Last Friday, I made a fuss over Booster Gold's new costume. After careful contemplation of what I wrote, I stand by my original assessment.

THIS COSTUME STILL SUCKS.

However, I laid all of the blame for the vomit-inducing misguided costume redesign on DC Co-Publisher Jim Lee, largely because that's who DC blamed it on in their original announcements. However, yesterday Lee announced that he would not be taking the fall alone. On DC's The Source blog, Lee wrote:

Months ago, when the decision was made to launch 52 new number ones, Co-Publisher Dan Didio, Editor-in-Chief Bob Harras along with DCU Executive Editor Eddie Berganza and VP-Art Direction and Design Mark Chiarello and I went over the entire proposed DCU lineup and bookmarked the characters we felt would benefit the most from a visual redesign.
... Realizing the amount of time and effort it would take to complete the long list of designs, Mark Chiarello and I enlisted artist Cully Hamner onto the team, giving us not just another set of hands but another style altogether so we would have a variety of styles to literally draw from.
... And of course, all the designs were shaped and refined by the input of a series editor, writer and artist. In the end, we wanted to make sure all the key creators on a title were satisfied with the final look of the characters as the creative teams were the ones who had to live with and draw the new looks on a near daily basis.

So now that we've gotten an eyeful of the worst costume designs since the 1990s, Lee is being sure to drag everyone else down with him give "credit" to all the other artists involved. What a great guy.

Does this mean that Dan Jurgens, a "key creator" for the upcoming Justice League International title, was a significant part of the team that designed that Booster Gold costume? Being pretty familiar with Jurgens' artistic history, I somehow doubt it. Would Jurgens' involvement in the creation of that costume make me hate it less? I somehow doubt that, too. This would be at least the third Booster Gold powersuit that Jurgens had a direct hand in designing, and it is by far the worst.

Not every costume in this entire shake-up is bad. The problem is that most of them are. And they are all coming at the same time, so rather than being given time to acclimate to the horrific appearance of, say, a Jersey Shore-Superboy or an anime-Deasthstroke, we readers are forced into making a snap decision: do we want to pay to look at these abominations Hot Topic-inspired fashions or not?

Jim Lee, I don't care whose fault it is, I just don't want to look at the comic books you are publishing anymore.

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In general, Dan Jurgens is tight-lipped in interviews. He rarely if ever gives away any secrets about his upcoming stories. That's great if you want to avoid spoilers, but frustrating as the firmament of the DC Universe appears to be reshaping itself beneath our feet. In the past few days, Jurgens has given interviews to both Comic Related and Newsarama that may contain clues to the future of Booster Gold.

From "Dan Jurgens on life after Flashpoint " by Russ Burlingame at Comic Related:

CR: This is probably a conversation for another time, but Booster Gold has been the protector of the timeline. What happens here, a massive shift in history and continuity and all that, seems to suggest that he fails rather spectacularly. Was mitigating that impression part of why Booster was allowed to be "the guy who gets to see Flashpoint"?

DJ: I don't think this change suggests that at all. With a lot of this, you have to wait until you read the end of the story.

CR: Of all the characters in the JLI, it appears as though Booster Gold is the character who got the most radical redesign of his costume. That seems to dash the theories that a lot of us had about his being the "Psycho Pirate" of the new universe--the one guy who remembers the way it used to be. Will we get a real, solid ending for Booster, Rip and company since their role in Flashpoint lends it to one more than any other title?

DJ: I'll be happy to answer questions about the end of Booster Gold and Flashpoint... once it appears in print. No writer gives away his ending!

Bad news first: Jurgens appears to be confirming the cancellation of Booster Gold Volume 2. However, Jurgens is a crafty interviewee, so we can only take his responses at face value. It's always best not to read too far into his responses. (Keep hope alive!)

From "Jurgens Brings International Flavor to DCnU in Revamped JLI" by Vaneta Rogers at Newsarma:

Newsarama: Dan, what attracted you to writing the Justice League International?

Dan Jurgens: It's the Justice League! International style, yes, but it is still a vehicle for some of DC's best heroes, which as part of this new launch, is tremendously appealing.

I've always been drawn to books that allow for a wide range of stories that have a chance to be big in scope, and the JLI certainly fits that description. Plus, it's a chance to continue to lift Booster Gold's profile, which we've been working on the past few years.

Nrama: Is this the whole team?

Jurgens: This is the whole team for this issue! After that... things can change.

The good news is that Jurgens is committed to raising the profile of Booster Gold. This means there will be plenty of Booster in the upcoming Justice League International series. Better still, if things are really so flexible in the future, maybe Booster won't be stuck with that terrible costume for too long!

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Russ Burlingame's latest "Gold Exchange" column with Dan Jurgens has been posted on Comic Related.com. Among other issues, this month's column insightfully has Jurgens comparing and contrasting the current Flashpoint event with Jurgen's own Tangent line of a decade ago.

GX: In a very general way, what separates Flashpoint from something like Tangent? The creative approach seems to be the same (lots and lots of people working on a universe "led" by a couple of guys) and obviously we've got the "similar-but-not-the-same superheroes" thing. What's the big thing that should make us go "Damn!" and think that, continuity-wise, this is more of a rat's nest than when Kyle Rayner got stuck in the Tangent Universe for a while?

DJ: Tangent was structured around the idea of taking the names of DC characters and completely turning them around, upside down and inside out, in a very different universe. Flashpoint is very much about a timeline that differs from the normal DCU because of altered elements.

A word of warning: before you head over to read the rest of the interview, be sure to read Booster Gold #44. There are definitely spoilers in this week's "Gold Exchange."

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I promoted last October's FallCon, so you bet I'm going to remind you about this weekends' SpringCon! SpringCon is twice the fun of FallCon: both Saturday and Sunday (two whole days!) from 10AM to 5PM at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. While Gail Simone and Denny O'Neil have announced that they will be unable to attend (these things happen), there's no need to worry: Dan Jurgens will still be there. With Jurgens present, what else do you need?

More details can be found at the Midwest Comic Book Association website.

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Just in time to welcome Dan Jurgens back to Booster Gold and remind you about his upcoming appearance at SpringCon (more on that tomorrow), I found this on withnailrules.tumblr.com:

For the record, I should state that I have never found Dan Jurgens to be an ass. He has always been friendly and even generous in his communications with Boosterrific.com. I am also aware that no one is on his best behavior all the time, and that applies to both creators and their fans.

This reminds me of a friend who was self-publishing his comic and tried to get John Byrne to comment on it. It had been a long day at a convention, and a tired Byrne had simply replied to my friend's request for a review with a snappish, "I don't read comics." Rather than be offended, my friend had that quote printed as a pull quote on the back of his comics. It's a prized jewel in my personal comic book collection.

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