I walked outside late last night and heard... nothing. Usually, I can hear the hustle and bustle of traffic as trucks come and go from the nearby industrial warehouses throughout the wee hours of the morning. But now, with everything shut down due to shelter-in-place orders, not so much.

What's that got to do with Booster Gold? Not a thing.

The point is that nothing much new is happening these days, so there's not a lot of "news" to write about, especially in regards to the serialized adventures of a comic book hero. That leaves a content void here at the Boosterrific Blog that needs to be filled with something.

Sure, I could post another link to some of the many, many, many CBR.com clickbait lists that include Booster Gold, but who wants more of that in their life?

I could post more about me, your obsessive neighborhood Booster Gold blogger, but I know no one wants more of that in their life. (No, really. I've been running a personal blog at wriphe.com for 18 years, and it's read by a whopping 12 people a week. I get it. My life is boring.)

So I thought I'd try something new. I thought I'd ask you, the Booster Gold fan reading this text right now, why you've chosen to spend your valuable time visiting Boosterrific.com. What makes you a super Booster Gold fan, the kind who goes above and beyond and visits websites about your favorite hero? How did you find Booster Gold in the first place? What attracts you to the character? What brings you here?

Send me an email, either through the Boosterrific.com Contact Portal, or directly to walter(at)boosterrific.com, and tell me about your fandom. I'll share them with other fans in future posts. (If you'd like to take the opportunity to promote your own projects, go ahead. Booster Gold sure would.)

Let's take this opportunity to see how Booster Gold fans are alike across our super-specific community. Maybe we'll learn a thing or three.

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Since today is the first New Comics Day without comics in the history of New Comics Days, you're probably looking to get your Booster Gold fix somewhere else. How about Youtube?

First, Booster booster Eskana lets us know that our hero — as played by Ali G — appears briefly in the latest Honest Trailers take on "Justice League: The Snyder Cut".

Meanwhile, friend of the blog Michael Foster has spotted Booster Gold in a musical montage of Phil Cho's fan created "Earth-27 Heroes". (Start looking at the 50 second mark, right after Fire and Ice.)

And that's not all! According to CDN, the YouTube series Death Battle has promised in their latest video to next feature a Cable vs Booster Gold match-up. If you want to keep tabs on when that might drop, you can find their videos here.

Thanks for the notifications. And if anyone else spots Booster somewhere in the wild, please let me know.

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For decades, the biggest knock against Booster Gold has been that he's only a hero because he stole his powers. His fans know that's not true.

With or without powers, Booster's always been a hero, as he proved on this day in 1993 in the pages of Justice League Europe #50, when he quite literally jumped into action with nothing but his wits and a sharp-looking pair of tights to protect him.

Justice League Europe #50, art by Ron Randall, Randy Elliott, and Gene D'angelo

This 54-page spectacular is the sixth and final chapter of the "Red Winter" storyline in which Green Lantern's old foe Sonar used his upgraded sound powers to disable the Justice League Europe and stage a successful coup of the former Soviet Bloc counties.

With their comrades down, the remaining active members of the Justice League International spring to the rescue. This includes Booster Gold — despite the fact that the same Doomsday that had recently befallen Superman had also destroyed Booster's 25th-century power suit and gauntlets, leaving him functionally no more powerful than a blind doctor.

Full credit to Booster for having the courage to campaign against a mind-controlling dictator with only his fists. However, it does leave him severely disadvantaged whenever a super-powered melee breaks out, as they often do in these sorts of situations. That means Booster spends most of the story on the sidelines, pointing out the obvious.

A real hero helps out however he can.

Another bit of trivia about this issue: it's the first story in which Booster Gold and his future teammate Godiva appear together. They don't share any dialogue, but they do get some great sound effects.

Ouch. Take care of yourself, Booster. Courage is great, but a man's got to know his limitations.

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It seems Covid-19 has stopped the whole world cold, but not Cort Carpenter. He is making up for the canceled comics conventions by commissioning copious creators to craft compositions of the one and only Corporate Crusader, Booster Gold!

(Sorry, I might be going stir crazy. Just enjoy the art.)

Lanna Souvanny

Aaron Lopresti

Bob Layton

And, drum roll please....

Creator of Booster Gold, Dan Jurgens

See all of these and more embiggened at imgur.com.

Thanks, Cort! (And Stay safe everybody.)

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: 2020 aaron lopresti bob layton commissions cort carpenter dan jurgens fan art lanna souvanny

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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