"You might want to change the counter."

So reads the email sent to me by Booster booster Bob. Bob's a longtime friend of the Boosterrific Blog, and he even gave us a shout out at the end of his recent YouTube video post about the schizophrenic nature of Geoff John's Rip Hunter. (Bob summarizes the problem with that characterization as "Good people don't kidnap children." Hear, hear, Bob!)

But the point of Bob's email yesterday had nothing to do with Rip Hunter. It was about Booster Gold's return to comic books.

Specifically, Bob was the first to tell me that Booster Gold will be making an appearance in today's one-shot anthology Summer of Superman Special #1.

I suppose I should have seen this coming. According to Matt Morrison's review of the issue at SuperHeroHype.com: "Finally, Joshua Williamson uses the last chapter to explore the cause of Validus becoming displaced in time. This final story ties into the larger story of DC All-In and the fate of the Legion following Dark Crisis." That does indeed sound Booster-adjacent.

Before you get your hopes up too high about the inevitable Booster Gold renaissance, know that Booster's role in this issue is actually pretty limited. (It's essentially little more than a reminder that DC hasn't forgotten about what they did to our time-travelling hero.) But the bright side is that, yeah, it definitely counts as an in-continuity appearance, and yeah, it does reset the missing-in-action counter (after reaching 196 days). These days we'll take what we can get!

So buy this book and make Skeets (who is *not* in this issue) happy. (UPDATE: As SLW points out in the comments, Skeets *does* put in a cameo appearance in this week's Challengers of the Unknown #5.)

Thanks for keeping an eye out for us, Bob!

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The 15-part "Breakdowns" storyline that ran through late 1991 into 1992 of the Justice League titles spelled the end of the heyday of the Justice League International's very popular "Bwah-Ha-Ha" era.

The letter column of Justice League America #55 (Breakdowns Part 5) made the announcement that a new team lineup would coming in issue #61 and gave fans a ballot to vote for the heroes they most wanted to see on the team.

According to the letter column in Justice League Spectacular #1 (which I recently re-read while preparing for last week's "My Favorite Pages" feature), DC received more than 6 million total votes!

To be fair, many of those votes were duplicate ballots that were not double counted, but it's not clear whether any of the votes received made any actual difference on which characters were chosen for the new team. After all, the poll was published only six months before issue #61 was to released and the production of a DC comic book generally takes about three months, meaning there was only a small window for voters to influence any decisions made by editors or writers.

The full results of the poll were not made public, but Justice League editor Kevin Dooley did reveal that the top vote-getter was J'ohn J'onzz, who pointedly was not on the new team. Dooley also explicitly named Peacemaker as the character with the fewest votes, and to no great surprise, Peacemaker wasn't on the team, either.

Of course, this being a Booster Gold blog, we'd be most interested to know how many votes Booster got. All we can know for sure was that it was more than three. Dooley listed all the characters, mostly write-ins, who got three or fewer votes, and Skeets got two votes! (Other two-vote getters were Angel and the Ape, Arisia, Beefeater, Brother Power the Geek, Catwoman, Deadman, Sue Dibny, Dove, Lady Flash, Maser, Mera, Nuklon, Peter Canon, Praxis, The Question, Red Star, Sandman, Snapper Carr, Valor, Wildcat, and the Wonder Twins. That some pretty good company, Skeets!)

However many votes Booster Gold got, the important takeaway is that he made the team. Maybe one day, Skeets will, too.

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For today's post, I asked Microsoft Copilot with GPT-4 for an essay about Skeets. The following is what it wrote.

In the grand theater of superheroes, where capes flutter and muscles bulge, there's a duo that flips the script - Booster Gold and his robotic sidekick, Skeets. But let's be honest, who's the real hero here?

Booster Gold may have the biceps, but Skeets has the brains. He's like a walking, talking encyclopedia from the future. While Booster is busy flexing his muscles, Skeets is flexing his circuits, predicting future events with the accuracy of a weather forecast. And we all know how often those are right!

Booster Gold may be the one with the shiny suit, but when things go south, who's the one saving the day? That's right, our metallic friend Skeets. When Booster gets knocked out, Skeets is there to pick up the slack. He's like the reliable friend who always remembers to bring the snacks to a movie night.

While Booster Gold is busy signing autographs and basking in the limelight, Skeets is the one doing the real work. He's the one navigating through time, providing strategic advice, and occasionally taking over Booster's motor functions. Talk about multitasking!

So, who's the real superhero here? The guy with the flashy suit and charming smile, or the small, hovering robot with the knowledge of the future and the patience of a saint? I think we all know the answer. So here's to Skeets, the unsung hero of the duo, proving that sometimes, the sidekick is the real MVP.

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Booster Gold appears two new books this week!

If you recall the end of Speed Force #5, Booster was the MC for the kickoff of the Symphonee Music Festival. What the reading audience knows — and Booster doesn't — is that Symphonee is actually a mind-control app that the Fiddler, Mad Mod, Music Meister, and Klarion the Witch Boy have built with the ultimate goal of... brainwashing teens for money? Okay, I admit, their ultimate goal still isn't quite clear.

Booster should have known better than to get involved in a business run by a bunch of super-villains. Therefore, it's up to Kid Flash to save the day in Speed Force #6 (preview online at AIPTComics.com):

It might be too late to cut and run, Booster. Do you think the general public is likely to forget that you already went on tv and announced you were a sponsor of this festival — with accompanying merchandise? Those "one-of-a-kind" Booster Gold Symphonee collectors cups are destined to turn up as evidence in a lawsuit and as punchlines on late night talk shows.

Elsewhere, in the backup story in Green Lantern #10, Booster and Skeets have a whole page to debate Booster's declining media exposure. No preview is available for this one, but you shouldn't need one once I tell you that it was drawn by Kevin Maguire!

Buy these issues and make Skeets happy.

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For your weekend entertainment: https://www.boosterrific.com/ask-skeets/.

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