When Charlton Comics updated their Blue Beetle character for the Marvel Age in the mid sixties, they made sure to link the continuity of the character to his predecessor who had been published since 1939. When DC purchased the Charlton stable of characters in the 1980s, they maintained that history when introducing the characters to their new, post-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity. When DC created a new successor to the Blue Beetle in 2006, they again carefully maintained the link to the past, ensuring that the Blue Beetle would be among the premier of their so-called "legacy" characters, with a publication history of nearly 70 years.

Yesterday, DC published their latest incarnation of the Blue Beetle. Gone is any suggestion that there were previous Blue Beetles on Earth. Gone is the shared history with his predecessors and the world revealed through their adventures. Is this approach a foolish abandonment of the history that has earned the character nearly 70 years of publishing history, or is it a wise jettisoning of dead weight that is keeping the new Blue Beetle character from being accepted by a modern mass audience?

What makes this issue relevant to Boosterrific.com is the fact that the reboot seems to divorce the Blue Beetle from Booster Gold. Once upon a time, DC depended on the duo to sell comics. Even when the 2006 Beetle was relaunched, Booster Gold was the familiar tool used to introduce him to a skeptical audience. For 20 years, the characters of Booster Gold and Blue Beetle have been as inseparable as Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy or Bud Abbott and Lou Costello among their legion of fans. Now the two characters are more comparable to Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, once arguably America's most popular comedy duo before circumstances drove them apart. While each would continue to be a star in his own right, the shadow of their shared past could never forgotten by their fans, new or old.

So is it in the best interest of DC Comics to recreate the character of Blue Beetle with no shared connection to Booster Gold? Time will tell. Perhaps in the future, DC will reunite the two characters for more shared hijinks. Or maybe future audiences will come to accept that one character be mentioned without the other. But right now, it sure seems like there's something missing.

Comments (6) | Add a Comment | Tags: blue beetle reboot

Just a few months after Dan Jurgens teased the impending release of The Blue and the Gold in August 1988's Direct Currents #8 (as posted in yesterday's blog post), the news was confirmed in the Justice Log letter column of Justice League International #25 (April 1989).

These letter column responses are presumably written by series editor, Andy Helfer, or more likely his assistant, Kevin Dooley. They should be in position to know the accuracy of the following news they printed a few months later in Justice League America #32 (November 1989).

I don't know where the news of the new publication date was was released first, but it doesn't much seem to matter. That "semi-regular" series hint seems to suggest that by this time, DC had decided that the ideas behind The Blue and the Gold series had been rolled into what eventually became Justice League Quarterly at the end of 1990. More news about The Blue and the Gold series wouldn't appear until writer/artist Dan Jurgens and editor Brian Augustyn took over the series in 1992. The news wasn't good, but at least it was honest. From Justice League America #64 (July 1992):

Jurgens was the go-to man for many of DC's major event series in the early- to mid-1990s, and his schedule was always full. Worse, just a few issues later, Booster would be powerless, and Beetle would be in his second coma, both thanks to Doomsday. Months passed before both were back in fighting condition, and this storyline seems to preclude the opportunity for a spin-off mini-series focusing on the pair. The letter column for Justice League America #71 (February 1993) seems to confirm this being the end of the road for the long-planned series. This is the last mention of The Blue and Gold in the series.

Five years after Dan Jurgens called it "the one project I'm really excited about," The Blue and the Gold looked like another missed opportunity. To be sure that I had the whole story, I went to the source. Tomorrow here on the Boosterrific Blog: my Q&A with Dan Jurgens about the fate of The Blue and the Gold series.

Comments (3) | Add a Comment | Tags: andy helfer blue and gold blue beetle brian augustyn dan jurgens justice league kevin dooley

In Boosterrific.com's never-ending quest to catalog every Booster Gold appearance in a DC publication, I recently perused several issues of DC's pre-Previews solicitations, Direct Currents. Many of the early issues include interviews with DC artists. The artist interviewed for the "People At Work" column in issue #8 (August, 1988) is Dan Jurgens.

The article -- presumably written by Paul Kupperberg -- includes a brief biography, including the facts that Jurgens was inspired to read comics by the 1966 Batman television show, and that his first work for DC on Warlord resulted from a chance meeting with Mike Grell at a comic book convention. It even contains a bit about the origin of Booster Gold. But the part I found most interesting was this paragraph:

"Then there's next year's ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN ANNUAL, which I'm co-writing with Jerry Ordway and pencilling. And, of course, the one project I'm really excited about is something that DC's still got in the planning stages, called THE BLUE AND THE GOLD, a new series starring Booster Gold with the Blue Beetle. They've gotten real popular as buddies in Justice League International, so I think a book co-starring the two of them is a natural. It's going to have that unique JLI flavor to it."

We know it was never released, but how close did DC come to publishing The Blue and the Gold series teaming Booster Gold and Blue Beetle?

It's worth noting that there was no Adventures of Superman Annual released in 1989, and that no Adventures of Superman Annual shares writing credit between Dan Jurgens and Jerry Ordway (though both contributed to Action Comics Annual in 1989 and several issues of Adventures of Superman). So it seems that DC was being very flexible with their schedule in the late 1980s.

Clearly, this requires a little more research. Tomorrow we'll look for clues in Justice League letter columns from the 1990s.

Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: blue and gold blue beetle dan jurgens direct currents

It's Memorial Day weekend, traditionally the beginning of the summer movie season, also known as the season of comic book movies and runaway movie merchandising. May we never forget the grandfather of summer movie merchandising: Star Wars, which opened on Memorial Day weekend 34 years ago.

Han Solo, meet Booster Gold. (Real heroes wear collars!) This creative smash-up has been brought to you by grasshopperis777 (Robert Oden, Jr.) via deviantart.com.

Enjoy your 3-day weekend, nerf herders.

Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: blue beetle deviantart.com grasshopperis777 robert oden jr star wars

When I was running the rare art pieces last week, I excluded the following piece because it was not strictly commissioned by DC comics. That doesn't mean it isn't worth mentioning.

The above image of Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Guy Gardner, and Fire at the beach by Neil Vokes and Rich Rankin was published in the fanzine Amazing Heroes Swimsuit Special #1 (June 1990). This image may seem a little odd now, but remember that swimsuit specials were all the rage in the 90s. The highlight of the image is probably Beetle's swim trunks, though your mileage may vary.

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: amazing heroes blue beetle fire justice league international neil vokes rare art rich rankin swimsuit