Yesterday, DC announced on The Source that Flashpoint #5 and Justice League, Volume 2, #1 will be released at 12:01 AM on August 31. DC encourages you to "check your local comic book store for any special events that may be occurring." So the post-Flashpoint era begins with a yawn.

Locally, the last Wednesday of August has been a school night for decades, and I'm sure we're not the only area. That means the teenage and younger target audience that DC says it wants will be largely excluded from events that start after midnight in many, many locations. Sounds like DC is after a different audience for this launch.

If DC calculates the kids will just be downloading the books anyway, maybe the company hopes that this stunt will appease the rest of us who like going to comic shops. Most of the comic book readers I know have full-time jobs and the schedule to match. Some will be unable to attend, and others that do will be sacrificing sleep to do so, all for a few books most of them will be having their local comic shops pull for them anyway.

Keep in mind that this is no "Death of Superman" event: it's just an early on-sale date for a book that most Americans are going to completely ignore. But DC doesn't have to pay the employees who are going to hang around for those long hours, so what do they care? No, this burden is on the comic shop owners, very few of which would typically be open after midnight on an early Wednesday morning.

All of these facts seem to indicate that this artificial event is designed to fail. I had assumed that DC wanted comic retailers to be able to compete with Comixology.com, but I wouldn't have expected this to be the way they planned to do it.

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DC released art from Justice League International Volume 3 at Comic-Con this past weekend. This includes new pics of Booster Gold in his new costume by Aaron Lopresti and Matt Ryan. (The un-cropped version here also shows Batman's new bat-shaped knee pads. Boy, can that guy accessorize.) Drink it in, people. This is the future:

As has been much discussed in the Boosterrific Forum, note that Booster is not wearing a ring. Is this an intentional omission? An accident? A conspiracy? What do you think?

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Geeks of Doom tells us that DC finally announced the poorly-kept secret that Flashpoint #5 would be the official launch point for the DCnU. Time gets changed, and the new DC Universe spins out of it. Spoiler alert: Booster Gold fails at his job of protecting DC's existing continuity.

Major Spoilers reports that Booster Gold will be the official leader of the Justice League International, and that Batman will be an unofficial, secret team member. This would appear to make Batman the greatest hero that the United Nations has never heard of.

Bleeding Cool adds that Flashpoint Global Guardians' character Lady Godiva will be among the members of the Justice League International. However, blond Lady Godiva does not look like the woman on the cover of Justice League International #1. How many heroes will be on this team?

iFanboy tells us that the question of whether Booster Gold will know that he failed to save the time stream will be addressed in Booster Gold #47. If new Flashpoint characters are on his JLI team, I suspect he'll have a clue.

And according to Comic Book Resources, 'Jurgens said he enjoyed "doing Doomsday in a different way, and ending Doomsday in a different way."' I guess that means that this time Superman doesn't die.

EDIT 07/26/2011: After posting this, I realized that Lady Godiva is probably the same Godiva that was once a member of the Global Guardians. Oops. Sorry to doubt you, Booster. Maybe you do get the job done.

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DC has now released covers for October solicitations, among them Justice League International #2. This gives us a newer look at at Booster Gold's new costume. Triangular golden breastplate? Arrow gauntlets? Pants-less unitard? Why do I feel like I've seen this somewhere before?

Ah, Triumph. Unloved bastard child of 1990s angst and design awkwardly coupled with DC's Silver Age mythology. Triumph was an energy-wielding, time-displaced hero-turned-crybaby who left the Justice League after too many bad decisions. That doesn't sound familiar.

Surely it's just a coincidence that Jim Lee's new unitard design for Booster Gold is strongly evocative of Triumph's costume. Isn't it?

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At my local comic shop yesterday, I saw that DC had teamed with DK Publishing to release a new encyclopedia, DC Comics: The Ultimate Character Guide. Like previous printings of DK's DC Comics Encyclopedia, this book contains an entry for Booster Gold.

As you can see, the character designs on the cover (as well as the interior pages you can't see) are the up-to-date pre-reboot designs, including Wonder Woman's pants-suit. You have to feel a little sorry for DK: preparing a book like this takes a lot of lead time, and DC announced their sweeping design changes just weeks before publication. If DC is serious about keeping the new costumes, this $16.99 tome is already archaic.

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