The life of any comic book hero would be a lonely one if not for the many characters who have made up their supporting cast. Just as Superman has Lois Lane and Batman has Alfred, Booster Gold has also shared his adventures with quite a few people over the years. Today we look at one of those, Doctor Shocker.

Early in the super-heroing career of Booster Gold, while the self-satisfied young hero was posing with beautiful actresses in perfume advertisements, the Director of the 1000 was plotting his downfall. The 1000 had many employees, from the brutish Blackguard to the assassin Chiller. However, none was as important to the Director's plot against Booster Gold as the man they called Doctor Shocker.

We first meet the bad doctor in Booster Gold #9 (1986), where he was using his high-tech Psi-Trap to "drain the knowledge" of Benjamin "Benny" Lindgren and Martin "Marty" Kramer, the comic book artists working on the Booster Gold comic book. In the next issue (Booster Gold #10), Shocker is remotely monitoring Booster Gold's energy signature. By Booster Gold #11, he's graduated to hacking Skeets, an advanced 25th-century artificial intelligence.

Doctor Shocker escaped the 1000's underground lair before Booster Gold destroyed it (Booster Gold #12), and hasn't been seen since. Who was this mysterious villain that dressed like a surgeon but acted like a computer programmer? Why did he dedicate himself to making life difficult for Booster Gold? And what school gave him his doctorate in mad science?

We can, in fact, answer most of these questions. Obviously, a silly name like "Doctor Shocker" is an alias for a more familiar face. To determine just who he really is, let's look at some clues he left behind.

1. It's ridiculous to think that a pair of comic book artists would have any unusual, inside information about the heroes they wrote for. Therefore, we can assume that any knowledge gained by the so-called Psi-Trap was worthless. This implies that Doctor Shocker had the information he needed the whole time.

2. The 1000's plan required manipulating Skeets, but how could any 20th-century computer scientist expect to be able to reprogram 25th-century technology in a matter of minutes? Only if that computer scientist had experience with future tech.

3. Booster's final battle with the Director of the 1000 would result in his need to return to the future? As a direct result of Doctor Shocker's actions, Booster Gold would go on to meet Rip Hunter and reunite with his sister, Michelle, both integral members of the eventual Time Masters team. Note also that a supposedly reprogrammed Skeets ended up playing a key role in the Director's eventual downfall. Did Skeets' reprogrammer make a mistake, or was this betrayal his intention all along?

There is only one white-haired old man who has the knowledge of Booster Gold's life, a working familiarity with technology across the centuries, and a demonstrated history of working behind the scenes to ensure that Booster Gold becomes the hero he was always destined to be: Booster Gold himself!

It's no accident that Doctor Shocker managed to avoid meeting Booster Gold face-to-face. That prevented any potential time paradoxes. He'll use that tactic again when he'll need to guide his younger self to the right path during the fall of Coast City in Booster Gold volume 2 #30 (2010).

Past? Present? Future? There's no difference to a real Time Master.

Interested in meeting other "People in his Neighborhood"? Get to know Trixie Collins, Daniel Carter, Jack Soo, Rani, Dirk Davis, Skeets, Mackenzie Garrison, Rip Hunter, Michelle Carter, Nurse Devlin, and Monica Lake.

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It's been a long while since I re-posted anything from Ross Pearsall's amazing Super-Team Family Presents... blog, but he's finally given us more Gold, this time teaming with Canada's premiere team of heroes, Alpha Flight!

"Come with me if you want to live," indeed.

I'm sure that this team-up is based on Dan "Good Riddance" DiDio's claim that New 52 Booster Gold would hail from north of the border, something that I will once again point out has still never been confirmed or even addressed in the pages of a DC comic book.

So far as I'm concerned, Booster Gold will remain an American until a Black Lantern Ronald Reagan rises from the grave to revokes his citizenship (or at the very least, DC publishes some actual evidence between the covers of one of their comics magazines).

That said, I cannot deny that I love seeing some Gold leading the charge, into the Great White North or anywhere else. Thanks, Ross.

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One of the good thing about having no comic books is that I have more time to watch cartoons. And, as Booster booster Ithildyn has recently brought to my attention, Booster Gold has been making cameo appearances in recent episodes of the online DC Super Hero Girls shorts.

He's on the side of the bus at the 34 second mark in #TheCommute.

And he's on the side of another bus (ok, maybe the same bus) at the 1.17 mark in #ShellShock!

"Give Yourself A Boost" with Booster Cereal? That's a product we've not seen before. Just how many cereals are you going to endorse, buddy? You're giving Cap'n Crunch a run for his money.

Both videos are available to watch via YouTube.com. (#TheCommute, #ShellShock).

