Remember that time that Batman decked Guy Gardner in Justice League #5? So does artist Meredith McClaren.

I love the surprised reaction from Blue and Gold in the background. Low five!

You can see more work by McClaren (aka Iniquitous Fish) on Tumblr.com.

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If you've been trade-waiting for Booster Gold's Convergence appearances, your time has come at last.

Today sees the release of both the hardcover collection of the entire Convergence mini-series and the softcover Convergence Zero Hour Book One. The latter is a collection of several two-part Convergence mini-series, including Convergence: Justice League International #2 notable for the inclusion of Booster Gold wishing Blue Beetle a happy birthday.

If that's not enough Booster Gold for you, there's more coming. DC will be releasing Convergence TPBs all month. Both issues of Convergence: Booster Gold will be reprinted in Convergence Infinite Earths Book Two at the end of October.

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If you followed the adventures of Booster Gold in the mid-90s, you must be familiar with the work of Dan Vado. Vado was the writer who gave Booster his first suit of bulky 20th-century power armor in Justice League America #80, cut off his arm and killed him (temporarily) in Justice League America #89, then restored what remained of the fortune Dirk Davis had stolen in Extreme Justice #6.

Vado's time writing the character is often overshadowed by the, um, "extreme" art of the era. That's a shame. Vado's writing strongly emphasized the troubles and personalities of the characters in the ensemble cast. Yes, it's all a bit melodramatic, but that was always a component of the International era of the Justice League. Extreme Justice might not have a sterling legacy, but it's really pretty good if you can read it with your eyes closed.

Happy 56th Birthday, Dan Vado. And thank you.

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Marc Buxton interviewed Dan Jurgens for Den of Geek! last week and asked some pretty good questions about Jurgens' career. Of note to Booster Gold fans was how Dan feels about various eras in Booster's history.

Buxton: When you aren't writing Booster, did you follow his adventures? What do you think were some of the character's highs and lows?

Jurgens: I certainly followed Giffen's Justice League stuff with Booster, and ended up writing that book myself for a while, which gave me the chance to do Booster again.

In general, anything that keeps the character in the public eye is a positive, though I think it all got a bit too absurd at times.

Strange thing is that fans constantly clamored for a Blue and Gold/Blue Beetle Booster Gold book, yet it never happened. Nor will it, now that we've moved on to the New 52. That was an opportunity lost.

Buxton: Why was JLI canceled? Can you give us insight to what was to come?

Jurgens: I think they wanted to remold the JLA franchise a bit overall. Because JLI was a standalone book, I think they felt that the only real connection was the name. We kicked around the idea of a title change a bit, but they decided to cancel it.

I've always felt that was a bit short sighted. Had we continued, I'm quite confident that a year later we would have had higher sales than a lot of books they ended up keeping and trying to save.

Enlightening. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. If you have any interest in Dan Jurgens' 30-year career, visit denofgeek.us and give it a read.

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Believe or not, Ted Kord has been "dead" for a full decade. Ten years ago today, the Ted's former Justice League International teammates were still searching for his killer in the pages of The OMAC Project #4.

In the decade since, Wonder Woman killed Ted's assassin, Maxwell Lord, who managed to rise from the grave following Blackest Night to ruin Booster Gold's life (again!) in Justice League: Generation Lost. Because as we all know, in comics death is only temporary. Unless your name is Ted Kord.

On a side note: I wonder if Kord isn't more famous to comic readers today as "the dead Blue Beetle." Certainly, the readers that Geoff Johns brought to Booster Gold during his run — seven years ago! — likely only think of Ted in the past tense.

Sooner or later, those of us who think of Ted as Booster's best friend might need to learn to make peace with the past. A decade is a long time to mourn.

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