Remember back in September when Newsarama.com broke the news that Blue Beetle and Booster Gold would be coming to Justice League 3000? Let me refresh your memory:

Keith Giffen: It's Beetle and Booster. This is them. Basically, a cryogenic chamber is found on Takron-Galtos while they're excavating, and inside are Beetle and Booster. It's Ted and Michael. It's really, really them.

That's been solicited as happening in next month's issue (#12). But those of you who are Booster Gold completists — one panel cameo appearances count too! — pay attention to this DC Comics solicitation for today's Justice League 3000 #11:

The Five have been defeated — but the Justice League has no time to catch their breath with the forces of Etrigan, the Demon massing for attack and the threat of the new Injustice League rising. Plus: a stunning discovery on Takron-Galtos!

I have a feeling I know what that stunning discovery is going to be. I'm going to find out for sure at my Local Comic Shop this afternoon.

UPDATE: Blue and Gold appearance confirmed. If you want issue #12 to make any sense, run to your LCS and pick up your copy of #11 today! (Ok, so maybe they just make a one panel cameo that has little if anything to do with the rest of the issue. But still. Buy it and make Skeets happy.)

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Do you remember What comics you were reading 25 years ago? If you were a Justice League International fan, you were treated to the first on-panel appearance of the tiny Pacific island KooeyKooeyKooey 25 years ago today.

Justice League International #33

One month later, KooeyKooeyKooey would be the home of the ill-fated Club JLI, a Justice League-themed resort and casino. Club JLI was built by funds embezzled from the United Nations and was robbed by future Leaguer Major Disaster, but neither of those problems were what ultimately doomed it. But you probably know all about that already.

(If you don't, find yourself copies of Justice League International #33, #34, and #35, or the 2011 reprint in Justice League International Volume 6).

(And if you miss the madcap adventures of Blue and Gold, be sure to pick up the duo's return in Justice League 3000 #12 on December 3.)

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Blue and Gold are turning up everywhere these days!

Another Booster Gold team-up cover from Ross Pearsall? Yes, please.

I'm sure that sentinels wouldn't be any trouble for our favorite sci-fi, tech-based Justice Leaguers. Besides not being mutants, either one of our heroes is clever enough to reprogram some silly evil robots. Unless they had somehow corrupted Skeets.... Nah, that'll never happen.

You'll find more creative cover pairings at his site, Super-Team Family ...The Lost Issues daily.

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Ok. We know for sure that Booster Gold and Blue Beetle will be reunited in the year 3000 in the pages of Justice League 3000 #12. But what does that mean, exactly?

Russ Burlingame discussed what to expect with Marlene of I Like Comics, Too! on Sunday:

Russ: One of my readers pointed out that he didn't understand why a future based on Giffen & DeMatteis's stories would be any different from the future of the pre-New 52 DC Universe. I figured it couldn't hurt to look at that a little bit.

I mean, there are some obvious differences, right? Dan Jurgens actually wrote a line into Booster Gold Vol. 2 to accommodate the whole "married a rich old heiress" thing (even if the line was that he was joking) but that's about it. There are plenty of other things that happen in the Keith and Marc stories that don't seem to have any bearing on the rest of the DC Universe, and/or conflict with existing stories.

Marlene: There are definitely some differences in how the characters are written, especially Booster. Though Jurgens created him as an unconventional, mildly air-headed superhero-for-hire, it was the original Justice League International run that really shaped the character as most fans know and love him. It's also where his relationship with Blue Beetle was fleshed out.

Compared to Jurgens' original design through Booster's self-titled series and his eventual modern adaptation with the New 52 reboot, Giffen & DeMatteis's version was far sillier and more immature. While he and Beetle certainly had their clever moments, they primarily served as the comic relief of the team.

You can read the rest of their discussion at ComicBook.com.

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This is the second part of our investigation of Black Beetle's secret identity. Follow this link to Part 1.

...

Fact: Black Beetle claims to have an alien Reach scarab just like Blue Beetle Jaime Reyes. (Booster Gold #6)

Fact: Supernova calls Black Beetle "Joshua." (Booster Gold #7)

Fact: Black Beetle calls himself "Jaime Reyes' greatest enemy." (Booster Gold #10)

Fact: Black Beetle explains to Ted Kord that if Jaime Reyes never became the third Blue Beetle, "he'll never take her away from me!" (Also Booster Gold #10)

Where do these facts all lead?

Hector and his sister Nadia joined Blue Beetle's supporting cast in January 2007, a full year before the Black Beetle made his debut. He assisted Jaime Reyes for years before Nadia was abruptly killed. Hector blamed Jaime and disappeared, apparently borrowing the identity (and maybe the scarab) of Djo-Zha, a Reach agent who also felt betrayed by Reyes. The name Djo-Zha was misunderstood as "Joshua." (All in Blue Beetle #36.)

See how the facts fit together to indicate that Hector became the Black Beetle? If you still doubt, keep in mind that Black Beetle all but admits it! In the "Blue Beetle" backup feature in Booster Gold #24, Black Beetle taunts Blue Beetle with Nadia's death before confessing that his anger at Jaime's indifference to his sister's death drove him to madness and villainy.

That's it. Case closed. Black Beetle is Hector. Until you turn the page and Black Beetle denies it all, claiming instead to have killed Hector and taken the Djo-Zha scarab. So what's the truth here?

This takes a little digging behind the scenes: according to a "Gold Exchange" interview that Russ Burlingame conducted with Booster Gold writer Dan Jurgens and Blue Beetle writer Matt Sturges in 2009, Sturges wrote Hector's story in Blue Beetle #36 (April 2009) without the approval or coordination of Dan Jurgens. Blue Beetle #36 doesn't declare that Black Beetle is Hector, so the hints were simply revealed in Booster Gold #24 (November 2009) to be baseless lies and misdirection.

If the Black Beetle can't be trusted to tell us the truth about anything, we're going to have to start look at his actions and not his words to decipher his identity. So what have we seen him do? He manipulates time itself! That leads us to our next suspect:

A former Time Master gone bad, Rex Hunter (aka Jason Goldstein) is everything Rip Hunter isn't. He's a loud-mouth braggart (Booster Gold #5) who isn't afraid to murder or manipulate history (Booster Gold #4) so long as it makes him "time's ultimate master" (Booster Gold #18). Surviving his own murder as a being of pure chronal energy that can move through the timestream, he knows the past and future and the secrets of Vanishing Point. The similarities to Black Beetle are pretty striking, and they don't stop there.

Remember that Black Beetle told Ted Kord that he must live so that Jaime Reyes never becomes the Blue Beetle? In Booster Gold #18, Rex wants to destroy the scarab so that the lineage of the Blue Beetles will never come to pass. It's the same plan. If Rex is the Black Beetle, and the Black Beetle hates Jaime Reyes so much that he'd destroy history to ruin him, what difference does it make how he prevents Jaime from obtaining the scarab so long as Jaime never obtains the scarab?

But why would the Time Stealers recruit two different versions of Black Beetle into their ranks? And if the Time Stealers killed Rex Hunter as a baby to turn him into a creature of pure chronal energy that later became Black Beetle, why would Rex keep working with the Time Stealers who killed him? These unanswerable questions seem to preclude the possibility that Rex and Black Beetle are the same person.

Ok, so Rex Hunter is out. Who else fits the bill as a time-traveling history-buff obsessed with the Blue Beetle? Uh-oh.

More tomorrow.

[Follow this link to read Part 3 of this series.]

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