If you look around the Internet for information on Booster Gold, you might discover a book titled Influential Superheroes of All Time: Booster Gold attributed to Elizabeth Dummel. This 240-page book is one in a series assembled by Ms. Dummel about comic book super heroes. If dig a little deeper into this book, you'll invariably encounter this disclaimer from the publisher:

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. This book presents a fictional biography of one influential superhero character that greatly influenced the world, Booster Gold. This book puts together a showcase of the character's fictional biography and his influence over the world's culture. Read about Booster Gold's powers and abilities, enemies, creators, and more.

"Free sources online"? Has the information been vetted to validate unqualified statements on Wikipedia about Booster speaking "Esperanto as his first language"? (Besides a joke by Blue Beetle, there is no proof of this.) Does the book use the information from Adherents.com to identify Booster Gold as an atheist? (Another one-off punchline with no other supporting evidence.) How seriously does the book take reports from FanExpo 2011 about Booster's New 52 Canadian citizenship? (Much reported, never repeated in canon.) And most importantly, does that mean that the book includes content from Boosterrific.com?

The publisher, Webster Digital Services, defends the book's content as legal under under Creative Commons licensing. That may be technically true, but don't expect any great insight from their copy-and-paste publications of Google search results.

For awhile, the book was available on Amazon.com, although that no longer seems to be the case. Copies are still on eBay.com and BarnesandNoble.com for about $25 apiece. If that's the going rate for republished Wikipedia entries, the content at Boosterrific.com must be priceless!

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First of all, today's feature isn't exactly a new release; it was published 3 weeks ago. But given that Booster Gold doesn't seem to exist in the DCnU right now, we'll have to take what we can get. Lucky for us, what we can get is a delightful easy reader for second graders that is at least as entertaining as anything DC Comics has published in the DCnU to date.

The Man of Gold by Paul Weissburg and accomplished Batman: Gotham Adventures artist Tim Levins is not a comic, but a 5-inch by 7-inch book with illustrations. There's a lot to like in the book's simple, direct prose narrative of how Booster Gold's drive for fame and glory soon threatens both Superman and the safety of the Metropolis itself. While Booster's origin herein may not be exactly what Dan Jurgens wrote, this Booster's personality isn't too far afield from what we saw in his earliest comic book appearances. This Booster is a jerk with a heart of gold.

Booster's primary antagonist in this adventure is the Jack Kirby-created Stompa, a member of Granny Goodness' Female Furies of Apokolips. Despite both characters having decades-long careers in comic books, this is the first encounter between the pair. Their refreshing face-off results in a battle which sees Booster's force field creatively used as an offensive weapon.

Because this book was designed to encourage children to read via the Advanced Reader system in the classroom, it ends with Discussion Questions. Question 3 encourages readers to explain which of the book's 10 illustrations is their favorite. Tim Levin's JLU-inspired art deserves the attention. Detail-oriented readers may spot that Booster wears the collar-less version of his classic power suit in the published book, but Tim Levins' original art online at his Deviant Art page has the more familiar collared powersuit that Booster has worn in all of Justice League Unlimited appearances. The book doesn't have any Discussion Questions encouraging thoughts about the motivation for this change.

This book is just one in a series of similar books published under the DC Super Heroes license by Capstone Publications (who also re-publish DC Comics with "durable hardcover" bindings for grade school libraries). While your Local Comic Shop may not carry "real" books, you can find a copy of this book at Amazon.com. I'd like to see DC publish 81 pages of story for $5.95! Thanks to Eyz for bringing this book to my attention.

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Today marks the 1 week anniversary of Booster Gold having no ongoing title for the first time since 2006. As we all know, Justice League International was cancelled for failing to meet "greater expectations." Yes, for a variety of reasons the stories failed to spark widespread excitement with comic book readers. However, that doesn't mean that the book shouldn't be considered a success.

Calvin Reid noted earlier this week at Publishers Weekly that many of the collected trades of New 52 series have sold well enough to make the New York Times Graphic Bestseller list in recent months. Among the 11 New 52 titles to break into the Top Ten since May is Justice League International Volume 1: The Signal Masters. It charted at #5 for the week of June 5, 2012. While that was the only week that the book made the bestseller list, it's a pretty good showing for a book about to be cancelled.

The rest of the article crows DC's recent reboot success, but was published too early to include DC's newest addition to the New York Times list: Showcase Presents: Rip Hunter, Time Master, Volume 1 (#9 for the week of August 12, 2012). It's not likely that we've heard the last of the New 52, but so long as DC and its fans haven't entirely forgotten the past, there's hope yet for Booster Gold recovering a series.

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At my local comic shop yesterday, I saw that DC had teamed with DK Publishing to release a new encyclopedia, DC Comics: The Ultimate Character Guide. Like previous printings of DK's DC Comics Encyclopedia, this book contains an entry for Booster Gold.

As you can see, the character designs on the cover (as well as the interior pages you can't see) are the up-to-date pre-reboot designs, including Wonder Woman's pants-suit. You have to feel a little sorry for DK: preparing a book like this takes a lot of lead time, and DC announced their sweeping design changes just weeks before publication. If DC is serious about keeping the new costumes, this $16.99 tome is already archaic.

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