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If you can make it to your Local Comic Shop today, and if your shop hasn't already been closed by the ongoing COVID-19 emergency measures, you might consider picking up Harley Quinn: The Final Trial, a collection reprinting Booster Gold's appearances in Harley Quinn #66 and #67.

Sadly, as I'm sure most of you who visit this site already know, this is to be the last New Comics Day for a while. Diamond Comics Distributors, the sole distributor of all major American comic publishers, has announced that they are not shipping anything "until further notice." I don't disagree that this is probably a necessity in the current environment, but I'm still disappointed by the news.

I've been buying comics once a week since before the inception of the direct market, so I honestly don't know what life is like without a weekly trip to the comics shop. I feel a little like I've lost a limb.

(Once upon a time, I commented to a friend that I didn't understand how people could go a week without comics. Sometime later, I had to miss a week while out of town — I was literally driving across the country — and he teased me about it. The moral to this story, I guess, is be careful what you say to your friends.)

Not that the distribution halt will make all that much difference to Booster boosters. So far as I'm aware, there's only one book guest staring Booster in the current pipeline. On the up side, Booster Gold has already appeared, by my count, in over 850 comics in the past 35 years. That's plenty of re-reading material for any apocalypse.

Retailers and publishers are going to be the ones to really suffer as their revenue streams are closed indefinitely. (Forbes.com has a pretty good piece on what this may mean to the future of the direct marketplace.) They can use all the support we can give them. If you can afford it, consider filling in the holes in your Booster Gold comics collection by mail order from your LCS. After all, we need them to still be there when Diamond finally re-opens their doors, whenever that may be.

UPDATE 2020-03-25: not thirty minutes before I walked in the door of my LCS this afternoon, my local government announced that starting tomorrow, all local "nonessential" businesses must close for the next two weeks. Which certainly means it's a good thing for them that Diamond won't be shipping while they cannot receive the stock. Hooray, silver lining!

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The contrast between justice, vengeance, and redemption. Fate versus free will. Heroic self-sacrifice. All of those themes are factors in why I consider Booster Gold #18 among the twelve best Booster Gold comics.

The story, "Showdown," written and illustrated by Dan Jurgens, opens with a montage of Booster Gold in training. Though this is just a prologue to the main story, it sets the stage for what's coming. It lets us, the readers, see that Booster Gold is willing to put in some effort to be the best super hero that he can be. In other words, he's working at being good. If you've never read a Booster Gold story before, you now know where our hero stands.

Booster Gold is the hero in this story, but not the protagonist. That role belongs to Broderick, a federal agent who always gets his man. While Booster walks the path of the hero, Broderick's road has become considerably darker ever since he let his self-righteous hatred be his guide.

Broderick's obsession with Booster Gold is born from familiar circumstances. He had once been among Michael "Booster" Carter's biggest fans when the youngster was playing quarterback for Gotham University. As is so often the case, when Booster was caught cheating in a gambling scandal, Broderick took the news of his hero's transgression as a personal slight.

After "Booster" Carter stole a time machine, Broderick swore he would bring him to justice, no matter how far he had to go to do it. The former object of Broderick's affection became an object of disgust and hatred.

He chases Booster to the past, where he is driven to break the law to survive. He soon confirms that Booster has become a hero to the masses, a revelation that only stokes his hatred. How backwards this 20th century where thieves are the heroes and policemen are driven to steal!

Broderick's determination finally pays off when he ambushes Booster Gold outside of his own mansion. Booster is accompanied by a date, but Broderick doesn't care. It's a sign of how far he's let his obession drive him from the path of the righteous that his prey cares more about the lives of bystanders than the dutiful "officer of the law" does.

Booster leads Broderick on an excting chase through the back alleys of downtown Metropolis before the confrontation plays out exactly as the brilliant cover promised.

The law man has Booster dead to rights and is about to pull the trigger — becoming judge, jury, and executioner in one — when something unexpected happens. A second tragedy is unfolding nearby. Someone is robbing a liquor store. Booster uses the opportunity to remind Broderick just how far he's fallen.

The pair put aside their differences long enough to stop the robbery and save innocent lives, allowing Booster to demonstrate by action that he's not the the villain of Broderick's warped imagination.

Afterwards, Broderick is faced with a harsh choice: punish "Booster" Carter for crimes he admits he has committed and take a hero off the streets, or allow a guilty man to walk away from justice for the sake of the greater good.

His world shattered, Broderick fades into the shadows. Did he ever find a way out? I sure hope so.

This issue touches on a lot of great questions about what a hero is. Can someone steal for the right reasons? What is the boundaries between vengeance and justice? It's the asking of those questions that makes this, without a doubt, one of The Best Booster Gold Stories Ever.

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