AIPTcomics.com has all of DC's solicitations for September, and oh, boy, they look great.

I've had my eye out for Blue Beetle #1 ever since DC.com revealed back in April that Ted Kord (and the Bug!) would be on the Adrian Gutierrez cover.

I've also been anticipating Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville #1 for months, and although I don't like incentive variants, I just might be convinced to pony up for this 1:25 Kevin Maguire variant cover.

I hadn't been planning on buying any of the four monthly books written by Tom King, but Julian Totino Tedesco makes riding a kanga look like so much fun on the variant cover for Wonder Woman #1, I just might change my mind. (It wouldn't be the first time I'd've bought a comic just because of a Tedesco cover.)

Ooh! And how about the Chris Samnee variant for Shazam #3? Or the two part Mikel Janin acetate cover for Superman #6? And don't even get me started on the Old Man Red Bee (and Old Man Blackhawk!) appearing on the 1:25 Rahazzah variant for Peacemaker Tries Hard! #5.

Now, if you've read down this far, you might have noticed that I haven't mentioned Booster Gold yet. Well, that's because the solicitation doesn't either. I was trying to soften the blow with all those great covers.

Did it work?

If it helps, DC also announced that the first six issues of The Human Target will be collected (for the second time) in October. Booster will be in that. Come to think if it, it's also got some great covers.

Booster may be hard to find these days, but at least it isn't hurting my eyes to keep looking.

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Ongoing monthly publishing schedules are based on planning for a release every four weeks. So the few months a year where the calendar contrives to have five weeks in a month throws a real wrench into the works.

This fifth week is sometimes called a "skip week" because publishers often release no ongoing books during the week to maintain their regular 4-week release schedules. Rather than just skip a week of potential sales, DC has traditionally solved this "fifth week" problem with mini-events and one-shot standalone issues.

That's why this is the week you'll be seeing the DC Pride 2023 anthology and the Power Girl Special in your Local Comic Shop.

While I don't expect we'll be seeing Booster Gold in either of those issues, they both will be offering Booster Gold fandom-adjacent entertainment. The Boostle crowd will probably find something to love in DC Pride, and Justice League International aficionados will want to read the back-up story in the Power Girl Spcial featuring Fire and Ice, the female "Blue and Gold," if you will.

As DCComics.com made clear last month's press release, Power Girl's Fire and Ice story is laying the groundwork to their own mini-series, Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville, coming in September. Again, I have no rational expectation that Booster Gold (and/or Blue Beetle) will be appearing in that series, either. But it would be nice if they did.

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Rather than wait for Friday, I might as well tell you about this week's new release today in the hopes that maybe you haven't been to your Local Comic Shop yet. I'll plan on resuming my regular Monday/Wednesday/Friday posting schedule next week, assuming James Gunn can refrain from dropping big Booster Gold news on my off days again.

(That's ok, DC. Whenever you've got something important to say about Booster Gold, you go right ahead. I might be a Grumpy Gus, but I'm always listening.)

It warms my heart to be able to say that Booster Gold makes a cameo appearance in this week's DC's Harley Quinn Romances #1. Technically, the cameo is his dating profile in an app for superhero hook-ups (as viewed by former Justice League International teammates Fire and Ice), but that's close enough, right?

The issue is an anthology with eight different stories. That panel is from "Dating App Disaster," and all Booster boosters will be relieved to know that Booster isn't the titular disaster.

Ten dollars is a bit steep for a single panel Booster Gold cameo, but I'm a sucker for these short-story anthology issues. I can't necessarily recommend it to everyone, but I personally bought this issue and made Skeets happy.

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Twenty-three years ago today, Booster Gold was still appearing in DC Comics comic books. Specifically, Justice League Quarterly #12.

As you can see, Booster wasn't on his best behavior in this cameo appearance. He and Blue Beetle treated poor Ice quite rudely, laughing at her desire for a companion for her planned road trip through the American southwest. That's not cool, guys. Not cool. (Is that how you'd treat Wonder Woman?)

Ice, if you're still looking, I'm always up for a good road trip.

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Booster booster Logan wrote me last week to ask if I'd seen the latest (and final) issue of Justice League 3001. He wanted to know if I'd seen this:

That sure looks like Booster Gold's body in the rubble beside Ice. However, it doesn't make any sense for Booster to be there.

Booster and his pal, Blue Beetle, disappeared from the series after the evil Lady Styx took over the universe in issue #7. The climactic battle, which Booster didn't participate in, took place on Paradise Island, a secret location Booster couldn't have reached. So how could that be him on the ground?

My theory is that's not Booster, but the body of the evil clone of Wildfire of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Wildfire also has a star on his chest, and appears throughout the issue. (You can see him at the bottom center of the cover above.) I suspect that the issue inker or colorist saw Wildfire's body on the ground surrounded by the reincarnated JLI and mistakenly detailed it as Booster Gold.

I reached out on Twitter to issue writer J.M. DeMatteis to ask if he'd intended to show a dead Booster Gold. This was his response:

So there we have it. It may look like Booster Gold's costume, but it's not Booster Gold.

Whew.

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