While Booster boosters were occupied with last week's announcement and pre-sale of the McFarlane Toys Blue and Gold action figure 2-Pack, DC Comics tried to sneak another announcement past us:

That's the "Gatefold Main Cover" by Dan Jurgens and Brett Breeding of The Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special #1, coming to a Local Comic Shop near you on November 8. And, as you can see, Booster Gold is on it.

According to the press release at DCComics.com, Jurgens and Breeding are just part of the all-star cast of writers and artists from the original "Death of Superman" reuniting for this special. The issue also brings back Roger Stern and Butch Guice, Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove, and Jerry Ordway and Tom Grummett. Yes, please.

This is obviously a big deal for DC, so obviously there are multiple covers. Nine, in fact, if you count the "Premium Polybag Variant." What you see above is the main cover. That means it'll be the cover you'll find if when you open the polybag to get your updated armband.

(Personal side note: for many, many years, I've worn a black leather jacket modeled after the Tom Grummet cover of The Adventures of Superman #501 with a Superman #75 black arm band. That armband is not a particularly durable fabric [2015 pictures here], and I look forward to replacing it.)

Anyway, while not every cover has been revealed yet, DC's announcement does include the "Funeral for a Friend" variant cover by Ivan Reis and Danny Miki. Like the Dan Jurgens variant for Justice League #75 a few months back that homaged "Funeral for a Friend," this cover also pays tribute to the Superman #75 poster, also with Booster Gold:

(Yes, that *is* Blue Beetle behind Booster on that cover. I'm sure I don't need to remind you that Beetle was not present for Superman's funeral because Doomsday put him in a coma. But if I'm going to nitpick, I probably should say something about Martian Manhunter/Bloodwynd. And let's just not go there.)

So if you're counting, that's at least *two* copies of The Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special #1 you're going to need to keep your Booster Gold comic collection complete.

I'll let you know if that number goes up.

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At the San Diego Comic-Con 2022 DC Dark Crisis panel last Thursday, Dark Crisis writer Joshua Williamson announced that the mini-series is being retitled starting with issue #4. That new title is Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Quoteth gamesradar.com:

"We've kept the real name a secret from the start because we didn't want to give away what was happening in the middle of the story, with the return of the Infinite Earths," says writer Joshua Williamson.

Despite my expectations, I'm enjoying Dark Crisis, but I have to feel that I've been reading comic books too long when my first thought is "this renaming reveal is exactly what DC did halfway through Countdown to Final Crisis" and my second thought is "doesn't Williamson realize that he brought back the infinite earths last year in Infinite Frontier?"

Apparently, we get an infinite number of infinite earths now. Continuity? Pfft.

But let's not get distracted by details. The important new news is that Booster Gold (and Skeets!) will be on the cover to Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths #5, available October 4!

The blew up Titans Tower on the cover of issue #2 (mere months after it was blown up and rebuilt in the pages of Teen Titans Academy), and it looks like the Hall of Justice get similar treatment for issue #5. What's next? Wayne Tower? The Flash Museum? It must be hard to get building insurance if you own a signature piece of property on any earth in the DCU. (It makes more and more sense to have your headquarters in an out-of-the-way place like a cave in Happy Harbor, Rhode Island.)

According to BleedingCool.com, the issue is going to have at least 5 covers, including 1:25 by Ariel Colon, 1:50 by Mikel Janin, and 1:100 foil by Daniel Sampere and Alejandro Sanchez (which I suspect will be identical to the default Cover A but shiny!).

From what I've seen so far, it looks like Booster (and Skeets!) will only be on the Ivan Reis and Danny Miki standard variant (Cover B) pictured above. Be sure to tell your Local Comic Shop that's the one you want so they can order it for you!

A somewhat harder to collect Booster Gold cover will be the 1:25 variant of Human Target #8, due on October 25:

That one can't be direct ordered, so the only way to guarantee you get one is to pay your LCS to also order you 25 copies of the regular cover. Cover price $4.99 times 26 copies equals $129.74 before tax. That's an expensive comic! Maybe your LCS will cut you a deal for buying in volume?

You can see all of DC's October solicitations at CBR.com.

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Look who's on another cover!

cover art by Travis Moore

Dreamer might be the "breakout" guest star here, but Booster Gold (and Blue Beetle) sure know how to crash a party. Look at how Booster's placement overlaps the title; what an opportunist. No one photobombs better than Booster Gold.

Booster was seen in a different "fractured glass" motif in the final pages of Flashpoint Beyond #3, but I like the cover of Superman: Son of Kal-El #13 better... because it's a cover. Gotta keep Booster in front of his adoring public, you know!

Does Booster appear inside the issue? He's not seen anywhere in the issue preview on AIPTcomics.com, but that's only the first 5 of a 22 page issue. The only way to find out if there's more will be to buy it and make Skeets happy.

UPDATE 2022-07-12: Booster is seen nowhere between the covers of Superman: Son of Kal-El #13. Sorry to get anyone's hopes up. Better luck next week.

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Available tomorrow at your Local Comic Shop:

Yes, that is Booster Gold on the wraparound Daniel Sampere/Alejandro Sanchez cover.

I should also mention that Booster is definitely on the inside, too. Pretty significantly, in fact.

That should be all you need to know before deciding to pick up Dark Crisis #1, but if you want (slightly) more, AIPT.com has a preview of the first five pages (with Booster appearing on two of them!).

Buy this book and make Skeets happy.

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Booster Gold does not appear in this week's Justice League: Road to Dark Crisis #1, or as Booster booster Rob Snow recently called it, Countdown to Dark Crisis. (I love that title. I mean, seriously, DC, It was right there! )

Although there's no Booster to be seen here, there are still two things I find interesting about this issue.

Thing 1: Despite its cover blurb that "It All Starts Here," Dark Crisis #0 was already released for Free Comic Book Day, and that's not even counting the Justice League issue where the team died or the three Infinite Frontier mini-series that led up to their deaths. So it really began months ago. Or, really, decades ago, since this is very overtly a retread of the seminal 1985 Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Thing 2: Booster Gold isn't on the cover. And before you tell me that's not unusual for a book Booster Gold is not in, let me explain.

I'm talking specifically about the issue's variant cover by Chris Burnham & Nathan Fairbairn:

As you can see, Crisis on Infinite Earths' Pariah is sitting on a throne built of long-boxes of comics reading other comics featuring other famous DC "crisis" events. The book in his hand is the Silver Age Justice League of America Volume 1 #30 (1964), in which the JLA of Earth-One and the JSA of Earth-Two battle the Crime Syndicate of America of Earth-Three in a story called "The Most Dangerous Earth of All." (It's a great "meta" cover for an issue that expects its readers to know the ins-and-outs of 40 years of comic book history.)

More relevant to this blog are the three books on the floor at his feet: Final Crisis #1 (2008), Zero Hour: Crisis in Time #4 (1995), and Infinite Crisis #1 (2005). Booster Gold played a role in all of these mini-series events, even appearing on some of their covers. But he does not appear in any of these particular issues, just as he doesn't appear in or on this issue.

So what's interesting about that?, I hear you say. What's interesting about this cover that Booster isn't on is that he's still kind of on it!

On a cover like this, a cover celebrating the fantasy and history of comic books and multiverses, where else should we expect to find Booster Gold — the first character introduced to the DC Universe after the initial Crisis and a modern superhero whose sole desire is to be famous enough to be a character in comic books — than inside the comic book box by Pariah's left foot labeled "A - B"!

So close but yet so far, Booster.

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