DC's August solicitations are out this week, and we've gotten our first glimpse at Blue and Gold issue 2:

BLUE AND GOLD #2
story by DAN JURGENS
art & cover by RYAN SOOK
ON SALE August 17 · $3.99 US

Who needs the Justice League anyway? Our heroes certainly don't! After a painful rejection from the DC Universe's team of a-list heroes, Booster Gold and Blue Beetle strike out on their own. Thanks to the Kord Industries fortune, anything is possible for this dynamic duo...right? Little do they know, an alien assassin seeking revenge places Blue and Gold in her crosshairs, and The Omnizon never misses!

The only bad news is that it looks like this is probably the only place we'll be seeing Booster Gold in August. (I think he'll be showing up — very briefly — in a Birds of Prey collection solicited for late September, but that's four months away. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.)

You can see all the solicitations yourself at GamesRadar.com/Newsarama.

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First things first: 26 Down in today's LA Times crossword puzzle (by Winston Emmons, edited by Rich Norris) is "Robot companion of superhero Booster Gold."

Hundreds of thousands of people work daily crosswords puzzles, so this is great exposure for Booster Gold. If you are one of them, and you are dropping by Boosterrific.com for the first time today, hello. The answer is "Skeets."

Elsewhere, those of us who read Booster Gold comic books will find slim pickings on the ol' periodical rack this week. To the best of my current knowledge, the only place you'll find our hero in the latest releases from DC Comics is in the pages of Superman Volume 4: Mythology, reprinting Superman #20-28, including this panel from Superman #23:

I like that panel — artist Kevin Maguire's take on Blue and Gold *and* the Wonder Twins? Yes, please! — but I'm not sure it's worth $20 for an entire reprint collection.

Instead I'd encourage you to go out and pick up the single back issue from your Local Comic Shop where it's probably selling for... *looks it up on eBay* ... $25?!? Because it's the "1st appearance of Xanadoth"? Xanadoth? You've got to be kidding me. Xanadoth has been in exactly *two* comic books. Fat chance of seeing him as an answer in a crossword puzzle.

Ahem. As I was saying, $20 is a pretty good deal. Buy this issue and make Skeets (and cruciverbalists everywhere) happy.

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Illustrator Dean Beattie revealed a recent commission on Twitter last week. See if you recognize these guys:

Judging by that high collar, you can probably guess that this was commissioned by Cort. Kudos to both the artist and patron.

By the way, seeing Skeets here reminds me that Blue Beetle and Skeets have never spent much time together. It's kind of like Booster has two best friends that he keeps apart from each other. I assume he doesn't want them gossiping about him behind his back. It's okay; Skeets can be your friend, too, Ted.

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Childhood is a time of learning about the world around you and preparing you for the future. But what if your childhood won't happen for another few centuries and your future is in the past? That's the case for time-traveling hero Booster Gold, whose 25th-century upbringing may not have prepared him for 21st-century life.

SPORTS: The most popular sport in the mid 2400s will be familiar to 21st-century inhabitants. Aside from some minor technological innovations like sensors on the goal line to detect touchdowns, the sport will look and play in ways pretty much exactly as it had 400 years earlier. Someone watching a game in 1982 would have little trouble following the action in 2442.

Even the economics of the sport will be little changed. Just as in the 21st century, 25th-century college athletes will be considered "amateurs" who earn their institutions and commercial partners — and bookmakers — considerable revenue while making no income themselves.

Booster Gold #18

Though at the time, star quarterback Michael "Booster" Carter wouldn't have cared about such things, mastering the game of football would be a great indoctrination in 21st-century culture.

DIET: Soy dogs might have seemed far-fetched to citizens of 1987, but meat substitutes are all the rage in the 2020s as they will be in the Gotham City of the 25th century. We can only imagine what will make the population of the future turn their back on meat. Is it a commercial necessity following the Great Disaster? Is it an ethical consideration for animal welfare? Or do soy dogs just plain taste better than 20th-century hot dogs?

Whatever the case, by the 25th century, science will have advanced enough that people can have a different relationship with food than 21st-century diners. In Booster Gold's native time, gourmands will be able to eat whatever they like without fear of unhealthy weight gain.

Justice League Quarterly #6

That system sure beats rice cakes.

ROBOTS: In the 21st century, artificial intelligence really isn't very intelligent. Speech recognition software can decipher what television channel you want to watch and scanning algorithms can unlock your phone, but Siri isn't thinking or feeling in the traditional sense. That will have changed drastically by the year 2462.

Booster Gold will be raised in a world in which self-sufficient robots can be counted on to reliably perform many complicated jobs, including valet and security guard. There's plenty of evidence between the panels of Booster's adventures to suggest the only thing keeping robots from becoming further integrated into society is resistance from biological lifeforms.

Booster Gold #16

Thinking robots may not exist in the 21st century, but bigotry is eternal.

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Great news, Booster boosters! Booster Gold is in this week's Superman: Red and Blue #3.

You can read a preview of the first few pages at aiptcomics.com, but we've already seen what we needed to see via Twitter.com:

And while you're in your Local Comic Shop, know that Booster reprises his cover-only appearance from Dark Nights: Death Metal: The Last 52: War of the Multiverses on the reprint collection Dark Nights: Death Metal: War of the Multiverses, where he once again appears only on the cover. If nothing else, you've got to give him credit for consistency.

Buy these comics and make Skeets happy!

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