Spoiler Alert!

The first year of Booster Gold's adventures built to a very cinematic page 16 in Booster Gold #12:

The presumed victim is really the villain! Booster Gold is betrayed by his most loyal friend! Close-ups! Time dilation! Silence! Death?

It sure makes you want to turn to the next page and keep reading, doesn't it?

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If it wasn't just the top half of a page, the sequence on page 21 where Booster Gold defeats Shockwave with a garden hose (and the sound effects "splooosh" and "crump") would be my favorite page in Booster Gold #11.

But my favorite full page is the inspired sequence on page 7 that looks like it could just as easily have come from the Marvel Age of Comics, complete with a Reed Richards-like mad scientist and Captain America's mighty shield!

The panel with Kirby dots actually has the sound effect "Crackle." Pure. Genius.

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Perhaps most famous for its uncharacteristically metaphorical opening splash page, I can't imagine that Booster Gold volume 1 #10 is anyone's favorite Booster Gold comic.

The issue's main story is almost entirely about positioning the pieces for the final act of Booster's first long story arc. But the slower pace does allow for building emotional development, especially as we finally see the motivation of Booster's foes, the desperation of Dirk Davis, and most importantly, the friendship (romance?) Trixie Collins feels for our hero.

Artist Dan Jurgens reinforces writer Dan Jurgens' theme of plumbing character depths with pages of panels that start with large establishing shots and tighten to small panels of specific details.

The story starts on page 2, opening in a claustrophobic alley and then ratcheting up the tension as panels shrink the scope down to a very threatening cassette tape. On page 5, we literally follow the villain down as he descends into irrational madness. Page 11 is another fantastic example as focus is narrowed from a crime scene to the relevant clue, and on page 19, panels keep cutting away to closer and closer reaction shots of Doctor Shocker's glee at Booster's decreasing power. Alfred Hitchcock would be proud!

All of those are great pages, but my favorite is the most serene in the whole book: just Booster and Trixie hanging out in a pizza place.

You can actually see these two growing closer! Call me sentimental, but I think that's Boosterrific!

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To borrow another quote from Tom King's interview with Russ Burlingame exclusive to The Gold Exchange The Boosterrific Edition book:

Booster puts up a lot of shields — he's got forcefields; it's a good metaphor — but he puts up a lot of shields around himself, and some of those shields hide a lot of depth.

I couldn't agree more with that. If there's anything that Booster Gold is known for, it's his over-the-top confidence, but that confidence is often just an act, a projection of how Booster *wants* people to see him.

Rarely is the difference between Booster's private and public persona more visible than in my favorite page from Booster Gold volume 1 #9, the scene in which Michael Jon "Booster" Carter officially becomes Booster Gold.

Golly, I miss thought balloons in comics.

That "At least it's... different!" really sums up another key aspect of Booster's personality: his determination to make the best of every situation (even when he's responsible for making the current situation so bad).

He might be a time traveler, but Booster Gold is always looking forward.

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As a general rule for this series, I'm going to try to steer away from full-page panels. But sometimes they're just too good to ignore.

Like this page from Booster Gold volume 1, number 8, depicting the very first flight of Booster Gold in costume:

This selection will come as no surprise to longtime Boosterrific.com boosters, as it was the panel selected to be basis of the imagemap for this site's original homepage in June 2007:

What a long, strange trip it's been, eh, Booster?

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