After Harley Quinn expressed her feelings last issue, I was expecting to see Booster Gold in yesterday's Harley Quinn #75, in which everyone taking up space in Harley's head helps her celebrate her birthday. But no. There's no sign of Booster Gold. Apparently Harley's love is as fickle as she is.

The closest we get to Booster in the "star-studded" series final issue is this t-shirt worn by Harley's west coast roommate, Becca.

Art by Sami Basri, Hi-Fi

Given that the series has been canceled and DC has yet to announce a replacement, the question becomes "Have we seen the last of #GoldieQuinn?" Only time will tell. (But we can hope.)

In related news, Booster may have skipped Harley's finale because he was trapped in a dungeon in another of yesterday's books, specifically Dark Nights Death Metal Guidebook. I say may because I'm not entirely sure myself.

Take a look at this panel and see what you think:

Art by Doug Mahnke, Jaime Mendoza, David Baron

It looks like *somebody* was in a hurry to get this panel done.

Is that Booster Gold? We saw the same crowd in Dark Nights Death Metal #3, and there aren't a whole bunch of characters it could be other than Booster Gold. Animal Man has angled goggles, Blue Beetle's hair is covered, and it definitely isn't Black Lightning.

So, you've seen the evidence. What's your vote? Booster or not?

This week's poll question: Does the face in the crowd in Dark Night Death Metal Guidebook belong to Booster Gold? Please visit the Boosterrific Polls page to view results for this week's poll.

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DC's November solicitations are out, and Booster Gold is in!

Specifically, he's in Batman Beyond #49.

BATMAN BEYOND #49
written by DAN JURGENS
art and cover by PAUL PELLETIER and NORM RAPMUND
cover by DAN MORA

To safely return to his own timeline, Batman Beyond will have to defeat the villain Blanque without being seen by his mentor, the World's Greatest Detective—Batman! Will Booster Gold help keep Batman Beyond hidden, or will time as we know it become completely undone? You do not want to miss this issue!
ON SALE November 24, 2020

I'm starting to hope that time as I know it *will* be completely undone, but DC's constant series of reboots has conditioned me to expect that I would like the new universe that takes its place even less.

I'm assuming from the way the solicitation is written that the book will have two covers. DC only released one cover with the solicitation, the one drawn by Dan Mora. While that cover is beautifully drawn, it does not include even a hint of Booster Gold. I hope Pelletier and Rapmund don't make the same mistake.

You can find a complete list of DC's November 2020 solicitations at GamesRadar.com.

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My list of the twelve best Booster Gold comics is presented in chronological order of publication. Otherwise, entry number 8 would have appeared much higher.

May I present to you the glory that is 52 Week Fifteen, the "Booster Gold Memorial Issue" and one of the earliest inspirations for what would become Boosterrific.com.

Art by J.G. Jones, color by Alex Sinclair

Spoiler Alert: Booster Gold dies in this issue.

For most of the early 2000s, Booster Gold was an afterthought, a wash-up has-been of a hero out of the public eye. His time in the shadows was preparing him for a new turn in the spotlight. But before Booster could soar, he had to fall. When Booster Gold does something, he doesn't settle for half measures.

If I didn't know better, I'd say don't be so hard on yourself, Booster. But this is only the first level of the inception.

Re-reading those panels once you learn who's wearing the Supernova costume and why, you'll start to see the play within the play. (Booster Gold as a Shakespearean tragic hero? Yes, please!) Who can't respect a character who is willing to go that far to save his friends?

I'm hesitant to say too much, as the Booster Gold story running throughout the ensemble series is as much a mystery as it is a tale of redemption. If you've never read 52 cover to cover, do yourself the favor of correcting that mistake. With all due credit to every writer, artist, and editor involved (including Dan DiDio), I say that 52 is about as great as long form American super hero comics storytelling can get.

And issue 15 is particularly good, certainly good enough to be included among the twelve best Booster Gold comics.

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Booster booster Logan writes in to say

I spy with my little eye one Booster Gold in today's Dark Nights: Death Metal #3! My intuition nudged me to reserve a copy at my LCBS last week—I'm glad it looks to have paid off. :)

Trust that instinct, Logan! Booster is one of many, many characters in Dark Nights: Death Metal #3. In fact, his appearance in this story is that Greg Capullo-drawn panel Scott Snyder teased on Twitter back in June. So that's one mystery solved.

Go ahead and buy this issue to make Skeets happy, but don't expect to understand what's happening. I sure don't.

The issue references dozens of other comics published over the past two decades, challenging the recall of even hard-core continuity fans like me. There are four Batmen (Batmans?) in the first four story pages alone. Have I met them all before? (Wasn't Silver Surfer Batman one of those Legends of the Dark Knight action figures?)

Not even issue editor Marie Javins (who also happens to be one of the few to survive Monday's "bloodbath" of layoffs at Warner/DC) expects readers to be able to decipher who's doing what to whom here.

If I'm making up my own stories, Marie, I certainly don't need to be giving DC $5 for this.

According to the checklist in the back of the issue, there are — count 'em — twenty (!) *more* comics to go in this seven-issue mini-series. I guess I should praise DC's brevity for keeping it down to 24. It took 26 issues to list everyone in 1985's Who's Who, and there were only two Batmens back then. On the other hand, if this event is anything like what we've seen recently, the "end" of the story will only bleed into the next event series with twice as many issues and derivative characters again. Twenty three is a very small number compared to infinity and beyond!

Sorry, but I think I'll pass. My head-banging days are long behind me. I think I'll stick to the Wonder Comics imprint from now on.

Keep up the good work, Logan. If Booster appears in any more Death Metal issues, I'm counting on you to let me know!

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When we last left Cort's Booster Gold sketchbook, Cort had promised new pieces soon. He wasn't kidding!

The four newest hotnesses:

Kalman Andrasofsky

Mike Manley

Staz Johnson

Scott Koblish

Cort, I'm starting to think that you're spending more money creating Booster Gold art than DC is these days. Keep up the good work!

As always, you can see all these and more at imgur.com.

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