Last week's "favorite page" subject was Action Comics #594, which ended on a cliffhanger. But today's featured comic isn't the continuation of that story. No, we'll get to Booster Gold #23 later.

Released a week before BG #23 was was the unrelated, standalone Justice League International #8, perhaps best known as the first appearance of what would become the JLI's signature catchphrase: "bwah-ha-ha!"

Even more significantly, it's also the dawn of what will become the DC Universe's greatest comedy double act. Do you know who I'm talking about?

Although Booster Gold and Blue Beetle had both been members of the JLI for a couple of months, this issue is where the bromance really begins. As you can see, their relationship was built on a foundation of mutual respect.

Bwah-ha-ha, indeed.

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So far this series has only featured pages from books in which Booster Gold has appeared on multiple pages. But I'm about to break that rule, because Booster's actually seen on only in one page of Action Comics #594!

Hint: it's not this one:

The loose sketchiness of John Byrne's art here is well suited to the big, dramatic motion in its panels. It reads well, unencumbered by unnecessary detail.

And, of course, as a proud supporter of Team Booster, having Booster crash Superman's traditional "Look, up in the sky" introduction before destroying the Man of Steel's overblown image is an extra nice touch. Bwam!

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As Brandon has accurately pointed out in comments on other entries in this series, Booster Gold #22 is indeed a downer. Bad things happen to Our Hero, and worse things happen to his family. But that drama actually makes for a pretty good comic book.

One of those bad things is a large gray monster more powerful than the assembled might of the entire Justice League International.

In hindsight, especially under the direction of Dan Jurgens, this feels more than a little like a Doomsday scenario, don't you think?

Page 10 above is certainly a lot of fun, but it's hardly the only great page. Page 13 is also a blast — or perhaps I should say a "ba thooomm"? — and pages 18, 19, and 22, though less fun, are masterfully delivered full-page compositions. If you chose any of those as your favorite page of the issue, I certainly wouldn't argue.

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At last we come to Justice League International #7, which happens to be the *first* issue of Justice League International because back in the day publishers didn't restart series every other week; they just retitled existing series and kept the previous numbering. Was it confusing? Sure. But that's comic books for you.

Taking the Justice League international was a pretty big deal at the time (heck, if you ask me, it's still a big deal), but Booster Gold didn't have much of a role in the events. Aside from (kind of) saving Batman's life in space on international television, Booster spends most of the issue as just another pretty face in a crowd.

Which explains why he's not on my favorite page of the issue. Superman is.

The Man of Steel enters the United Nations Security Council politely. By walking in the door. So many writers/artists would get that detail wrong.

Speaking of artists, Kevin Maguire's art for the oversized issue has always looked a little rushed, but it's especially sketchy in higher-definition reprints. I recommend reading this on the original blurry newsprint if you have the option. Newer isn't always better.

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A little something different today for Booster Gold #21. Rather than show you the page that's my favorite — probably page 6, but I like Ty Templeton inking Dan Jurgens so much, it could be just about any of them — I'm going to showcase the page I think is the most interesting. Page 21:

As I said, I love the art, the beautifully naturalistic posing, musculature, textures, and expressions. But what makes this page so interesting to me is the layout.

Since Booster Gold is the first to speak in panel one, he's on the left. As a rule in English-language comics, speech balloons should be read in order from left to right (following the visual scanning tendency imparted by our left-to-right language construction). Therefore, it generally follows that in American comics, the first speaker should appear on the left side of the panel. In this case, that's Booster, who Jurgens the artist cleverly puts in the long cast shadow of the evil alien mastermind. So far, so great.

The alternating tight close-ups in panels two and three follow in the familiar tradition of the cinematic Western showdown between gunslingers, with Booster playing the white hat cowboy against the gloating villain. The allusion to a gunfight is especially apt given Booster's charged wrist blaster and accompanying death threat. That's a bluff, of course, but the alien hopefully doesn't know that.

And then there's panel four. By the same rules as panel one, the first speaker, Booster, should be on the left. But there's extra reason to put Booster on the left here because Booster was established on the left in panel one. Sequential art and cinema follow many of the same rules, one of those being the convention that speakers shouldn't abruptly swap positions during a scene. Cinema calls this the 180-degree rule. While this rule can and sometimes should be broken, doing so always calls attention to the violation, which is unwarranted here. So it might seem that panel four is following all the rules. But it's also wrong.

From the position of the reader, when the alien Rangor tells Booster Gold to "look," he points behind Booster to the left. In sequential art, where each panel represents a specific moment in a sequence, Rangor is essentially pointing the reader backwards in time. The figures in the panel should be posed such that Rangor points to the right, visually guiding the reader's eye to the issue's big reveal on the story's last page.

In the original publication, this is especially egregious as page 21 was printed on the left side of a two page spread!

When the issue was reprinted in Booster Gold: Future Lost, DC had the good sense to revise this so that page 21 was printed on the righthand side. The reader has to turn the page to uncover the surprise ending. It's a big improvement.

While we're here, I'd be amiss not to call attention to the contribution to these panels by colorist Gene D'Angelo. The first panel is a primarily an unsettling orange. Then each panel becomes progressively cooler in color temperature — pink, light blue, dark blue — as Booster's hot-blooded threat is chilled by the villain's machinations. It's a very nice touch (that looks even better with Jurgens' pyramidal layout).

Did I say this wasn't my favorite page? I might have to rethink that.

Booster Gold comics: even when they're bad, they're good!

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