The best thing about delaying news of DC's new releases until a day after they are released is that it gives me time to see the books before I tell you about them. Or it would, if my Local Comic Ship had received their DC shipment before they closed for the day on Tuesday.

Anyway, as you may have heard (*couch, cough*), yesterday saw the release of Harley Quinn #74, the final chapter in the "California or Death" story (and the next-to-last issue in the current series). There's a preview available on comic-watch.com which was released on Monday (which makes a good case for my not running "New Releases" posts on Mondays).

Booster Gold isn't in the preview, but I promise you he's in there, as this page proves.

We also got DCEASED: Dead Planet #1. This miniseries continues the adventures of last year's DCEASED: A Good Day To Die one-shot. Comic-watch.com has a preview of that, too, proving that a guy who never existed can still put in a cameo appearance. (Confused? Read DCEASED: A Good Day To Die — if you dare!)

But wait, there's more! Booster booster Modinda reminds that the collected edition of the Flash Forward mini-series is now in stores. Booster made a cameo appearance in both issue #1 and the epilogue originally published in Flash #750, but those aren't Booster's only panels in the book.

BleedingCool.com reports that the expanded "Flash Forward: Epilogue" story that had been planned for the never-released Free Comic Book Day 2020 Generation Zero Gods Among Us has been included in the trade. So if you buy it, you'll also get this:

Three Booster Gold comics in one day? 2020 is looking up!

Buy something and make Skeets happy.

UPDATE 2020-07-08: My Local Comic Shop didn't get their shipment of DC Comics on Wednesday, either. Maybe Friday, they now say, which is not encouraging. DC, if you wanted to cut your own throat after leaving Diamond, this is how.

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The readers have spoken, and you've said that you liked things the way they were.

Last week's poll question: What day of the week do you want me to tell you that DCEASED: Dead Planet #1 and Harley Quinn #74 have been released? (26 votes)

I get it. It seems that everything about 2020 has been so outside the norm, maintaining a little tradition of what came before can certainly be comforting. Therefore, I won't remind you about DCEASED: Dead Planet #1 and Harley Quinn #74 until Wednesday.

See you then.

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What makes a hero super? The super powers! From awesome strength to zero-to-sixty speed, great superpowers are the most useful tricks in every famous costumed crime-fighter's tool kit. Michael Jon Carter knew this, and that's why he started his career with high-tech goggles.

Energy blasts, impenetrable force fields, flight: Booster Gold's best known powers are also the ones that show up the best on action-oriented comic book panels. But Booster's arsenal contains more than just power gauntlets and powered tights. He's also got a fancy pair of glasses which, while less flashy, can be just as useful.

Booster's goggles have been a part of his costume from the very beginning. Using components he stole from the Space Museum in the 25th century, Booster and Skeets integrated the goggles into the hood of his power-suit and fueled them with the same "little power rods" that supplied energy to his other technological abilities, as detailed in Booster's very first chronicled adventure detailed in Booster Gold volume 1 #8.

Though their technology isn't traceable to any particular hero or villain, their powers were clearly inspired by the incredible range of abilities of a certain Man of Tomorrow's Kryptonian eyes.

Booster has used the goggles' infrared filters to help him defeat the mad bomber Mister Twister in Booster Gold #5 (1986) and infiltrate the 1000's waterfront stronghold in Booster Gold #12 (1987). The magnifying ability came in handy when the Justice League needed to find a weak point in the otherwise indestructible hull of the alien Klaarsh spaceship in Justice League Quarterly #7 (1992), and the telescopic function was useful when traveling into the Old West to help Jonah Hex bring the warped Hootkins Gang to justice in All-Star Western #20 (2013).

Super strength is great if you want to break through walls, but a hero always knows which walls can be broken safely. Knowledge is real power, and nothing is better at gathering information than high-tech magnifying infrared goggles, just like the pair Booster Gold wears.

If you'd like to read about other powers in Booster Gold's arsenal, check out previous spotlight posts on his Force Field Belt, Booster Shots, and Flight Ring.

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For years now — over a decade, in fact — the priority for Wednesday Boosterrific Blog posts has been whatever new comic was released that day that included a Booster Gold appearance. But 2020 is changing everything. Booster Gold isn't appearing in any new DC comic today because there are no new DC comics being released today.

As all comics buyers must know by now, DC Comics is no longer being distributed by Diamond Comics Distributors as of today, July 1. While Diamond mandated the release of comics on Wednesdays (for logistical purposes), DC is rolling back to Tuesdays (as it used to be before Diamond gained dominance in the 90s). I can't say that I really care about this one way or another other than the fact that I'm suddenly unsure when I should post "new release" alerts.

Some of you may recall that for the first 6 years of this blog, I posted 5 days a week. If that were still the case, I'd just move "new releases" from Wednesdays to Tuesdays. But I stopped posting 5-days-a-week because, frankly, there's just not that much new to say about a character DC has rarely chosen to spotlight positively in the New 52 era. I've been very happy posting three days a week and would like to continue that pace, if I can make a schedule work that doesn't alienate readers.

Should I maintain the Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule and post about new comics on Monday instead of Wednesday? Or should I change the three days I post to include a Tuesday (probably a Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday posting schedule) so that I can keep you informed of day and date releases? Or, should I just keep posting new releases on Wednesday, since that's when Diamond will keep releasing books and you might as well make one trip for everything?

This week's poll question: What day of the week do you want me to tell you that DCEASED: Dead Planet #1 and Harley Quinn #74 have been released? Please visit the Boosterrific Polls page to view results for this week's poll.

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Booster booster Eskana dropped me this note last week:

I don't know if you've seen these yet, but the Comicstorian channel on YouTube has been posting videos that contain some major Booster Gold. The host, Benny, has been holding "Dungeons & Dragons"-style role-playing games for the DC universe, and in each one the two guests are playing as the characters of Booster Gold and Blue Beetle (Ted.) I've never played D&D, but the videos are pretty entertaining as the guests do a pretty good job of acting out their roles as Ted and Booster. The episodes seem to feature the two working with the new Blue Wally West to fix anomalies in time and the multiverse, so you see them acting out storylines such as DCeased.

I'm not a frequent consumer of YouTube videos, but I have played my share of D&D. More than my share, if the truth were known. (Full disclosure, an rpg campaign I ran in 2001 is the basis for a series of novels I wrote in 2016. *plug, plug*)

These guys at Comicstorian seem to know what they're doing, and, more importantly, they're obviously having a pretty good time role-playing as our favorite heroes. Given the current health crisis, a podcasting video might be as close as many of us will get to a real gaming session in the near future.

If you're interested in such things, you can find the video at YouTube.com.

Thanks for the link, Eskana.

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