If you change Booster Gold to make him popular, isn't the newly popular character no longer Booster Gold? At least, that's what decades of tween-friendly Disney movies have been preaching to me.

Last week's poll question: Would you rather that Booster Gold remain an obscure character with his current personality and powers intact, or that Booster Gold gain more mass appeal even if it meant changing the character? (41 votes)

As webmaster here at Boosterrific.com, I'm of the opinion that there are three main camps of Booster Gold fans. The first group is most loyal to the work of character creator Dan Jurgens. Jurgens' work tends towards the serious, if somewhat routine and unspectacular aspects of heroics. His characters and adventures are believable and grounded, using naturalism to create the belief that his heroes could be living in a real world.

The second group came to the character as fans of the original Justice League International, and therefore are attached to the outlandish situational humor of Keith Giffen. Alongside his partner J.M. DeMatteis -- who provided the dialogue to Giffen's adventures -- Giffen built Booster Gold from a competent solo hero to a team leader. Not surprisingly, fans in this group tend to be vocally supportive of Booster's partner in crime, Ted Kord.

And the third major group of Booster fans were brought in as disciples of Geoff Johns. Johns' dialogue is witty and his tendency towards melodrama is perfectly suited for writing adventure stories full of heroics and sacrifice. Johns' stories and characters are larger than life, and his heroes are legendary myths.

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So far as I am aware, there are two internet journalists regularly writing Booster Gold-centric articles. One is Russ Burlingame, who most of you probably know from his "Gold Exchange" columns over at Comic Related. The other is Vaneta Rogers of Newsarama, who last week posted a new interview with some other familiar Booster Gold-related names, Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, on their upcoming DC Retroactive: Justice League of America - The '90s #1.

Nrama: What Justice League characters are the focus?

DeMatteis: It's the classic team. Fire and Ice. Beetle and Booster. Max and Oberon. J'onn and Guy. If you're looking for any kind of character growth from these guys, look elsewhere. It's the usual idiocy and mayhem.

Giffen: If people are huge fans, it's the JLI they know and love. You'll recognize it right away.

Before DC heads into the digital future, they are celebrating their moronic past. Sometimes it's best not to ask too many questions. You can read the whole interview at Newsarama.com.

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A few days ago, Booster booster Harry reported in the Boosterrific Forum that final sales estimates were in for the entire Booster Gold run of Giffen and DeMatteis. All things being equal, the news isn't that bad.

The sales fall seems to hit rock bottom with issue 41 and bounce back a little following the introduction of the Perforated Man. It's probably anyone's guess whether this is because the title finally found its sales floor, fans were excited about the storyline, or speculators were gathering for the pending Jurgens return/Flashpoint tie-in. If this is any indication, Booster Gold may still have a bit of life left. (Hopefully, this isn't simply a dead cat bounce.)

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Since we opened the week with a bit of a look back to something many Booster fans may have never seen, let's continue that theme with a peek at something else that has been around awhile but may be new to you. (Slight warning, the following may contain spoiler information if you have not yet read 52. But if you haven't yet read 52, shame on you.)

Years ago, DC posted Keith Giffen's layouts for 52 at 52thecomic.com (now archived at www.dccomics.com/sites/52/). Among those layouts are two original rough drafts for the ending of 52 Week 15, including one ending where Booster Gold is disintegrated and another ending where he was cut in half. Fortunately, neither of those things ended up happening to our dear Booster. He just died instead.

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Keith Giffen has been voted as the 101st Greatest Comic Book Artist of All-Time by readers of the Comics Should Be Good blog at Comic Book Resources. I just thought you should know.

Granted, these are the same readers who declared that Robin V, Damien Wayne, would beat Booster Gold in a street fight. The top 90 artists have yet to be revealed, but you can compare your favorites with the master list of the top 125 artists here, if you dare.

UPDATE: I've started a thread in the Boosterrific.com forum here to have my say on the matter.

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