Do you know what "the best selling graphic novel of all time" is? According to the cover of the 2011 fourteenth printing, it's The Death of Superman, specifically the collection reprinting the complete 1992 "The Death of Superman" storyline.

I don't know if that was true in 2011. I have my doubts. I'm pretty sure it's not true in 2026, especially if you don't restrict eligibility to just North American graphic novels, much less if you don't qualify what your definition of "graphic novel" is. If you're just talking reprint collections, there's some pretty good evidence that the worldwide title goes to one of the volumes of One Piece. But I digress.

Whether best seller ever or just a really great seller, that still means a whole bunch of people have seen Booster Gold on the cover of that book. At least, they've seen him if they turned the book over. Booster is on the back.

And now, for the first time at Boosterrific.com, you can see him too.

Why didn't I have the back cover of a reprint collection released in 1993 on this website already? Answer: because I just bought it. So whatever the previous sales numbers were, I guess you can add one more.

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When I went looking at the lists of new comics coming out this week, I was surprised to see so few books from DC. I didn't realize it was the 5th week of the month. DC has lately been releasing anthology books during "skip" weeks, but this year's Halloween special with a punny name, DC's Zatannic Panic, was released at the start of the month instead. I guess they were being helpful by ensuring we wouldn't get chocolate fingerprints all over our near mint comics. How thoughtful of them.

That's not to say that no Booster Gold comics were released this week. Yesterday saw the release of (count 'em!) three trades reprinting previous Booster Gold stories. In alphabetical order, they are

1. Batman: The Brave and the Bold Across the Universe
Collects the complete 2024 "Time Jerks" Booster Gold/Jurassic League story by Mark Russell told across three issues beginning in Batman: The Brave and the Bold #13.

2. Jonah Hex All-Star Western Omnibus
Reprints the entire third volume of All-Star Western, which is one of the few books unimpacted directly by the New 52 reboot in 2011. Of interest to Booster Gold fans are the issues spanning All-Star Western #19 through #21, which reintroduced Booster Gold to the DCnU eight months after he appeared to be erased from continuity in Justice League International Annual #1. (If you recall, issue #19 was part of DC's "WTF" month event and the Internet was rife with supposition that Booster Gold was the character hidden on its surprise fold-out cover. I have no idea if that cover is reprinted as a fold out in this omnibus, and I'm not paying $125 to find out.)

3. Justice League by Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV Omnibus Volume 2
Among other things, this reprints the complete 2020 Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen mini-series, which sees a mute Booster Gold temporarily turned into an evil zombie. Just in time for Halloween.

Trick or treat? You decide, Booster boosters.

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This week, DC is releasing the paperback version of the hardback version of the Multiversity: Harley Screws Up the DCU mini-series, in which Booster Gold makes a cameo appearance for a couple of pages at the end.

And that fulfils my contractual obligation to find something new(ish) to post about Booster Gold this week.

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Last week, the Guy Behind the Counter at my Local Comic Shop was complaining that DC was cancelling one Green Lantern title to make room for another. There should be room for more than two Green Lantern comics at a time, he lamented. As a Booster Gold fan, I'd very much settle for one.

The automated text at the top of this page informs us that it's been over two months since Booster Gold was last seen exiting the DC Universe in All In. There's no sign that the streak will be ending this week, although I suppose there's a non-zero chance that Booster might cameo in one of the Christmas specials, either DC's Batman Smells, Robin Laid an Egg one-shot or Batman / Santa Claus: Silent Knight Returns miniseries. It's Christmas, Batman; let some other heroes share the spotlight for a change!

For what it's worth, next week, Booster will be appearing in bit parts in new reprints DC Finest: Zero Hour, Part 1 and The Death and Return of Superman 30th Anniversary Collection. And week after next, we get reprints of Multiversity Harley Screws Up the DCU. Certainly, old Booster Gold cameo appearances are better than none.

Maybe DC is setting Booster up for his own Absolute title. That storyline in All In has to pay off sometime, right? (Is Booster Gold the Pariah of the Absolute Universe? What a crisis!)

Could be worse, I guess. In addition to not appearing in enough comic books, Booster Gold could also have been the subject of a big-budget film loathed by critics and audiences alike. Sometimes it's worse to get what you want than nothing at all.

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Arriving this week in a Local Comic Shop near you is the third (and final?) volume of the Justice League International Omnibus.

According to the solicitation, this issue (with a brand new wraparound cover by Kevin Maguire) reprints "stories from Justice League America #51-60, Secret Origins #33-35, Justice League America Annual #5, Green Lantern #18, Justice League Quarterly #2-5, JLA 80-Page Giant #1, Formerly Known as the Justice League #1-6, JLA: Classified #4-9, Justice League Europe #26-36, DC Retroactive: JLA - The '90s #1, Justice League Europe Annual #2, and Justice League International Special #2."

It's funny: when you're reading them as you go along, they didn't seem like so many comics, but in hindsight, that's a heck of a long list.

That's at least part of 46 different comics, which pretty much A) justifies the $150 price tag, and B) puts a cap on the Giffen/DeMatteis era (with the exception of Justice League 3000-3001, which is collected elsewhere).

And the best part is that it excludes the JLI's appearances under the pens of other writers, so if we want to, we can all just pretend that Identity Crisis and Countdown to Infinite Crisis never happened. I can live with that.

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