Writer Joshua Williamson continues to channel Grant Morrison for Justice League Incarnate, and in this week's issue 3 the team takes a side trip to Earth-33 (the reincarnation of former Earth-Prime, home of the multiversal villain Superboy-Prime), now the Earth where ideas are born. One idea is obviously Booster Gold, as seen in this fella's t-shirt:

Footnote 1 — I know that this is a Booster Gold fansite, but I personally think that the real value of Justice League Incarnate #3 lies not in the reveal of "Booster Gold t-shirt guy" of Earth-33 but the discovery that Doctor Batman has been sent to Earth-26, formerly known as Earth-C. Last we'd heard, in Dark Nights: Death Metal: Multiverse's End #1, Captain Carrot's "funny animals" Earth-C Earth-26 Zoo Crew had been killed by Perpetua's minions (so dark!). It's good to know that my favorite childhood heroes are alive and well again in the Infinite Frontier-era Omniverse. Hooray!

Footnote 2 — Earth-26, Earth-Prime, Earth-33, Earth-C, Multiverse, Hypertime, Dark Multiverse, Omniverse... boy, howdy. Does anyone else remember that 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths was supposed to simplify the DC Universe to make it accessible to new readers? So why, now that the multiverse is back, is it more complicated than ever before? Did we finally just give up on new readers?

Footnote 3 — Both Justice League Incarnate and Justice League Infinity, both released this week and both featuring Booster Gold references, are about plots to destroy the multiverse. (Technically, they are separate multiverses, as the JLU never crosses over with the original JLA.) It sure seems like even DC's writers think the darn thing has gotten too complicated.

Oops. I'm starting to sound a bit like Superboy-Prime myself, aren't I?

Never mind grumpy old me. Buy some comics and make Skeets happy.

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I'll let you in on a little secret: I wasn't always a huge Booster Gold fan.

Which is not to say that I didn't consider myself fortunate to have first met Booster Gold in 1985, when I found his debut appearance in Booster Gold Volume 1 #1 sitting on the magazine rack at my local convenience store.

Even at a young age, I had seen enough Super Friends episodes to recognize that Booster Gold was lampooning traditional superhero ethos and consumer culture in a way I immediately found equally engaging and endearing. At the same time, I was still impressionable enough that if anyone had sold Flakies cereal, I would have begged my parents to buy a box.

I was devastated when his comics were canceled, but it would take another twenty years before I would call Booster Gold my favorite comic book character. The truth is that my first love in comics was Captain Carrot, the cosmic carrot-chewing leader of DC Comics' Amazing Zoo Crew.

The Zoo Crew's adventures were overloaded with smile-inducing puns, and the pop culture references read like a long-form Mad Magazine segments. I read and re-read each issue until its cover fell off. I spent years rebuilding my collection with better copies. I think I currently own the entire series in triplicate.

It's entirely possible that Captain Carrot would still be my favorite comic book character if DC hadn't canceled the Zoo Crew in 1983. Even then it took years before I was willing to let another character take his place at the top of my personal pantheon. After reading a lot of books from a lot of companies, I decided that my second love in comics was a key member appearing in Justice League International. However, that wasn't Booster Gold but Batman.

Specifically, I loved the Batman still more driven detective than deified super hero. I spent summers watching syndicated reruns of Batman's 1960s television series, and I grew up respecting his innate ability to solve riddles and escape deathtraps with nothing more than his honed mind.

As the 80s and 90s progressed, I bought every Batman comic I could afford. I watched Batman grow increasingly grimdark as he relied evermore on his wealth at the expense of his wits. Ironically, this made him more popular than ever with the reading public. Like any jealous lover, I did not appreciate my hero growing away from me. (And yes, I'm aware that my emotional, nostalgic bias for "the Batman I first met" is its own set of problems, but are ex-lovers ever rational?) Which brings us back to Booster.

About the time that I decided that Batman and I should just be friends, Booster Gold was returning to the limelight with a tragic turn in Countdown to Infinite Crisis. Despite never being my favorite hero, I'd been following Booster's adventures for years, even through the wasteland of Extreme Justice and the lean years that followed.

Booster's subsequent rise from the ashes in 52 finally made me realize how truly unique he was. I couldn't name another character who had survived such a long journey from origin to the triumph of saving a multiverse. With that realization, Boosterrific.com was born.

I now gladly call Booster Gold my favorite character, and I'm grateful he was willing to wait for me to come around. I assume that eventually, everyone will eventually realize Michael Jon Carter's greatness. Time has always been on Booster Gold's side.

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Last week, I mentioned as one of the reasons that I still liked single-issue floppies was in large part because I love the cover art. That conditioning led me to do something yesterday that I almost never do: I paid far more than cover price just to buy a variant cover, and it doesn't have anything to do with Booster Gold.

Can... not... resist....

See that price tag? The last time I spent $40 on a comic book, I got the second best Booster Gold trade collection ever printed. And the time before that, I got the best Booster Gold trade collection ever printed.

As satisfied as I am to have an Art Adams-drawn Captain Carrot cover (and I consider $40 a small price to pay against the amount I would have paid over the past 3 decades if DC had chosen to give me any ongoing Zoo Crew comics), I do have to admit that the Booster Gold trades were money better spent.

You can still get both Booster Gold: The Big Fall and Booster Gold: Future Lost at Amazon.com (and maybe a Local Comic Shop near you).

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We started the week with Dan DiDio's version of Blue Beagle and Rooster Gold, but we all know that's not what the heroes on Earth-C Earth-26 Earth-C-Minus look like. They look more like this:

Thanks to Scott Shaw! for co-creating Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew and the Justa Lotta Animals. That was a quality funny-book, sir.

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