When I went looking at the lists of new comics coming out this week, I was surprised to see so few books from DC. I didn't realize it was the 5th week of the month. DC has lately been releasing anthology books during "skip" weeks, but this year's Halloween special with a punny name, DC's Zatannic Panic, was released at the start of the month instead. I guess they were being helpful by ensuring we wouldn't get chocolate fingerprints all over our near mint comics. How thoughtful of them.

That's not to say that no Booster Gold comics were released this week. Yesterday saw the release of (count 'em!) three trades reprinting previous Booster Gold stories. In alphabetical order, they are

1. Batman: The Brave and the Bold Across the Universe
Collects the complete 2024 "Time Jerks" Booster Gold/Jurassic League story by Mark Russell told across three issues beginning in Batman: The Brave and the Bold #13.

2. Jonah Hex All-Star Western Omnibus
Reprints the entire third volume of All-Star Western, which is one of the few books unimpacted directly by the New 52 reboot in 2011. Of interest to Booster Gold fans are the issues spanning All-Star Western #19 through #21, which reintroduced Booster Gold to the DCnU eight months after he appeared to be erased from continuity in Justice League International Annual #1. (If you recall, issue #19 was part of DC's "WTF" month event and the Internet was rife with supposition that Booster Gold was the character hidden on its surprise fold-out cover. I have no idea if that cover is reprinted as a fold out in this omnibus, and I'm not paying $125 to find out.)

3. Justice League by Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV Omnibus Volume 2
Among other things, this reprints the complete 2020 Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen mini-series, which sees a mute Booster Gold temporarily turned into an evil zombie. Just in time for Halloween.

Trick or treat? You decide, Booster boosters.

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Booster Gold has been absent from comics for 147 days (21 weeks) and counting. That seems like a long time in part because DC keeps crowing about how inclusive their "All-In" initiative is, but Booster has been gone for much longer stretches before.

On this day in 2014, Booster Gold broke a 245 day absence from the DC New 52 Universe — at the time, the third longest recognized gap between published Booster Gold appearances in history — to make a brief 3-page supporting appearance as a deus ex machina plot device to get Jonah Hex returned to the past in All-Star Western #28.

If you don't recall, Booster's amnesiac misadventures alongside Jonah Hex in All-Star Western took place during the period he was unstuck in time leading to Convergence.

If the current Booster-drought streak were to extend to 245 days, that will be the first week in June 2025. Considering that we just learned Booster is unlikely to appear in any comics through May, that very well could be an optimistic assessment for his return from his current banishment from the DCU.

Keep your fingers crossed, Booster boosters.

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Remember that time when there was a raging debate about whether Booster Gold, who had been missing from the DC Universe for months, was going to reappear in another character's comic set in the past?

I'm talking about All-Star Western #19.

Believe it or not, that issue was released 4 years ago today. Ah, it feels like only 3.

In the 4 years since then, Booster Gold has appeared in exactly 11 DCnU comics (4 All-Star Westerns, 3 Convergence tie-ins, 2 Bat-Mites, 1 Futures End, and 1 Flintstones, which may or may not be in continuity). That's less than one comic every 4 months.

Obviously, I think that's not often enough. Get on the stick, DC! I want more Booster Gold.

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Russ Burlingame and Dan Jurgens have developed a real rapport over the course of the past seven years of "Gold Exchange" columns. That relationship was renewed last week as the pair discussed Convergence Booster Gold #1:

Burlingame: Do you have in your head an explanation for the All-Star Western thing? Was that taking place on Telos?

Dan Jurgens: Whenever it gets into a case like that, I always want to avoid providing that explanation for every little thing that happened under the sun. I felt very comfortable addressing what the Booster Gold Five Years Later book [Booster Gold: Futures End] was because it just came out last summer. To go beyond that? I don't know how much the fans know and I wanted to make this as accessible as possible to people who were picking up an issue of Booster Gold for the first time. So it was streamlining it more.

In my head, I've always thought of it this way, and that is after Justice League International, Booster got kind of caught in a time vortex where he was bouncing through time. That would have included the events of the Justice League International Annual. And then from there, he kind of appeared in Booster Gold five years later. It's almost as if he could have gone straight to Telos after all that happened. That's just a classic case where rather than break things down, you take things at face value. You saw Booster in Justice League International and then you saw him in All-Star Western and then all of a sudden in the Five Years Later book, one could say that yeah, he bounced through time and then ended up on Telos.

I don't blame Jurgens for A.R.G.U.S. Booster in Justice League International Annual or the character's unexplained appearance in All-Star Western. After all, Jurgens didn't write those books. But you know it's been a bad couple of years for a character when even his creator can't make any sense of it.

Anyway, you can and should read the rest of the interview at ComicBook.com.

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I did the math this weekend, and unless Booster shows up somewhere in the DCnU continuity before his announced one-shot in September, the drought between Booster appearances will total 210 days. That will tie for the 5th longest span between in-continuity appearances:

• 210 days between Haven: The Broken City #5 and Superman: Day of Doom #1 (Apr. 2002 to Nov. 2002)
• 210 days between Superman: Day of Doom #1 and JLA: Welcome to the Working Week (Nov. 2002 to June 2003)
• 210 days between All-Star Western #28 and Booster Gold: Futures End #1 (Feb. 2014 to Sept. 2014)

Of course, this count assume that we see "our" Booster this September. Given that Futures End takes place in an alternate future, none of the characters involved in that series so far should be considered to be the same characters in "current" post-Flashpoint continuity. If Booster Gold: Futures End delivers a future version of Booster Gold, this drought will move into sole possession of the 5th longest span.

The four longer spans are 336, 302, 244, and 238 days, respectively, with that 244 being Booster's long disappearance between All-Star Western issues earlier this year. Now that All-Star has been cancelled (effective this August), who knows where or when we'll be seeing Booster after September.

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