If you missed them the first time around, Booster Gold and the now-defunct Justice League International's appearances in The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men issues #9 and #10 will be collected in today's The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men Volume 2: The Firestorm Protocols.

To be clear, The Firestorm Protocols collects issues #7 through #12 and #0 of the series and contains none of Dan Jurgens' work on the title. This volume represents the second half of Ethan Van Sciver's year on the series. Van Sciver's art was well received, but his story not so much.

Come to think of it, it has been about a year since these issues were published, and already Jurgens' New 52 reinterpretation of the JLI and Van Sciver's New 52 reinterpretation Firestorm have already been largely forgotten. Firestorm looks and acts much like his pre-Flashpoint self as a member of the Justice League, and Booster is rumored to be returning to his own title again.

It's beginning to feel like old times again at DC!

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With Man of Steel set to open this Friday, there's no better way to countdown the days than by looking back at his shared adventures with DC's greatest hero, Booster Gold!

Even Micheal Jon Carter would admit that without Superman, there would be no Booster Gold. The legacy of Superman was the primary inspiration that drove Micheal Jon Carter to rob the Space Museum of the equipment he would use as a 20th-century superhero. But it wouldn't be until Booster Gold, volume 1, #6 that the pair would finally meet face-to-face.

Against their will, Booster Gold and Superman (and Skeets!) were transported to an alien world in Booster Gold, volume 1, #7. While incarcerated, Superman taught Booster one of the most valuable lessons in super heroics, that sometimes some things are not what they seem to be. Booster has always been a little too trusting for his own good, and who better to impart that essential bit of wisdom than someone who can see through walls? Of course, Booster wouldn't just take Superman's word for it, so Superman had to beat the lesson into Booster's thick skull. That's tough love.

(Superman's appearance in this story isn't just significant to Booster Gold's development. This also happens to be Superman's first in-continuity appearance following the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths as well as the first time that Superman was drawn and written by Dan Jurgens! Groundbreaking stuff!)

The shared adventure didn't exactly turn the two men into fast friends. Both found something lacking in the other — Superman thought Booster was careless and vain, Booster thought Superman was old-fashioned and cold — but a connection had been made between the two greatest heroes in the DC Universe that would establish a foundation for adventures to come.

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Finishing up this week of long-overdue professional fan art posts is this gem coming out of Phoenix Comicon last month. This one I intentionally held it until the end of this week in order to coincide with the annual Superman Celebration now underway in Metropolis, Illinois.

Jonah Hex is nice, but who could be a better team-up for Booster Gold and Skeets than Superman? Makes you look forward to what might be coming from DC for Booster Gold volume 3.

According to Norm Rapmund, who posted this image to his Twitter media gallery, this bit of art was something that he and Dan Jurgens did "for fun." Jurgens did pencil art that Rapmund finished with inks and Brian Miller (aka Hi-Fi Designs) provided color. What a super team!

You can find a larger, better version of this image (and a pre-colored b&w copy of the inks) at Twitter.com/NormRapmund.

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Another something I haven't had the time to mention yet: Major Force made a guest appearance in Firestorm: The Nuclear Man #20 wearing a costume that looks very familiar.

I guess if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Major Force is paying Booster a big compliment. It probably doesn't help any that the artists for the book were Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund.

Late last month at ComicBook.com, Russ Burlingame — the internet's premiere Booster Gold journalist! — asked Dan Jurgens why Major Force looked like Booster Gold's purplest fan.

ComicBook.com: Major Force—is that the first time we've seen him in the New 52? I feel like there was a character who looked like that introduced in Ron Marz's Voodoo run, but I don't see anything to indicate it was him on the DC Wiki and I feel like they may have referred to him by another name there.

Jurgens: You were right the first time. Major Force made a brief appearance in the earlier days of the New 52, which is what we used for the overall character design. It was fun to push him back on stage.

ComicBook.com: I remember noticing at the time that there's a pretty unmistakable similarity between this version of Major Force's look and Booster Gold's, excepting of course the color scheme. Did you notice that too?

Jurgens: I did notice it, which is why I did whatever I could to work away from it, mostly emphasizing Force's bulk.

Jurgens is right, this "Major Force" design did show up in several issues of Voodoo. However, that character was not Captain Atom's old foe Clifford Zmeck but Blackhawk agent Major "Black Jack" Bolton. Bolton was clearly decapitated long before Voodoo was canceled. Is Jurgens' Major Force Zmeck or a reincarnated Bolton? (Major Force has survived some pretty gruesome injuries in the past.)

Back when Booster debuted in the 1980s, it could be argued that his costume had been strongly "inspired" by the costume worn by the Soviet hero Red Star. Since the Communists don't believe in personal property, Red Star's emblem, cowl, goggles, and high collar designs were destined to be copied by a Capitalist hero with good fashion sense. But in the contemporary DCnU of the 21st century, you'd think that a big celebrity like Booster Gold would have a good copyright lawyer on retainer to deal with copycats like Black Jack and Major Force. Maybe Booster's trying to keep his head down on this issue. His past isn't exactly spotless, after all.

Booster, give Batman a call. The lawyers working for Batman, Inc. must know a thing or two about dealing with intellectual property infringement cases by now.

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There has been so much Booster Gold news lately, I haven't had the space to post all the Booster Gold sketches that I've been collecting. I'll start correcting that with this post of from Dan Jurgens himself.

Shawn Baston, (whose name should be familiar to longtime Booster Gold fans and visitors to Boosterrific.com), commissioned this sketch from Dan Jurgens at Spring Con 2013 last month.

Thanks, Shawn, for sharing your new prized possession with us!

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