SLW has brought it to my attention that for a second time in three months, a comic book depicted a Booster Gold doll. That book: Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum #1.

In the story, Superman is suffering from purple kryptonite poisoning and is experiencing time out of order. The comic represents this by presenting the panels out of order (which is a clever bit of metatext, but isn't a great reading experience).

As a public service, here are the four panels which depict Booster Gold in chronological order of events:

Page 23, Panel 1

Page 21, Panel 3

Page 22, Panel 2

Page 23, Panel 2

Hmm. That looks kind of like a Booster Gold Troll doll. I sure hope Booster is getting a cut of all these Booster Gold-themed products.

Thanks, SLW.

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Insiders have been teasing future plans in the lead-up to next week's Comic-Con International 2025, and it looks like after the Summer of Superman concludes, readers will next be treated to the Fall of DC.

Marvel Comics' new 12-issue maxi-series The Secret War will be "one of the most significant events in Marvel history ever" promises Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter. Shooter will write the book, in which a number of permanent and temporary changes will be made in many of the major Marvel super-heroes and super-villains.

Oh, wait. Sorry. That was the announcement of was eventually published under the title Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars as it originally appeared in The Comics Journal #85 in 1983.

What I meant to post was the story that The Hollywood Reporter broke this past Wednesday.

Scott Snyder, the writer behind best-selling sensation Absolute Batman, and Joshua Williamson, who writes Superman, are the co-architects of what is being called DC K.O., the story initiative that will debut this fall and run through a main book as well as ripple out through various titles across the DC Universe. Javi Fernández (Batman & Robin, King Spawn) will draw the main series that is being described as a slugfest to end all slugfests. “DC K.O. is a knock-down, drag-out fight between all your favorite DC super heroes in a cosmic tournament to save the universe from Darkseid,” said Snyder in a statement.

Just heroes fighting heroes, then? It's not Marvel's 1984 Secret Wars; it's DC's 2007 Countdown: Arena (or 2015 Convergence). At least no one has actually read those.

Over at BleedingCool.com's article on this announcement is this description of the upcoming event:

While the battles are epic, the emotional center lies with Superman. "Metal was a Batman story, Death Metal was a Wonder Woman story—and DC K.O. is a Superman story," said Williamson. "I wanted to tell a story about Superman looking into his own heart of darkness," said Snyder. "It's a very personal story wrapped in nine layers of candy exploding in your face."

Call me a grumpy old man, but I really do not ever want any layers of exploding face candy.

As this is a Booster Gold fan site and not a general comics blog, I wouldn't be snarking at this groundbreaking news at all if not for the graphic that accompanied the article. See if you can see what I saw. Hint: he's inside the golden circle (fighting Blue Beetle).

AIPTComics.com has identified that art as a crop of the Scott Koblish wraparound variant cover for DC K.O. #1. (Koblish has been doing a lot of those sorts of crowd scene covers lately. They must sell well. I admit I'm buying them; I'll buy any comic with Captain Carrot or Red Bee on it. What can I say? I'm a nature lover.)

Despite not actually being mentioned in the text of any of these articles (by accident or design?), Booster Gold also appears on a couple of other covers in the AIPT Comics article. The first is an alternate cover for Superman #31, which presumably concludes the storyline beginning in next week's Superman #28 as was teased back in May.

The second is the main cover for the one-shot special Justice League: The Omega Act #1. (Booster and Skeets also appear on a variant.) The cover by Pete Woods homages the classic cover of Crisis on Infinite Earths #7, you know, the one where Superman cradles a dead Supergirl, this time with Booster Gold in place of Supergirl. Uh oh. If I may quote SLW:

I mean, you can't be a fan of Booster's without acknowledging the fact that he's kind of the DCU's punching bag, but come on.

So be sure to tell your Local Comic Shop to hold at least one of each of these for you when DC K.O. and its many tie-ins begin arriving in stores this October. They may be your last chance to see Booster Gold alive.

(Thanks, Tiffany. Despite my cynicism and crushing event fatigue—maybe I really have been reading comics for too long—it really will all be worth it if Booster gets a match against "Apokolips Now" variant Superman. That guy sent Booster to an alternate universe and forgot about him! Grr.)

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SLW writes

You probably already know, but our boy got on panel three times in the Superman Treasury edition. Which hey, at least in some timeline he's not erased from existence!

Which, in fact, I did not know. Although, since Dan Jurgens is the writer, I probably should have expected.

Officially, the treasury sized book is titled Superman Treasury 2025: Hero For All #1. There are multiple covers (including one by Dan Jurgens), none of which feature Booster Gold, that are priced at $14.99. Personally, I chose the Scott Koblish (CVR C) because it includes Captain Carrot, but you do you when you go to your Local Comic Shop and buy this issue to make Skeets happy.

Thanks, SLW!

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As SLW alerted us, Booster Gold (and Skeets!) does indeed make a cameo appearance in this week's Flash #22, where our hero (and sidekick!) show up in windows into the timestream inside the Linear Bureau's headquarters at the end of time where Wade West is being impossibly cryptic about current events:

Of course, that's not "current events" Booster, because Superman #27 makes it pretty clear that Booster is a little hung up at the moment.

That issue expressly identifies the setting of Booster's captivity as "the future," so today's question is "Where in time is Booster Gold?"

To recap: Last year's DC All-In Special led readers to believe that Booster Gold traveled across dimensions to the Alpha World of the Absolute Universe. Summer of Superman Special corrected course to reveal that Booster is not in an alternate dimension but an alternate future. But, as you can read above, Superman #27 combines the two, explaining that Booster did go to Alpha World before returning to the future of Prime Earth. Great. So now we know which dimension he's in (and that the dimensions can be transversed).

So what epoch is our hero in now? The setting of Booster's captivity would appear to be the 25th century Space Museum he once worked in, though presumably sometime after 2462 lest changes to the timeline write him out of existence. The logical assumption, especially considering the corpses of the Fatal Five seen in the aforementioned Summer of Superman, would be that he's being held captive in the 31st century, the native time period of the Legion of Super-Heroes. If that's true, where is the (uncorrupted) Legion native to our universe?

Since it's pretty clear now that "our" familiar Legion is not the same as the "Dark" Legion seen since DC All In Special, why did Booster's Flight Ring (native to Prime Earth) become a Dark Flight Ring in All In Special? Did Dark Brainiac 5 go back in time and leave his Dark Legion Flight Ring in the 25th century Space Museum?

And what, exactly, happened to Booster's high collar? All In Special promised more high collar! Must Darkseid destroy everything good in the world(s)?!

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I hadn't expected to see Booster Gold in my Local Comic Shop this week, so imagine my surprise when SLW dropped into the comments of Monday's post to alert us that Booster can be seen in Fire and Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #2. Kinda.

I wonder if that Booster Gold doll is made by the same manufacturer as the one we saw in Booster Gold Volume 2 #17:

And like SLW, I also wonder how anyone could be making Booster Gold plushies in a continuity that doesn't remember Booster Gold ever existed? Oh, well. Probably best not to think too much about it.

Thanks, SLW.

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