Booster booster Logan writes in to say

I spy with my little eye one Booster Gold in today's Dark Nights: Death Metal #3! My intuition nudged me to reserve a copy at my LCBS last week—I'm glad it looks to have paid off. :)

Trust that instinct, Logan! Booster is one of many, many characters in Dark Nights: Death Metal #3. In fact, his appearance in this story is that Greg Capullo-drawn panel Scott Snyder teased on Twitter back in June. So that's one mystery solved.

Go ahead and buy this issue to make Skeets happy, but don't expect to understand what's happening. I sure don't.

The issue references dozens of other comics published over the past two decades, challenging the recall of even hard-core continuity fans like me. There are four Batmen (Batmans?) in the first four story pages alone. Have I met them all before? (Wasn't Silver Surfer Batman one of those Legends of the Dark Knight action figures?)

Not even issue editor Marie Javins (who also happens to be one of the few to survive Monday's "bloodbath" of layoffs at Warner/DC) expects readers to be able to decipher who's doing what to whom here.

If I'm making up my own stories, Marie, I certainly don't need to be giving DC $5 for this.

According to the checklist in the back of the issue, there are — count 'em — twenty (!) *more* comics to go in this seven-issue mini-series. I guess I should praise DC's brevity for keeping it down to 24. It took 26 issues to list everyone in 1985's Who's Who, and there were only two Batmens back then. On the other hand, if this event is anything like what we've seen recently, the "end" of the story will only bleed into the next event series with twice as many issues and derivative characters again. Twenty three is a very small number compared to infinity and beyond!

Sorry, but I think I'll pass. My head-banging days are long behind me. I think I'll stick to the Wonder Comics imprint from now on.

Keep up the good work, Logan. If Booster appears in any more Death Metal issues, I'm counting on you to let me know!

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Released yesterday to a Local Comic Shop near you: DC Cybernetic Summer #1, including Booster Gold & Blue Beetle [and Skeets] in "The Boys of Summer" by Heath Corson, Scott Koblish, Hi-Fi, and Carlos M. Mangual.

CBR.com has the issue preview, but with Skeets on the cover, I'm sure you don't need it. (Which is good, because neither Booster nor Skeets is actually in the preview. Just Batman. Because Batman = DC Comics. I mean, who else would they let drive that Metal Men Jeep? Superman doesn't even own a car. Speaking of which, who formed the tires? It must be that newest Metal Man: Steel-Belted Radials.)

Buy this issue and make Skeets happy.

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The best thing about delaying news of DC's new releases until a day after they are released is that it gives me time to see the books before I tell you about them. Or it would, if my Local Comic Ship had received their DC shipment before they closed for the day on Tuesday.

Anyway, as you may have heard (*couch, cough*), yesterday saw the release of Harley Quinn #74, the final chapter in the "California or Death" story (and the next-to-last issue in the current series). There's a preview available on comic-watch.com which was released on Monday (which makes a good case for my not running "New Releases" posts on Mondays).

Booster Gold isn't in the preview, but I promise you he's in there, as this page proves.

We also got DCEASED: Dead Planet #1. This miniseries continues the adventures of last year's DCEASED: A Good Day To Die one-shot. Comic-watch.com has a preview of that, too, proving that a guy who never existed can still put in a cameo appearance. (Confused? Read DCEASED: A Good Day To Die — if you dare!)

But wait, there's more! Booster booster Modinda reminds that the collected edition of the Flash Forward mini-series is now in stores. Booster made a cameo appearance in both issue #1 and the epilogue originally published in Flash #750, but those aren't Booster's only panels in the book.

BleedingCool.com reports that the expanded "Flash Forward: Epilogue" story that had been planned for the never-released Free Comic Book Day 2020 Generation Zero Gods Among Us has been included in the trade. So if you buy it, you'll also get this:

Three Booster Gold comics in one day? 2020 is looking up!

Buy something and make Skeets happy.

UPDATE 2020-07-08: My Local Comic Shop didn't get their shipment of DC Comics on Wednesday, either. Maybe Friday, they now say, which is not encouraging. DC, if you wanted to cut your own throat after leaving Diamond, this is how.

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The readers have spoken, and you've said that you liked things the way they were.

Last week's poll question: What day of the week do you want me to tell you that DCEASED: Dead Planet #1 and Harley Quinn #74 have been released? (26 votes)

I get it. It seems that everything about 2020 has been so outside the norm, maintaining a little tradition of what came before can certainly be comforting. Therefore, I won't remind you about DCEASED: Dead Planet #1 and Harley Quinn #74 until Wednesday.

See you then.

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For years now — over a decade, in fact — the priority for Wednesday Boosterrific Blog posts has been whatever new comic was released that day that included a Booster Gold appearance. But 2020 is changing everything. Booster Gold isn't appearing in any new DC comic today because there are no new DC comics being released today.

As all comics buyers must know by now, DC Comics is no longer being distributed by Diamond Comics Distributors as of today, July 1. While Diamond mandated the release of comics on Wednesdays (for logistical purposes), DC is rolling back to Tuesdays (as it used to be before Diamond gained dominance in the 90s). I can't say that I really care about this one way or another other than the fact that I'm suddenly unsure when I should post "new release" alerts.

Some of you may recall that for the first 6 years of this blog, I posted 5 days a week. If that were still the case, I'd just move "new releases" from Wednesdays to Tuesdays. But I stopped posting 5-days-a-week because, frankly, there's just not that much new to say about a character DC has rarely chosen to spotlight positively in the New 52 era. I've been very happy posting three days a week and would like to continue that pace, if I can make a schedule work that doesn't alienate readers.

Should I maintain the Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule and post about new comics on Monday instead of Wednesday? Or should I change the three days I post to include a Tuesday (probably a Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday posting schedule) so that I can keep you informed of day and date releases? Or, should I just keep posting new releases on Wednesday, since that's when Diamond will keep releasing books and you might as well make one trip for everything?

This week's poll question: What day of the week do you want me to tell you that DCEASED: Dead Planet #1 and Harley Quinn #74 have been released? Please visit the Boosterrific Polls page to view results for this week's poll.

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