It has become an annual tradition for the President of the United States to "pardon" a turkey for Thanksgiving. Technically, a pardon is a legal forgiveness for having committing a crime, so the word really shouldn't apply to turkeys. We should say that they were granted clemency because they didn't do anything illegal prior to the imposition of their death sentence.

But what if they did?

Although Abraham Lincoln often gets the credit, the truth is that in November 1963, John Kennedy was the first president to pardon an unnamed turkey. "The turkey will probably live a long and happy life as a result of his presidential pardon," reported the Associated Press. Only, as we now know, it didn't.

As it turns out, The Turkey With No Name would soon be given a name: Patient Zero. After the turkey returned to its home in California, it was discovered the turkey was a carrier of the virus then known as "fowl plague." Today we recognize it as influenza A, more commonly called bird flu.

Bird flu is highly contagious and has been responsible for crossing species and killing millions of human beings around the world. In 1963, there was no treatment for the disease, and the only way to prevent the spread was to take swift and decisive action and cull entire flocks of birds... and anyone else who had contact with the infected fowl, including the popular President of the United States. (To prevent public panic over a potential pandemic, such extreme actions were undertaken surreptitiously with suspicion cast on convenient scapegoats.)

Any well-intentioned time travelers aware of this terrible and sordid chain of events might be tempted to take it upon themselves to "improve" history by going back in time and killing the turkey before it could trigger such a tragic spiral. However, as we all know, changing history can have dire unintended consequences. Ensuring that history plays out the way it must is the lonely but necessary job of a Time Cop, preferably one with a force field impenetrable to disease.

Thanks for performing your thankless job, Booster Gold!

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As an American, I'm not too invested in the individual sitting at the head of state for any country, including my own. But I do respect Queen Elizabeth II's long reign. It will certainly be a different world without her.

I went looking, and the only instance I can find of Booster Gold with the former Queen of England was this image I created with the intention of using it on the 35th anniversary of the wedding of Charles and Diana in 2015. Then, for some reason, I didn't actually post it until the wedding of Harry and Meghan in 2018. And here we are, just 4 years later.

Time flies whether you're having fun or not, I guess. Memento mori. Make it count, Booster boosters!

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In comic books, heroes arrive in the nick of time to restore the status quo. That's generally what you want when a crime is being committed. But what if the problem is the status quo itself?

That's why the first Earth Day was organized on April 22, 1970 (as any environmentally conscious time-traveler could tell you).

Most of us have only one Earth, and all things being equal, it has treated us pretty well so far. The least we can do is try to keep it the kind of planet our heroes would be proud to call home.

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On January 9, 1969, during a ceremony in which he received the Miami Touchdown Club's F.A.M.E. (Football Awards Miami Edition) Award for the Most Outstanding Professional Football Player of 1968, quarterback Joe Namath of the New York Jets was confronted by an aggressive Baltimore Colts fan. In response to the taunting, Namath guaranteed a Jets victory in the upcoming Super Bowl III.

It became the guarantee heard around the world.

Smart money at the time was that the Colts, representing the established National Football League (whose teams had won the previous two Super Bowls decisively), would handily beat the Jets of the upstart American Football League. No less than famous oddsmaker Jimmy the Greek had predicted the Colts would win by more than two touchdowns.

Therefore, Namath's guarantee, widely reported by the Miami Herald, was generally ignored or ridiculed.

As you may have heard, when the game was played on January 12, the Jets not only covered the 17-point spread, they won outright, proving that the AFL was legitimate football and paving the way for the Super Bowl to become America's biggest sports spectacle. As Namath left the field that day, "The Guarantee" became legend...

...the sort of legend that time-traveling, 20th-century hero-worshiping, former-football-players (with problematic gambling histories) probably find irresistible.

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I've got a few things I want to say about Generations Forged, but I'm waiting until it's been out for at least a week so that I don't accidentally spoil anything for anyone. To a lesser extent, the same goes for Future State: Suicide Squad #2 too.

While we pass the time, let's all reminisce about that time Booster Gold travelled back to the Old West to match his fingergun draw speed against DC's Western hero, Nighthawk (and his partner, Cinnamon), an event immortalized in this old-timey long exposure photograph:

It looks improvised, but Booster had to hold that pose for 20 seconds!

Okay, so that's not a hundred-year-old sepia-toned photo but a commission from the incomparable Doc Shaner for Booster art collector The Happy Sorceress, recently shared via Twitter.com.

Photo or drawing, I'm sure you agree that whatever it is, it's Boosterrific!

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