After a good run, it looks like Booster will be taking June off. He is almost nowhere to be found in DC's June solicitations.

I say "almost" because:

SUPERMAN BLUE VOL. 1 TP
Written by DAN JURGENS, KARL KESEL, DAVID MICHELINIE and LOUISE SIMONSON
Art by RON FRENZ, SCOT EATON, STUART IMMONEN, JON BOGDANOVE, TOM GRUMMETT, SEAN CHEN and others
Cover by DAN JURGENS and JOE RUBINSTEIN

When the sun temporarily goes out, Superman temporarily loses his powers...but when they return, they are not what the Man of Steel expects! Clark Kent is suddenly transformed into a being of crackling blue energy, complete with new abilities and a totally new look! And before long, the villainous Cyborg Superman splits the Man of Steel into two beings: Superman Red and Superman Blue! Will Metropolis have two protectors?

Includes stories from SUPERMAN #122-125, ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #545-547, ACTION COMICS #732-734, SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL #67-69 and SUPERMAN ANNUAL #9.
On sale JULY 11 • 376 pg, $24.99 US

You'll see that trade collection is scheduled to include a reprint of Superman #124, which all Booster boosters will recognize as the last appearance of Booster's very briefly worn Mark X power suit, and the first appearance of Booster's slightly less briefly worn asymmetrical Mark XI power suit!

Words by Dan Jurgens; Art by Frenz, Rubenstein, et al

I'm sure you all have that one in your collections already, so you'll be able to pick up a backup reprint when this trade is released in July.

You can see all of DC's June solicitations at Newsarama.com.

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There's no avoiding it: the DCnU Justice League International suffers from a bit of decompression, making reading each new issue an exercise in patience. Fortunately for those of us with a need for immediate gratification (e.g., Americans), today DC releases the first six issues of the series in a single, collected trade paperback, Justice League International, Vol 1: The Signal Masters.

The volume is advertised at $14.99, a savings of 50¢ off cover price -- per issue! Better, DC advertises this trade at 144 pages. Each of the first 6 issues is 21-pages long (including covers) for a total of 126 published pages. What's making up the 18-page difference, hmm?

Skeets is beginning to think that with deals like this, only suckers should buy individual issues anymore. Buy this collection and prove Skeets right.

(UPDATE 05/09/12 7:49PM: these bonus pages are mostly unfinished pencils and uncolored inks from the covers and a few character sketches. There are a few character design sketches for Fire, Ice, and Vixen. Nothing previously unseen featuring Booster Gold.)

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The final issues of Booster Gold Vol. 2 hit the stands again today, collected in the Flashpoint: the World of Flashpoint Featuring Superman. That title may seem unnecessarily long, but then so did Flashpoint.

Other than Booster Gold issues #44 through #47, the collection includes The Canterbury Cricket one-shot and the complete Project Superman and World of Flashpoint mini-series. With a retail price of $17.99, that's eleven comics for the price of six! With pricing like this, why would anyone bother buying individual issues anymore?

If you have any interest in the expanded Flashpoint universe, you can't fault the value here. This volume contains the last appearance of Skeets to date if nothing else. Buy this collection and let DC know that you want more Skeets.

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Late last week, Collected Editions posted a review of the collected Showcase Presents: Booster Gold. I run a Booster Gold website, but even I was surprised by the thoughtful insight that the author, CEB, gleaned from the source material. Take a peek at the quality of the following excerpt, a small fraction of the total review:

Jurgens's Booster Gold reflects the materialism of the 1980s, and the certain innocence that went with it. Booster arrives in 1986 with a flashy costume and an expectation to make money, and it never occurs to him that achieving such might not be so simple. Though Booster performs feats of strength, little of what he achieves is actually his doing, but rather that of Dirk and other handlers. As is the case throughout the book, here too Booster is gambling -- on his own potential for success -- possibly without even knowing that he's doing so. It's no coincidence that in the story, President Reagan is one of Booster's biggest supporters, as the government encouragement of consumer spending at the time would no doubt pass muster with Booster. I would not go so far as to say that Jurgens specifically compares Reaganomics to gambling here, but we do see Booster lose his fortune twice shortly before the stock-market crash of the late 1980s.

There's plenty more where that came from, including a particularly delightful investigation of the relationship between Booster and Broderick from Booster Gold #18. Maybe if this article had been published before the turn of the DCnU, we would have encouraged a writer to have Broderick return!

If you like reading about Booster Gold -- and who doesn't? -- the entire review itself is highly recommended reading. You can find the review, and many other insightful reviews, online at collectededitions.blogspot.com.

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According to the latest DC solicitations at dccomics.com, the first collection of Justice League: Generation Lost will be released in February. The collected hardback will reportedly collect the first 12 issues, an usual number given that DC originally scheduled the series for 26 issues. Has the series plan been shortened to 24 issues?

The collection is advertised at 320 pages, and the first 12 issues have only 24 pages each, counting both covers for each issue. That leaves 32 pages of mystery bonus content if the book is really only collecting 12 issues or is actually 320 pages long. Most likely, the initial solicitation is wrong or incomplete. I guess we'll see what the real story is in February.

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