We're still learning about what DC's summer crossover Dark Crisis event will be. We've seen pictures of Booster Gold in June's Dark Crisis #1 and Young Justice: Dark Crisis #1, but thanks to aipt.com, we can now be pretty sure he'll be making at least a cameo appearance in May's Dark Crisis #0 Free Comic Book Day Special Edition:

art by Jim Cheung

You'll note that Booster Gold is included in the Brad Meltzer-era group and not the Giffen/DeMatteis-era Justice League International group. I can only assume that's because Booster was not on Kevin Maguire's 1987 cover of Justice League #1 (because he wasn't on the team yet).

But not only was he not a member of the 2006 relaunch, he also wasn't on the Ed Benes / Maria Benes / Alex Sinclair 2006 cover of Justice League of America #1. At least not at first.

See, these are the two "standard" covers of Justice League of America #1 which were distributed equally:

You can see for yourself that Booster Gold isn't on either one. However, he *was* on the solicited cover, which included many differences from what eventually appeared on comic shop racks:

The solicited art was finally used on the second printing of that issue. If I were the guessing sort, I'd assume that when creating the art for Dark Crisis #0, artist Cheung had access to the solicitation image, and that's why Booster ended up where he ended up in the gallery pic above.

Or maybe Dark Crisis is changing the DC Multiverse (again) and now Booster was a active member during that era of the league.

Either way, Dark Crisis #0 will be in your Local Comic Shop this Free Comic Book Day, Saturday, May 7.

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Now that Donald Faison is playing Booster Gold in the CW's "Arrowverse," there appears to be a groundswell of fan support for his Scrubs and Fake Doctors, Real Friends co-star Zach Braff to play Booster's best friend, Blue Beetle.

But would Braff even want to do it?

Thankfully for all Blue and Gold fandom, ScreenRant.com writer Nathan Graham-Lowery put the question to Braff directly.

ScreenRant: Now, what are the chances we can get you to re-team up and you can play Booster's best friend, the Blue Beetle, Ted Kord?

Zach Braff: That's what I heard. I heard rumors, and I know nothing about comic books, but when Donald got this part, my social media blew up with 'You got to play Ted Kord now'. Now I don't know who Ted Kord is. I'm sorry, comic book fans, but I would love to play Ted Kord. You can start the rumor. I'm down to play Ted Kord. I don't know anything about Ted Kord, but I'll do it.

That might sound crazy, but having no idea who your character is seems to be exactly what casting agents for the Arrowverse are looking for.

I look forward to seeing a Faison/Braff television reunion... should Legends of Tomorrow ever actually be renewed for an 8th season.

(According to TVLine.com, LoT is one of 12 current CW shows that have not yet been renewed or officially canceled yet. Apparently, the CW's parent companies [Paramount and WarnerMedia] are trying to sell the network, and conventional wisdom is that executives are waiting to see what their new parents have in mind before making any more commitments. I guess we'll see what we see whenever we see it.)

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Blech. I don't know who the characters in this week's Human Target #6 are, but they're certainly no members of any Justice League International that I've ever met before! So let's forget all about them and instead give our attention to a creator who has a better handle on our favorite characters, someone who helped make them our favorite characters in the first place.

Artist Kevin Maguire tweeted this image last week in honor of the Justice League International's 35th anniversary. The drawing has made the rounds of the World Wide Web a time or two already, but it's just too Boosterrific for me not to repost here.

"Now that the JLI 35th anniversary passed, I got to thinking what they might look like now and I think they MIGHT look something like this...#JLI #JusticeLeague" —@maguirekevin, Twitter.com, March 8, 2002

I especially love how good Booster Gold looks with white hair and wrinkles. Our hero is far to vain to let a little thing like time dull *his* looks. (It probably helps that his brush with Chronal Leprosy in the 25th century left him practically immortal. [See Booster Gold volume 2 #43 for details.])

Let's not wait so long before our next reunion, old pals.

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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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