As Booster booster Rob Snow alerted me, after months of Booster Gold references, we actually get to see our hero on panel in this weeks' Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville #5!

Is it just me, or is it starting to feel like none of the New 52 continuity applies anymore? I feel like I opened a comic book to find Bobby Ewing taking a shower. (If you don't get that reference, kids, you're on the wrong website. Your homework is to go watch something from back when television was good, specifically the 1985 Dallas season 9 episode, "Blast from the Past.")

The events of this series have some really weird, life-threatening things happening, things that it would seem would not go unnoticed by a particular Man of Steel. Things like several gristly murders and much destruction of property. Makes me wonder why the story's setting is Smallville and not a suburb of Gotham, where these sorts of things wouldn't attract so much attention amidst the psycho clowns and sewer-dwelling crocodile-men.

The solicitation text for next month's mini-series final issue teases "the fate of Smallville itself hangs in the balance!" After reading issue 5, I can believe it.

Buy this issue and make Skeets happy.

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I've mentioned Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville a few times here on the Boosterrific Blog, but apparently that's not enough. Fortunately for all other Booster boosters, Jake has taken me to task.

I have begrudgingly been keeping up with the Fire and Ice series DC is putting out, and while the comic itself isn't really all that for me, it's just nice to see the girls again, given that they are two near & dear favorites (a sentiment I'm sure many Booster boosters resonate with). So it has been particularly nice to come across mentions of Booster two issues in a row. Issue #3 (which overall did not meet the Gold Standard, but you can't ask for much these days) repeatedly brought up Kooey Kooey Kooey, and then directly mentioned those "dummies" by name, Booster and Beetle, as well as their "harebrained schemes".

Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville #3, by Joanne Starer, Natacha Bustos, Tamra Bonvillain, Ariana Maher, Andrea Shea

Issue #4 features a Booster Gold drag queen. Take that as you will.

Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville #3, by Joanne Starer, Natacha Bustos, Tamra Bonvillain, Ariana Maher, Andrea Shea

Thanks, Jake. I am also reading this series, and I also recognize that I'm not the target audience, although I'm not entirely sure who is. I didn't realize there was a market for LGBTQ+ friendly romance comics with extra cannibalism.

Target audience or not, I can't be too mad at a series that firmly restores Tora's Norse ice goddess roots (and features a bunch of the DCU's wacky lesser-seen characters). In other words, I'll take what I can get of my favorite womance.

It's only a six-issue mini-series, so I'm sure I'll keep reading... at least until we learn the Booster Gold drag queen's stage name. Goldie Nuff? Queen G? Trixie Collins? The suspense is killing me.

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This week is Thanksgiving, the American holiday when we count our blessings. Unfortunately, Booster boosters are going to have to look somewhere other than their Local Comic Shops for their bounty this season, as DC has released their February 2024 solicitations with nary a Booster Gold in sight.

But one cover does get oh-so close.

As you can see, the Terry Dodson cover for Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville #6 homages the Adam Hughes cover to Justice League America #34 with Fire and Ice lounging for some rest and relaxation in the way that Blue Beetle and Booster Gold did on the original.

But since Fire was in the role of reluctant serving wench on the original cover, it seem the tables should have been fully turned, and Booster (or Beetle) should have had to serve the ladies this time around. Instead, poor alien robot L-Ron gets the chore as Club JLI Smallville burns behind them.

Is no Booster better than an amusingly subservient butler Booster? I'll let you be the judge.

In the meantime, you can see pictures of all the covers for DC's February 2024 solicitations at ComicsBeat.com.

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A few weeks ago, while discussing my favorite page of Justice League International #14, I said that Steve Leialoha's loose style was a bad match for Keith Giffen's layouts. I've been looking at a lot of Giffen's layout art since his recent passing, and I've changed my mind. I now think the problem with Leialoha's art in JLI #14 and #15 is that Leialoha's finishes are probably too loyal to Giffen's layout style.

In any event, the art in Justice League International #15, while still not up to the standard set by regular series artist Kevin Maguire, is at least more consistent from panel to panel and page to page than the previous issue managed.

Thanks to J.M. DeMatteis's dialogue, there are several pages competing to be my favorite of the issue, including Booster Gold flying into action in page 10, Booster Gold saving the day on page 15, and Batman's punchline on page 22. But since this will always be the first meeting between Blue and Gold and Fire and Ice, page 6 steals the show:

I can't say the four of them really get along any better these days, but they'll always be family.

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Some people take Labor Day off, but not me, not when I've got to tell you about Booster Gold coming to your Local Comic Shop this week!

As you can see in the issue preview at AIPTComics.com, Booster gets a cameo appearance on the very first page of Blue Beetle #1!

I'm pretty sure that's a "Bwah-Ha-Ha" being cut off by the narrative box in that panel.

And if one panel isn't enough homage to Kevin Maguire's famous Justice League #1 cover, remember that there's also a 1:25 Justice League #1-inspired variant cover to this week's Fire and Ice: Welcome to Smallville drawn by... Kevin Maguire:

(For the record, neither Booster Gold nor Fire nor Ice appear on the original cover to Justice League #1, which wouldn't be re-titled Justice League International until issue #7. Booster joined the team in issue #4, and Fire and Ice joined in Justice League International #14. All three are on the updated roster cover of Justice League International #24, which was the very first book to homage the cover to issue #1. It is no coincidence that Issues #1 and #24 also bookend artist Maguire's run on the series.)

Buy one or both of those issues and make Skeets happy!

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