Late last week, Newsaradar finally shed a little light on what we should expect from the upcoming Future State event in an interview with Dark Nights: Death Metals writer Scott Snyder, who says

Death Metal ends in January, and then January and February is Future State, which is going to give glimpses of possible DC futures. That was built while we were doing Death Metal to lead into some stuff which isn't happening anymore, but those plans have taken a new shape, which is exciting.

The article authors, Michael Doran and Kat Calamia, speculate that the "stuff which isn't happening anymore" is more than likely the 5G event promoted by former DC Comics publisher Dan DiDio before he was abruptly fired back in February. It looks to me like Future State is the company trying to salvage the sunk cost of that project in a month-long alternate-continuity event similar to the sort of stories we saw in 2011's Flashpoint and 2015's Convergence. Whether they call it "Future State," "Elseworlds," or "Hypertime," DC loves these things.

I don't know Scott Snyder, so I don't know if his "is exciting" comment is sincere or salesmanship. (Was it not exciting in its original form? "Exciting" like a roller coaster or a car fire?) Whichever the case, so long as Booster Gold is involved and on covers like these, I'm on board.

Generations: Shattered #1 card stock variant cover by Lee Bermejo

You can read the original article at GamesRadar.com.

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Because Booster Gold is a comic book character, Boosterrific.com is usually pretty much alone in its field reporting on his copious public appearances. If Booster was a real person, there would be, like, hundreds of sites stumbling over one another to repost paparazzi photos of him eating a burrito while headed to the gym wearing sweatpants in a desperate ploy to seduce your valuable click.

I might be a niche site, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to use those other sites' playbook! I'm the Internet, too, guys.

On October 4, former Justice League International artist Kevin Maguire tweeted an image promoting social distancing that he created in an intentional homage to his own 1987 cover to Justice League #1.

On October 7, former comics news website that now specializes in clickbait listicles, CBR.com, reposted the image with only the bare details necessary to inform the uninitiated of its visual significance without adding any significant commentary. (Shame on me. That was snarky. CBR doesn't deserve to be made fun of like that. To be fair, there must be plenty of people encountering the image for the first time who are unaware of the JL cover. "CBR: the best comics website for people who don't read comics!")

On October 8, the comics gossip tabloid that Booster Gold creator Dan Jurgens recently called "disreputable," BleedingCool.com, also reposted the image. They went a step further than their click competitor and added a gallery of other images Maguire has drawn that also homage the aforementioned Justice League #1 cover. Reputable or not, that seems like at least some value added in return for your click.

Now, on October 9, I will repost the same image because, like the other sites, I don't really have anything better to post. And I'm adding nothing of value other than the unenlightening observation that my doing the same thing as everyone else does nothing to advance the human condition in any meaningful way. And heck, I'm not even getting paid. (#nihilismnow!)

Hopefully, if you saw the following image on Twitter or CBR or Bleeding Cool, you'll still enjoy seeing it again as much as I do. Personally, I never get tired of Maguire's art.

No, sir, Mr. Gardner.

Footnote: I'm a little surprised I haven't yet seen Maguire's image posted at the former Newsarama, but it seems they've been too busy posting bigger news to resort to reposting social media pics. Check out their latest "feature" piece, "Marvel characters who have wielded Captain America's shield." (Double shame on me. There's always the weekend.)

UPDATE 2020-10-09: ComicBook.com is getting in on the action! Hi, Russ!

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Hey, DC, your website, dccomics.com/comics, is hard to use when I'm standing in my Local Comic Shop with my smart phone trying to figure out whether or not they should have received a particular new comic this week. Seems you might want to work on that.

For example, apparently you just released the trade collection Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 1: Millennium, reprinting Booster Gold's appearance in Legion of Super-Heroes: Millennium #2. That's great! It's a delightful Michael "Booster" Carter appearance written by Brian Michael Bendis and drawn by Nicola Scott.

SPOILER ALERT: He does.

Every Booster Gold fan would enjoy that!

