Welcome to the Digital Age of comics, where you can try before you buy! Interested in how Dan Jurgens will wrap up his year on Justice League International? Take a look at DC Comics' 5-page preview before you travel to your Local Comic Shop! Curious how well the JLI will be integrated in Batwing? Check out the preview before downloading it at Comixology.com.

Whichever method you prefer, buy these issues and make Skeets happy! (Thanks to MetalWoman for the preview links.)

UPDATE 08/03/12: MetalWoman also dropped by the Boosterrific Forum to let us know that Booster puts in a surprise cameo appearance in Stormwatch #12 this week. And he's not alone: alongside the JLI is Skeets, in his first New 52 appearance!

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Without Chris Sprouse, we might still have had Booster Gold in his black leather jacket as the leader of the Conglomerate, but he wouldn't have looked nearly as cool.

Justice League Quarterly #1 in 1990 was among Sprouse's earliest works for DC Comics, but by no means was it the last. While it may seem that Sprouse has gone underutilized since the DC reboot, his legion of fans will be pleased to know that he recently hinted on his website, SprouseNet, that he will soon be returning to a Tom Strong mini-series. That's good birthday news, indeed.

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Believe it or not, Booster Gold has appeared in 4 separate number 10 issues of ongoing series in the past 4 years. One of those series was his own, which made it through a run of 49 issues. Two of the others had already been canceled at the time the issue was published. The third is the current Blue Beetle series, which has sales numbers far worse than any of the other three series ever had, but has not yet been cancelled.

Granted, this random sampling of DC's production is hardly conclusive, but superficially it would seem that we should expect an ongoing with Booster Gold to sell right about 30,000 by the 10th month. (Booster gets the least face time in his one-page cameo in Blue Beetle, and it has the lowest sales. Coincidence or proof?)

Whatever else it may or may not say about DC's editorial policies, this chart does seem to demonstrate that cancellation is due more to editorial expectations or whims than just sales figures. Someone at DC must love Blue Beetle.

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File this in the "It Could Be Worse" category: nineteen years ago today, Booster Gold debuted his first costume change in the pages of 1993's Justice League America #80. Doomsday had destroyed his original 25th century powersuit, and Blue Beetle graciously provided a replacement. It was... not good.

Unlike his current costume, this suit was intentionally designed by the writer and artist to be a disaster. Bulky, weak, and just plain ugly, this nearly useless powersuit was a means to demonstrate Booster's determination to be a super hero against all odds, even if it meant opening himself up to public ridicule and putting himself in mortal danger. Just think: once upon a time, costume changes were story driven, not editorial whims!

Thankfully, it didn't last long. The suit was replaced by a series of improvements until the original costume was eventually restored. There are many Booster fans who hope that this bit of history repeats itself.

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Russ Burlingame and Dan Jurgens have their monthly Justice League International debriefing in the article "Dan Jurgens and Guy Gardner Prepare for the End in Justice League International #11" at ComicBook.com. I found Jurgens' answers to Burlingame's questions to be particularly un-enlightening this month, but even I will be quick to blame that on my own dissatisfaction at the issue and DC Editorial's obvious interference in the story.

Burlingame: It seems here that you're setting up the idea of Godiva and Booster as an official couple. Is that something you had hoped to pay off down the line, or just kind of beginning to wrap up your plot threads before you move onto your next project?

Jurgens: It was something I hoped to develop down the road.

Burlingame: For old times' sake, I just have to ask: Is Godiva Rip Hunter's mother?

Jurgens: Oh, c'mon. It's not like we've ever seen Rip with Elasti-hair.

I'm very frustrated by the cancellation of this series. I guess if there is an upside here, it's that Dan Jurgens still considers Booster Gold to be Rip Hunter's father, for whatever that's worth. It seems unlikely that Dan Jurgens will be investigating the Time Master when he takes over his new role as writer/penciller of The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men this October.

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