Earlier this month, George Pérez was among the featured guests at the annual Superman Celebration in Metropolis, Illinois. His question and answer session was recorded and hosted by Superman Homepage. Rich Johnson at Bleeding Cool transcribed some of the video, including the following quote:

Unfortunately when you are writing major characters, you sometimes have to make a lot of compromises and I was made certain promises, and unfortunately not through any fault of Dan DiDio, he was no longer the last word, lot of people making decisions, going against each other, contradicting, again in mid story. The people who love my Superman arc, I thank you. What you read, I don't know.

I've always been pretty outspoken against Dan DiDio and how I've interpreted DC's output under his direction as Publisher. While it is his job to be the public face of the company's decisions, for good or ill, to hear an industry veteran like Pérez explicitly say that DiDio isn't really the boss at DC should really teach me to temper my venomous tirades against the poor fellow.

It's been obvious for some time that DC's corporate parent, Warner Brothers, has been becoming increasingly intrusive in editorial interference of DC's storytelling. The obvious, continued editorial failures behind the rollout of the DCnU are the smoking gun pointing to a dysfunctional, fractured leadership.

As much as I have blamed DC Comics Co-Publishers DiDio and Jim Lee for the recent poor treatment of Booster Gold, I should give DiDio the benefit of the doubt with his plans for Justice League International. After all, if Booster Gold doesn't reappear in a new title soon, there will be plenty of blame to go around.

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According to DC Women Kicking Ass, the rumor that DC will be re-numbering all titles again has been confirmed at this past weekend's Boston Comic Con:

This afternoon at the Boston Comic Con a number of creators in the new 52 discussed various aspects of the reboot while confirming the story from Bleeding Cool earlier this week that DC will issue "0" issues in September that will feature origins or stories about the characters or their casts that happened before issue #1.

Is re-numbering to become an annual ploy with DC, or do DC's editors really think that 1994's Zero Hour crossover gimmick deserves a 18th Anniversary edition? For the record, this will be the third #0 issue to feature Booster Gold: Justice League International #0 in 2012, Booster Gold #0 in 2008, and Extreme Justice #0 in 1994 (which, running counter to DC's practice of interrupting sequences with randomly placed zero issues, was actually published before Extreme Justice #1)!

On the plus side, if there is ever a time to find out how much of Booster Gold's history and supporting cast survived Flashpoint, it'll be a zero-issue origin story. Oh, Skeets, why have you forsaken us?

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This has been covered elsewhere (from mainstream sites like Bleeding Cool to blogs like Exploring the Time Lab to the Boosterrific Forum), but I would be remiss not to mention it here: the woman in black is back.

The mysterious lady on the right side of the advance solicitation cover for Justice League International #5 released by DC earlier this week was last seen on the solicited cover to Justice League International #1. She was removed from the cover and eventually replaced by Godiva in the published issue (as seen here).

While we still don't even know who she is, we can probably assume that it must be Godiva's evil twin, Godiva Dark! Will Justice League International #5 really be her bittersweet introduction to the JLI, or did DC fudge another solicitation image? Find out when the issue hits stands on January 4, 2012.

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According to Bleeding Cool, this week's Justice League International #1 has already sold out, and it hasn't even hit stands yet! That means that retailers, expecting whopping sales after Justice League flew off the shelves last week, are expecting boffo demand for the book.

As leader of the team, Booster Gold naturally deserves full credit for this good news. Good job, Booster! Keep up the good work.

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According to Rich Johnson of Bleeding Cool, it was announced at the August 26th Fan Expo Canada "Flashpoint Friday" panel that Booster Gold will be the Canadian member of the upcoming Justice League International.

Let that sink in. A Canadian. Because the first things that come to mind when you think Canada is "selfishness" and "self-promotion."

Does this change anything significant about Booster's character? No, not really. It's just a little weird to think that Booster Gold, the Capitalist Crusader, will be Canadian in the DCnU, eh.

It's hard to believe that this wasn't just panelists Brian Azzarello, Eddie Berganza, Andy Kubert, Francis Manapul, and James Robinson playing up to the local crowd. We'll find out the truth soon enough: Justice League International #1 is less than 2 weeks away.

UPDATE 08/29/11: Jobu popped into the Boosterrific Forum to note the following.

One of the panelists (I was far back) replied "actually, I think you guys will be thrilled to know that in the DCnU one of heroes will now be Canadian". They batted around "can we tell them?" for a bit and then said it was Booster Gold. The crowd cheered and clapped, but I just assumed it was joke and nothing more.

The next day at the New 52 panel, I was rocking my Booster Gold fan club T-shirt when a question came up about the JLI and Dan DiDio once again said Booster would be Canadian. He said it with a totally straight face and wasn't playing for applause so maybe there's some truth to this rumour?

So they're serious then? Of all the characters to make Canadian... Booster Gold, a hero disgraced playing college football, named by Ronald Reagan, who wears a star on his chest? Thanks for the update, Jobu.

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