In Booster Gold Volume 2, our hero became a time travelling policeman, someone whose job was to travel through time and ensure that history unfolds correctly. Given that the DC Universe has a propensity for frequent, reality-shifting Crises, the obvious question becomes "what is correct"? What history can be changed, and what can't?

Booster Gold #5 answers that question, which is why it is in my list of the twelve best Booster Gold comics.

To teach Booster Gold (and his audience) about the limits of interfering with history, the original Time Master, Rip Hunter, sends Booster back to one of the most known and respected stories in DC Comics history: The Killing Joke. Booster soon learns there is nothing funny about it.

What follows are about a dozen pages of Booster Gold (and Skeets!) having his shiny butt handed to him by the Joker and his goons. Over and over again, Booster tries to prevent the Joker from brutalizing Barbara Gordon. Over and over again he fails.

It's not always an easy read, but it is a worthwhile one — especially when you realize the gambit Hunter is playing and at what personal cost. It is also a valiant definition of true heroism courtesy of writer Geoff Johns. No matter how many times Booster Gold gets knocked down, he always gets back up again. What a guy!

It should be noted that a large part of what makes this light-on-dialogue book such a great read is the art, which Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund intentionally based on the original material drawn by Brian Bolland.

While legendary writer Alan Moore always gets most of the credit, Bolland's detailed and disturbing art is no small part of what has made The Killing Joke an enduring classic, and he deserves some recognition for making Booster Gold #5 one of The Best Booster Gold Stories Ever.

Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: batman best of brian bolland dan jurgens geoff johns joker norm rapmund rip hunter skeets the killing joke

You may have noticed that Modinda dropped by the comments in Wednesday's post to chastise me for my omission of a six-year-old comic from the Boosterrific.com database. Could I really have been ignorant of a Booster Gold comic appearance from as long ago as 2014? The answer is yes.

Set your eyes on this panel, from Scribblenauts Unmasked: A Crisis of Imagination #6:

That's obviously Nu52 Booster Gold (and original Skeets) partaking in a reference to the famous "one-punch" from Justice League #5. How could I have missed that?

That panel is just a small fraction of a delightful two-page spread, by the way. (It did my heart good to see the Dibnys back together!) A very belated kudos to issue artist Adam Archer.

Rest assured that the now-more-complete-than-ever-before Boosterrific.com database has been updated to include both Scribblenauts Unmasked: A Crisis of Imagination #6 and the series collected edition. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Modinda. And if anyone else spots anything they think I've missed, please do not hesitate to let me know.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: adam archer blue beetle justice league international modinda scribblenauts skeets

Yesterday, I woke to an email from Booster booster Logan Peterson, who had spotted Booster Gold making a cameo appearance at the end of Batman Beyond #47 in anticipation of his guest-starring role next month!

Well, if Batman doesn't exist, DC will be out of comic books, so you'd better get to work, Booster.

Is it just me, or is it starting to seem that Booster Gold has a new role in the DCnU as the harbinger of series cancellation? He showed up as the new boyfriend of Harley Quinn just in time for that series to be canceled. Before that, he played a key role in Action Comics immediately prior to all the storylines of that series being abandoned to whatever it was that Brian Michael Bendis wanted to do. And now he's guest starring in Batman Beyond, a series already announced to be canceled at issue #50 in December.

The Justice League currently has its hands full with Perpetua and Laughing Batman, but maybe they should be more worried about Booster Gold, who may soon be coming to end an ongoing series near them.

Anyway, thanks for the info, Logan. Everyone buy that issue and make Skeets happy!

Comments (6) | Add a Comment | Tags: action comics batman beyond harley quinn logan peterson skeets

If you've been keeping track of my list of the twelve best Booster Gold comics, you know that we've reached number 9. More importantly, we've reached a turning point in the history of Booster Gold.

By 2007, Booster Gold was widely recognized as a laughingstock, has-been as a former member of the long-derided Justice League International. Booster Gold Volume 2, Number 1 begins the story of how Booster started his second act as The Greatest Hero The World Has Never Known!

As it happens all too often, the real trouble starts when Booster finally gets what he has sought since his earliest appearances in Booster Gold Volume 1: the acceptance of his peers.

As you can see, this issue is a great jumping on point for new Booster Gold fans. Never read a comic with Booster Gold before? No problem. Writers Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz make the issue accessible to casual Justice League fans and longtime Booster Gold fans alike.

It's not an exaggeration to say that without the changes to Booster's status quo that were begun in this story, significantly fewer readers would even care which comics should be considered The Best Booster Gold Stories Ever!

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: batman best of geoff johns green lanterns jeff katz justice league skeets

The comics industry is slowly getting back to normal, as you can tell by the release of solicitations for upcoming releases. While it doesn't look like our hero will be appearing in any of DC's August 2020 comics, the publisher's latest solicitations do include a confirmation of something we first spotted last month:

BOOSTER GOLD: FUTURE LOST HC
written by DAN JURGENS and others
art by DAN JURGENS and others
new cover by DAN JURGENS and NORM RAPMUND
The original solo series for Booster Gold, self-serving hero from the future, concludes with this collection of Dan Jurgens's formative mid-'80s stories! Booster finds himself a wanted man, and then lands in the polychromatic sights of the Rainbow Raider! Later, Superman gets in the middle of a battle between Booster Gold and...Booster Gold? Collects Booster Gold #13-25, pages from Millennium #3-6 and #7, Action Comics #594, Secret Origins #35, and more.
ON SALE 09.01.20
$39.99 US
400 PAGES
ISBN: 978-1-77950-672-6

That's right, the companion volume to the superb Booster Gold: The Big Fall collection will be in your Local Comic Shop this September. What could that "and more" mean? I'm giddy with anticipation.

See Newsarama.com for the full list of DC's August coming attractions.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: dan jurgens norm rapmund reprints skeets solicitations