I'm on record as no fan of social media, but without reddit, I never would have discovered that Superman scribe Joshua Williamson has a substack.com account, "Joshua Williamson's Super Scary Newsletter," where on "Superman Day" April 18 he posted the following:

I've thought about All In Special waaay too much, and I wish I had a clue about what he thinks I should think is a clue. That the logo has changed on the 30th-century Legion Flight Ring? That the Justice League forgets Booster exists? That Skeets has gone missing? That in one story Booster Gold is wearing his 1980s collar and in the other story he isn't? A little less ambiguity would be helpful, please; I can only think so much.

You'll note that this doesn't actually say that Booster Gold will be in Superman #28, but it almost does. So I think Booster boosters should be prepared to pick up Superman #28 when it comes out on July 23.

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It's been a few weeks now, but do you recall the last page of Summer of Superman Special?

Here, let me refresh your memory:

Pay careful attention to that big glowing symbol on the wall over the head of our chained hero. That is omega, the final letter of the Greek alphabet. As the last letter in its alphabet, omega is often used symbolically to represent the last element in a set, as in "the ultimate," or "the end." Naturally, this has led omega to become associated with death, the end of life itself.

Omega's symbolic relationship with death is why it was adopted by the New God now widely known as Darkseid. Darkseid came to power by stealing the Omega Force and using the Omega Effect power it grants (via his Omega Beams) to take total control of Apokolips and aid his relentless quest to discover the Anti-Life Equation.

In the DCU, wherever an omega appears, Darkseid and death aren't too far behind, as teased in this panel from this weekend's Free Comic Book Day DC All In 2025 FCBD Special Edition #1:

Between the contemporary Absolute Universe and the Dark Legion of the future, it sure seems that Darkseid and Omega Energy are corrupting the entire Multiverse. And the symbols of their evil influence are everywhere!

Even, it seems, on the Sunday broadcast of the CBS Nightly News:

CBS Weekend News, Season 2025, Episode 118, CBS, May 4, 2025

Darkseid over present-day America? That would explain a few things.

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Every family has its bad seeds. While many might suggest that Booster Gold is the problem child in his own family, the real black sheep of the Carter clan is actually Booster's father, the good-for nothing Jon Carter.

In the very first telling of Booster's origin (by Skeets to Superman in Booster Gold Volume 1 #6), Booster's father is mentioned only in passing. Booster later confirms his father's absence from his 25th-century life while relating the story to his friends in Booster Gold Volume 1 #13: "You see, my old man was a compulsive gambler. He lost everything we had a couple of times over and finally took off when I was four."

Booster led everyone to believe that his father wasn't particularly important in his life after the year 2446 other than for setting the example on how gambling can destroy families (thus making young Booster's turn to gambling even more tragic).

The truth is actually much worse.

Booster Gold Volume 2 #44

As it turns out, before Jon "Jonar" Carter* abandoned his family, he was actually quite abusive to his wife, to the point where Mrs. Carter required hospitalization on multiple occasions (Action Comics #995). It is no surprise that after he left, his mother swore off relationships, declaring that she was "fine without a man!" in Secret Origins #35.

Despite this history of abuse, young Michael Jon "Booster" Carter always craved the approval of his absentee father. After achieving early success as a quarterback at Gotham University, Booster sought his father out. But approval was not forthcoming.

Instead, Mr. Carter manipulated his son into a deepening spiral of illegal activity for his own personal gain.

Booster Gold Volume 2 #0

Despite the warnings of his twin sister, Michelle, Booster was unwilling or unable to extract himself from this bad situation. In 2462, he was caught, expelled, and ostracized, leading him to exercise more of his trademark questionable judgement by stealing a time machine and running away into the past.

Rather than stand by his son, Mr. Carter turned state's evidence against his former gambling associates, even going so far as trying to sell out his own son (as Booster would only discover many years later after a time travel accident in the aforementioned Action Comics #995).

Rather than serve out a ten-year prison term for his own bad behavior, Mr. Carter jumped at the chance to join Black Beetle and Mister Mind in their time-manipulating scheme to seek revenge on Booster and Rip Hunter, who had prevented Mister Mind from taking over reality in 52. Despite the fact that Mr. Carter was little more than a small-time crook, the supervillains needed his Carter family DNA to access the powers of the of the Supernova costume created by Hunter.

It was while masquerading as Supernova that father and son would once again cross paths in Booster Gold Volume 2 #2 before the mask came off in Booster Gold Volume 2 #4.

Once the truth was revealed, Booster cut off his father's own ear to excise the Venusian worm in his brain and free him from the villains' control (Booster Gold Volume 2 #10). Shortly afterwards, Ted Kord sacrificed himself to correct an unstable alternate timeline. Mr. Carter hasn't been seen since.

Understandably, Booster has been in no hurry to re-establish a connection.

Action Comics #995

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

* In four decades of Booster Gold comics, the elder Mr. Carter is identified by name only once: as "Jon" in 2008's Booster Gold Volume 2 #10. In a response to the 2010 Boosterrific.com post "Dan Jurgens on the Creation of Booster Gold," Booster booster Erin of exploringthetimelab.blogspot.com pointed out that Geoff Johns writing as Skeets in an article on the Newsarama website (presumably in 2008) explained "'Jon' is a 25th century shortening for Jonar which means 'he who tried and failed.'" I have never been able to track down the original article, and the name "Jonar" has never appeared in print in an official DC publication. But I believe Erin and a significant portion of the fanbase seems to accept this as a fact, so Boosterrific.com has adopted "Jonar" as a convenient shorthand to differentiate father and son who share the name "Jon."

Other People in Booster Gold's Neighborhood:

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"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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"Panic in the Sky" was a storyline running though two month's worth of Superman comics in the spring of 1992. When Brainiac arrived to threaten Metropolis, Superman put together a team of heroes (and a few villains) to stop him.

Booster Gold was one member chosen for this team, and he plays some part in Superman #65, The Adventures of Superman #488, Action Comics #675, Superman: The Man of Steel #10, Superman #66, and The Adventures of Superman #489).

However, because there were so many heroes (and villains), very few got the chance at much of a spotlight, including our hero.

Therefore, rather than pick one favorite page from each of those comics, I'm going to give you just my favorite page for the entire "Panic in the Sky" storyline: page 5 of The Adventures of Superman #488.

Brainiac's skull ship is no match for this super-power collection!

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