Justice League America #78 was released on this date 23 years ago. I like to remember it as the time that Jay Garrick (the original Flash) lied to Booster Gold.

Despite what you see in the panel above, when Garrick led the post-"Death of Superman" Justice League into action, Booster was left at home.

Ah, the good old days. In hindsight, Booster should have been happy to appear on panel at all. #FreeBoosterGold

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On the very first panel of the very first page of the very first Booster Gold comic, readers were introduced to Blaze Comics. "BC" would go on to produce the Booster Gold comic within the DC Universe, making Booster Gold a comic book character who appeared as a comic book character in a comic book.

Before Booster Gold, the most famous story to include a comic-within-a-comic must "Flash of Two Worlds" (The Flash #123, 1961). That story introduced the multiverse to readers of DC Comics when Barry Allen of Earth-1 read comics about the adventures of his predecessor Jay Garrick of Earth-2.

Because Booster Gold debuted after the multiverse-killing Crisis on Infinite Earths, his comic-within-a-comic must be about his own adventures. If you think about it, this sets up a meta-textural Droste effect, an infinite recursion of Booster Gold comic books including Booster Gold comic books.

(Could Grant Morrison have been inspired by this concept? His Animal Man stories in which superhero Buddy Baker learned he was a comic character wouldn't be published until several years later.)

What was Dan Jurgens thinking by starting his new comic with the story of the creation of a comic? Was Jurgens revealing the true, behind-the-scenes story of the creation of Booster Gold volume 1? To find out, I asked him.

I took that approach because I thought it was something readers might genuinely enjoy. There was something fun about the idea of a comic within a comic.

In retrospect, I kind of wish I had taken a couple of issues to actually build up to it.

Jurgens must have done something right. Blaze Comics has gone on to appear in both video games and movies in the years since its debut.

I also asked Jurgens whether Blaze editor Skip Andrews or artists Benny and Marty were intended to be representative of any particular real-world people. Benny and Marty evoke referenes to Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, creators of the bestselling Teen Titans comics. Did Wolfman and Pérez ever return the favor and put Jurgens in one of their comics?

I wouldn't go that far with Benny and Marty, though there may be a hint of truth to it. In a way, they were based more on the idea of team books and their creative teams of that era.

Skip Andrews was more of an amalgam, based on several editors I knew at the time.

As for any Dan Jurgens doppelgänger, that's a story still waiting to be told!

I'm sure I'm not the only one who looks forward to reading that story.

Thanks to Dan Jurgens for putting pencil to paper and giving us such great comics.

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Yesterday at ComicBook.com, Russ Burlingame noted a striking similarity between The Flash's mysterious villain Eddie Thawne and Booster Gold:

When [Harrison] Wells tells [Eddie] Thawne that he's "the only Thawne to be all but forgotten by history," it reminded me of the following quote about time-traveling superhero Booster Gold:

"No one is sure of the exact moment the Carter Family began the amazing Time Masters, but it's thought to have dated back to at least the early 21st Century. From that moment on, the members of the Carter Family took on the responsibility of policing and protecting all of history against those that would exploit it. There was only one 'black sheep' of the Carter Family in the last two thousand years. A young man from the 25th Century who went by the name 'Booster Gold.' He is the only documented Carter to have ever been a fraud, a failure and a fool. That's why historians like myself find it remarkable that in all recorded images, Booster Gold had a smile on his face. Perhaps he was stupid as well."

...

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that Rick Cosnett's character is secretly Booster Gold (although that would be awesome). What I am saying is that such a similar sentiment, expressed in a project with which [Executive Producer Geoff] Johns is involved and relating to a character who is thus far competent, likable and good at his job, seems like it could be a hint.

That quote comes from Booster Gold #1,000,000, which was written by Geoff Johns. Is Johns plagiarizing his own work?

You may remember that we once thought that Wells might be Booster, but we've since learned conclusively that he's Professor Zoom Reverse-Flash so I stopped watching. But if they secretly added Booster Gold to the cast as another character, I guess I'd tune back in!

I recommend that you visit ComicBook.com to read Burlingame's full argument and decide for yourself it you think that Eddie Thrawne is secretly Booster Gold.

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Wow. If Booster Gold fans are any indication, The Flash seems to be a huge hit.

Last week's poll question: Will you watch The Flash if Booster Gold is in it? (69 votes)

Now that we've discovered that our Booster Gold collections have increased in value (by a factor of ten!), what are your plans?

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The way I see it, if you're going to steal a time machine, why not do it with some style?

Last week's poll question: Which time machine would you like to see Booster Gold "borrow" next? (65 votes)

This weeks' "news" that Booster Gold is will could one day appear on The Flash — there's already some discussion that one of the show's characters is Booster in disguise! — inspires me to ask a similar question to one I asked about Smallville back in 2011.

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