hope you'll join us in supporting Burlingame's decades-long efforts to chronicle the creation of Booster Gold's comic book adventures.

Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: amazon.com gold exchange interviews josiebook.com rob snow russ burlingame