If you read Detective Comics #1027 back in September, you might remember its last page:

When I saw that last panel, I thought, "what the heck is Generations: Future State?" The answer wasn't immediately clear because DC was keeping its plans to itself.

We eventually learned that Future State is going to be a two-month alternate-Earth event interrupting whatever it is that passes for continuity in the DC Rebirth Universe. But how would this new title connect to Dan Jurgens' Generations comic which we'd already heard solicited as Generations: Shattered? (Or was Generations: Shattered a different book altogether? How many Generations books were there going to be?)

Despite what we may have guessed, according to Newsarama Senior Editor Chris Arrant, they aren't related at all.

"Originally, we were going to touch on what's coming with Future State," Dan Jurgens, one of Generations' writer/artists told Newsarama. "We're detouring from that a bit to focus more on our own story."

In other words, for readers under the impression that Generations: Future State #1 (as mentioned in Detective Comics #1027) on September 15 and Generations: Shattered #1 announced by DC on September 9 are two distinct projects, they are not. They are one and the same. The one-shot was renamed from 'Future State #1' to 'Shattered #1' sometimes in between its September 9 announcement and whenever Detective Comics #1027 went to the printers prior to that. DC has also seemingly made the editorial decision to remove any story connection between Generations and Shattered.

The 'Generations' story will play out next in January 5's Generations: Shattered, and then continue in February with Generations: Forged.

Whew, 2020 has been a mess, hasn't it? Thanks to Newsarama for finally setting that record straight and untangling all those names and projects. (I recommend that you read the full article at at Gamesradar.com for all the details.)

Personally, I'm glad that the two events are unlinked. Future State sounds like it's going to be a lot, and I still suffer a little PTSD from trying to keep up with all those Convergence mini-series back in 2015.

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On October 7, 2019, I wrote (based on news from HollywoodReporter.com):

"DC finally plans to release their comprehensive Rebirth continuity in 2020. That's a mere 9 years after they threw out decades of character development in a bid to boost sales."

Well, guess what DC's plans are for 2021?

"It now appears as though DC's comic book line could be abandoning the idea of a single, shared continuity in favor of a multiverse / metaverse / omniverse model in which each individual comic will have its own story to tell, without much concern for what's going on in other titles across the publishing line."

So says Russ Burlingame at ComicBook.com. This merry-go-round is starting to make me dizzy.

Burlingame's report is based on a post from BleedingCool.com, which qualifies DC's plan thusly:

But what the DC Omniverse will mean is greater creative freedom, less interference by editors (or publishers), and no one saying "you can't use that character, they died in City of Bane/got lost in a Dark Dimension/went evil and currently approaching Gotham, slowly, with all her plants."

Longtime readers of Boosterrific.com know that I consider "continuity" to be a synonym for "character development." If DC fractures their Universe into an Omniverse, instead of having one dynamically developing Booster Gold character with a single continuity threading through many stories, there will be an infinite number of Booster Golds, each with his own continuity of appearances. That doesn't sound very simple to me. Unless they intend for there to be one static Booster Gold character who never learns anything or does anything new. I can't wait to spend money monthly on that.

But this plan would save DC Comics the cost of paying salaries to all those editors. I wonder how much longer until they can get robots to draw the panels?

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art by Rick Leonardi, Dan Green, Alex Bleyaert, Scott Hanna, Steve Buccellato

Booster's just being coy. I'm sure he'd gladly campaign for whomever offered him a Cabinet position.

Meanwhile, I stayed up too late watching election returns, and all I did was damage my emotional health. I'm going back to sleep. Wake me when it's finally over.

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Remember Jennifer? She's the one who dropped me a note about Superman: The Man of Tomorrow #7 (2020) that inspired last month's poll. (And, no, I haven't added that one yet. Before I add any digital comics, I have to figure out how I'm going to indicate that they aren't available in the back issue bin of your Local Comic Shop. I haven't had the time for that yet.)

Back to the point, Jennifer is back, and this time she's found *another* Booster Gold appearance in a print comic (from 1988!) that I also didn't have in the Boosterrific database. Take a look at this panel from Power of the Atom #5:

pencils by Dwayne Turner, inks by Keith Wilson

That's definitely an appearance, and I definitely didn't know about it until Jennifer told me. (Because it's only a digital image of Booster on a computer monitor and not the hero himself — Booster appears only on that one panel in the whole comic — I classify this sort of thing as an out-of-continuity appearance, which is where you'll now find it in the lists of appearances.)

The Boosterrific.com database is more complete than ever before! Thanks, Jennifer.

If anyone spots anything else, please let me know.

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Have you read Batman Beyond #48 yet? If not, that's your assignment this weekend.

If you don't want to go to your Local Comic Shop for some reason — like, maybe you're still bailing out from a tropical storm that reached hundreds of miles inland like I am — you can always buy the digital comic at comixology.com (assuming your power has been restored).

Judging from the response to last week's poll, most of you are cool with that option.

Last week's poll question: Should the Boosterrific database include comics existing only in digital formats? (28 votes)

I have to admit that digital comics do have some unique positives. You certainly don't have to worry about a leaking roof or flooded basement — or, if you're on the left coast, a raging forest fire — damaging your digital comic collection. That's worth considering in 2020 and beyond.

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