This weekend, I was reading about the CW's latest Black Lightning Boys and Girls Club public service announcement on ComicBook.com. Naturally, as webmaster of the Internet's premier Booster Gold fan site, I thought to myself, "Booster Gold could do that."

And he has.

It might seem weird to see Booster addressing AIDS awareness so bluntly in this 1993 PSA, but both entered the public awareness in the 80s and both have been largely misunderstood over time.

Booster wasn't the only hero spreading the word — the series of AIDS awareness ads featured appearances from heroes across the DC Universe, including both Hal Jordan and John Stewart reading from the same script — but only Booster Gold and his Justice League teammates Blue Beetle and Fire were so serious about the issue that they returned to it one year later A.D. ("After Doomsday").

Booster was man enough to learn his lesson so that you would, too. Knowing is half the battle.

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My high school reunion is tomorrow. I'm not going, and it's all Booster Gold's fault.

That's Booster Gold at Ted Kord's 15th high school reunion, as detailed in Justice League Quarterly #7. Unlike Booster Gold, I don't know any foreign supermodel/superheroes who would go as my dates. I also doubt that my reunion would be crashed by alien warlords. The only aspect that my reunion would share with this one is that there will definitely be dentists, car salesmen, and drunks in attendance.

Therefore, I'm going to stay at home and read comic books, just as I did on weekends in high school. That's gotten me where I am today, and I'm not complaining.

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Josie Campbell of Comic Book Resources interviewed Dan Jurgens last week about his plans for the future of the Justice League International. Perhaps more interesting than the future is the still-muddled past of familiar DC characters in the unfamiliar DCnU.

CBR: In terms of what's next for the team, you already dealt with one big, planet-destroying menace in Peraxxus in the very first arc. As a writer, where do you go from there? How do you top a guy who nearly destroys the Earth?

DAN JURGENS: I think since the first arc was very much, for lack of a better term, plot-oriented or adventure oriented, I think what we want to do now is something that is more character oriented. Sort of like your question about Guy and Batman -- why are they there? Obviously we saw how everybody was brought together and were really thrown into the deep end right away without having any real knowledge of how they function together. Booster kind of knew Fire, he kind of knew Guy; the idea is that they had met previously but certainly had not worked as a team previously. If you've never done that, why are you going to continue to hang out with these strangers? So the more character-driven aspect of it where they ask themselves these questions becomes much more part of where we're going from here, and we see some of those things dealt with in issue #6, which comes out [next] month, and then really kicks off with #7.

"Booster kind of knew Fire"? Prior to Flashpoint, Booster Gold and Fire had shared panels in over 140 different comic stories over the past 24 years. According to Jurgens' response, most of those co-starring appearances are no longer part of DC's history. Should readers be sad to see the relationship erased or excited to see it starting over?

You can find the full interview here. (Thanks to Morgenstern for pointing out this interview.)

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When I was running the rare art pieces last week, I excluded the following piece because it was not strictly commissioned by DC comics. That doesn't mean it isn't worth mentioning.

The above image of Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Guy Gardner, and Fire at the beach by Neil Vokes and Rich Rankin was published in the fanzine Amazing Heroes Swimsuit Special #1 (June 1990). This image may seem a little odd now, but remember that swimsuit specials were all the rage in the 90s. The highlight of the image is probably Beetle's swim trunks, though your mileage may vary.

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