Like my favorite super hero, I'm planning to start the year watching my alma mater play football. In the meantime, I present for your nostalgic enjoyment the 5 most-read Boosterrific.com blog posts of 2020, presented in ascending order of hits:

5. Monday, April 6: This Day in History: Without Great Power
In which we revisited Booster Gold's participation in Justice League Europe #50, his first taste of superheroic action after losing his powersuit to Doomsday. Say what you will about his motivations, but Booster Gold's got guts.

4. Friday, March 13: That Time Booster Gold Defeated a Disease
In which we took at look at the events of Booster Gold Volume 1 #17 in light of the pandemic that was sweeping the globe. Conclusion: an impenetrable force field is better than a vaccine.

3. Monday, October 26: The Strong and Silent Type
In which I improved Superman & Batman Magazine #8 by cutting out most panels that don't include Booster Gold. Sorry, I couldn't do anything about that bulky 1990s power suit.

2. Monday, November 9: Two of a Kind: Shattered and Forged
In which we clear up the confusion surrounding DC's announcements of Generations: Shattered and Generations: Future State comic books. Hint: they're the same book. Or, at least we think they are. We'll be more certain when we finally have the book in our hands next week.

1. Friday, December 18: The Best of Booster Gold: Action Comics 995
In which we conclude our year-long series of the 12 best Booster Gold comics. (Maybe those clickbait comic book listicle sites are onto something.)

Let's make 2021 another Boosterrific year!

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I do not yet own a copy of yesterday's Dark Nights: Death Metal: The Last 52: War of the Multiverses #1, not because I couldn't make it to my Local Comic Shop but because they were shorted the issue in their weekly comic shipment. New distributor, same old problems. What a fitting way to end 2020.

Actually, that's not entirely true. (The part about the issue's availability, not 2020 sucking. 2020 objectively sucked.) My LCS did have 1 copy of the issue: the 1:25 variant Gary Frank cover. It looks great, but I'm not going to pay $40 for a comic in which Booster only appears on the cover. (Well, *maybe* if Dan Jurgens drew it....)

Yes, that's right: Booster appears on both the standard and retailer incentive variant covers of the issue without showing up on any pages inside. Has this happened before? I suppose I should be the one to know; According to the Boosterrific.com database, the answer is no. It figures that it would finally happen on a squarebound book with a $8.99 cover price. Another nice twist of the knife from 2020 on the way out the door. At least I still have my health.

While we're on the subject of books that Booster Gold doesn't appear in, I wouldn't be doing my duty as chronicler of all things Booster Gold if I didn't draw your attention to this sequence from pages 12 and 13 of this week's (surprisingly enjoyable) Jinny Hex Special #1:

words by Magdalene Visaggio, art by Gleb Menikov, Luis Guerrero, Gabriela Downie

No respect!

(It was not lost on me that in the story, Jinny "descendant of Jonah" Hex finds herself involved in shenanigans with a foe whose origins lie in the Old West. Booster Gold might have been the right ally to summon after all!)

Here's hoping we *all* have better luck next year, Booster boosters.

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Today marks the negative 422nd birthday of Jon Michael "Booster" Carter, born this day in the year 2442.

Booster Gold cake by Annette Price

Congratulations, Booster! You can celebrate by picking up a copy of Dark Nights: Death Metal: The Last 52: War of the Multiverses #1 at your Local Comic Shop. The issue has two covers, and Booster is on both!

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If you like reading about the history of Booster Gold (and since you're reading *this*, I'd say there's a pretty good chance you do), you may be interested in hearing from Pablo Stadelman of Argentina who wrote me last week.

I send you this message because I write a book about the comic industry, called "Cosa de Fans" (fans thing) in my country.

Two years ago I came up with the idea of writing this book with the purpose that people, comic fans or not, know the way the industry works and the stories behind the development of a comic, since its creation from a character to the writing of a story.

For this reason, I interviewed several cartoonists, scriptwriters, inkers and editors of the major publishers, such as Marvel and DC comics, to tell them in the first person how their work is, along with the vicissitudes that happened during the development of a comic.

It also contains stories, many of them unknown, about various specific events of both publishers, both about their characters and their authors.

I had contact with many other friendly people, such as Dan Jurgens and Devin Grayson, as well as people who at first seemed unattainable, such as JM DeMatteis and Kevin Eastman.

I had the pleasure of speaking in the first person with people whom I idolize and follow since I started reading comics, and I was able to appreciate the human quality of each one of them.

I wrote a chapter about Booster Gold and the importance of this character in the DC universe. I talked with Dan Jurgens about the creation of Booster Gold, and he talked about the origin, and the way that he created Booster Gold.

It sounds like a pretty educational read. Pablo tells me Cosa de Fans (ISBN 9789878618272) can be found on Argentinian e-commerce platform Mercado Libre or "in some book shops or comic shops in Argentina." If you're down that way, keep an eye out for it.

Good luck with your book, Pablo!

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This holiday, I give you not the Christmas you asked for but the Christmas you deserve.

Justice League Task Force #37 (1996)

Merry Christmas, everyone. Drink up.

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