Fortunately, I now have the opportunity to browse my Local Comic Shop on Tuesday and report on my latest misadventure the next day. That part of the new distribution scheme, that part I like.

So 2020 is not *all* bad.

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Over at Newsarama/GamesRadar+, Michael Doran has started speculating about what DC might have in mind for January/February 2021 in regards to the mysterious "Generations" event teased in Detective Comics #1027.

I don't agree with all of Doran's theories, and he altogether avoids guessing how we'll reconcile getting both the original 1985 Booster Gold (seen on the solicited Generations: Shattered cover) and the 2007 time cop Booster Gold (hinted at in the dialogue of Detective Comics #1027) in one event. But his general conclusion seems reasonable enough. I quote:

In summary, 'Future State' won't be a precursor to a reboot (which DC really wants you to know isn't happening), but a lead-in to coordinated refresh/line-wide jumping on point the publisher can market heavily without alienating existing readers and throwing the continuity baby out with the bathwater as it did with 'The New 52.'

Not a reboot but a "refresh"? Sure, okay. Whatever. I don't have any problem with that. I didn't have any problem with that when DC tried it with Convergence or 52 or Zero Hour or any of the many, many other non-reboot reboots DC has attempted over the past four decades or so. If you read superhero comics long enough, you'll get used to publishers trying new initiatives to bring in new blood, which they should. Children are the future, after all.

(Trivial digression: We didn't call Crisis on Infinite Earths a "reboot" back in the day, either. Interestingly, Google and Wikipedia sources credit the term "reboot" in its modern, "continuity reset" meaning to fan discussion of Mark Waid's 1994 re-imagining of Legion of Super-Heroes continuity in the wake of Zero Hour, which was itself the second major overhaul of LSH continuity. Those fans were computer-savvy users of the World Wide Web-precursor Usenet, so the adoption and retasking of the computer term came naturally. Therefore, DC's own history of recreating their properties over and over again was the reason the term was created in the first place. You brought this upon yourself, DC!)

To make your own informed guesses about what the future might hold (and get a glimpse of the issue's alternate cover, which also includes Booster Gold!), you can read the whole article at gamesradar.com.

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C.M. spotted an omission here on Boosterrific.com that they thought needed to be brought to my attention:

I noticed that for your entry under "Other Media" for Justice League Unlimited "The Greatest Story Never Told", there wasn't a mention of the characters that Booster meets in the story. Particularly Tracy Simmons, as she becomes Booster's date at the end of the episode.

First of all, thanks for noticing! I've put a lot of work into Boosterrific.com, and it's always good to hear that someone has found some value in it.

More importantly, you're right. I didn't mention Tracy in my synopsis of that episode. I omitted that data on purpose, partly because I was interested in avoiding spoilers, and partly because I was interested in strictly limiting the information in the Other Media summaries to just a couple of sentences at most. Maybe I was wrong to make that decision.

Boosterrific.com was created for and remains dedicated to tracking the adventures of Booster Gold that appear in comic books published by DC Comics, in other words, the adventures of Booster Gold in the traditional DC Universe (DCU). I decided to track appearances in other media, like television and video games in an effort to provide a comprehensive guide of the where our hero can be found.

However, I don't always have the same interest in other media as I have for comic books, so I have rarely made the effort to catalog Booster's Other Media appearances as thoroughly as I do comics. That may be a bit of a disservice to Booster and his fans, but I have to draw the line somewhere, and that's where it is.

If you're interested in more information about Booster's participation in the excellent Justice League Unlimited episodes, I recommend the DCAU Wiki (dcau.fandom.com) which has done a great job covering them, including "The Greatest Story Never Told."

So apologies to the highly esteemed S.T.A.R. Labs physicist Dr. Tracy Simmons, who probably always should have been mentioned in my my Other Media post for "The Greatest Story Never Told." Maybe one of these days I'll make it up for it with a spotlight post here on the blog as the only DC-sanctioned outside-of-comics romantic interest for Booster Gold.

Thanks for your constructive criticism, C.M. Together, we'll make Boosterrific.com better!

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