Booster Gold fans will find two "must buy" books in their Local Comic Shop today.

First is Superman: Heroes #1. Originally solicited for January release, the book was postponed for reasons that are not yet clear. In fact, back in January it was announced that the book would be delayed until February 19. So depending on how you look at it, the book is either two weeks late or one week early. *shrug* Maybe we'll know why it changed dates so much when we read it. (BleedingCool.com has the preview.)

Also available today for the first time is Justice League: Corporate Maneuvers trade, reprinting for the first time the first four issues of the Justice League Quarterly anthology. Twenty-five dollars seems a fair price for finally getting Booster Gold's black leather jacket printed on some high-quality paper.

Buy one or both and make Skeets happy.

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I had been prepared to remind you to buy Superman: Heroes #1 today at your Local Comic Shop, but that will no longer be necessary. According to Newsarama.com, DC has postponed the release until February 19.

Why? "The publisher did not give a reason for the change." Hunh.

This is disappointing news if only because it means I'll have to wait three more weeks to find out the in-universe explanation of why Harley Quinn is sitting at this table, as seen in last week's Superman #19:

At least Wonder Woman has the good sense to look uncomfortable to be sitting across the table from the Joker's former sidekick. Is anyone keeping track of how many people she's killed in her own title? I believe in second chances as much as the next guy, but it's not like she was a serial shoplifter. There has to be some limit to how many people you get to kill before you don't get to sit at the hero's table anymore, right?

Aaaanyway. Whatever reason DC has for postponing the issue, I hope they don't change the solicited cover. There just aren't enough books on the stands featuring Booster Gold's crotch.

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Booster Gold hasn't been in a new release in weeks, so I hope you've been saving your money. Because he's in three titles today!

Logan Peterson, a longtime friend of this site, dropped me a line to say

I just finished skimming through the new comics coming out tomorrow as I was sorting through them at my store, and I made some exciting discoveries! Booster appears in not one, but two of tomorrow's releases: Superman #19 and Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen #2. I won't say anything to spoil them, but I wanted to give you the heads up!

I had suspected that Booster might show up in Superman (in response to some recent, high-profile events in the life of the Man of Tomorrow), but the appearance in Hell Arisen is a total surprise. (The way Logan words that leads me to believe that it might not be an entirely welcome one. But then, the book is titled Hell Arisen.)

This is the solicitation text for Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen #2:

Apex predator Lex Luthor is on the hunt for the Batman Who Laughs. To catch his prey, he must follow a trail of broken heroes... leading him to Jim Gordon, one of the victims of the Batman Who Laughs' deadly virus that turned the heroic police commissioner into the worst version of himself. The trail leads Lex to a lonely cell in the Hall of Justice - but it's not the good guys who come to stop him. It's more of the Batman Who Laughs' dangerous operatives! And if they couldn't resist the influence of the Dark Multiverse, then how can Lex?

And while we're at it, this is for Superman #19:

One day later! What happens the day after Superman reveals his secret identity to the world? And what repercussions will his decision have across the entire DC Universe? Plus, Superman: president of Earth?

Wait a second. "President of Earth"? Is that a thing? I don't remember voting for that.

Anyway, what Logan failed to mention in his note is that Booster will also be featured in the new collection Justice League International Book One: Born Again, which reprints Justice League #1-6, Justice League International #7-17, Justice League Annual #1, Justice League International Annual #2, and Suicide Squad #13. That's a whole bunch of great 1980s Booster Gold adventures reprinted on good paper for the very reasonable (modern) price of $2 per comic.

Buy one of those and make Skeets happy! (Thanks, Logan.)

UPDATE: As you can see in the comments, Booster has also been spotted in Batman/Superman #6. He's everywhere!

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In my ongoing efforts to make Boosterrific.com the best blog it can be, I find it useful to look back at which posts over the previous year made the biggest splashes with readers. Here, in descending order, are the 5 most read blog posts of 2019:

5. Friday, May 3: No Laughing Matter
In which we wonder if Booster Gold might play a role in the "Batman Who Laughs" story in coming issues of Batman/Superman. We now know the answer: he doesn't.

4. Monday, August 19: New Heroes of the Millennium
In which we get a good look at Bryan Hitch and Alex Sinclair's combined covers for Legion of Super-Heroes: Millennium. Booster Gold, front and center!

3. Monday, April 29: Statler and Waldorf in Blue and Gold
In which I shared fan art by Neil R. King of the two best Muppets cosplaying as Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. That's not something you see every day. (Thank goodness!)

2. Monday, December 16: Why Don't They Just Get Married Already
In which we learn that Booster Gold will be returning to the pages of Harley Quinn in March 2020. People just love that Harley Quinn.

1. Monday, March 25: Was DC Looking to Boostle?
In which we learn that Check Please! creator Ngozi Ukazu came surprisingly close to working on a Blue+Gold Boostle comic for DC. We got Heroes in Crisis instead.

See you in 2020.

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What makes a hero super? The super powers! From awesome strength to zero-to-sixty speed, great superpowers are the most useful tricks in every famous costumed crime-fighter's tool kit. Michael Jon Carter knew this, and that's why he started his career with energy blasting Booster Shots.

At the outset of his super-heroic career, Booster Gold knew he would need offensive weapons to defeat the forces of evil. That is why, given his choice of many amazing inventions housed in the Space Museum, he selected wrist-mounted Energy Blasters.

In Booster Gold #6 (1986), Skeets tells Superman that they stole "gloves and control bands that were once worn by an alien menace." The true identity of this "alien menace" has never been clarified in any of Booster's published adventures, but Superman may have a clue. The technology may be alien, but it was crafted into powerful gauntlets by none other than Superman's oldest foe, Lex Luthor!

Lex has been wearing specially tailored suits to fight Superman since Superman #282 (1974). His purple and green suits soon became his trademark. Super genius that he is, Lex kept his suit's tool belt stocked with to whatever inventions he would need for the specific crime he was committing. Those tools included such classics as jet boots, robot controls, finger-mounted gravity casters, age-regressing omega barriers, age-restoring pills, and, of course, enough pockets for forty cakes.

However, none of that was enough to defeat The Man of Steel, so in Action Comics #544 (1983), Luthor fled Earth for the planet Lexor, named in his honor. (For an explanation of how an entire planet could consider a creep like Lex Luthor a hero, see "The Showdown Between Luthor and Superman!" in 1963's Superman #164.) Lexor had once been home to a race of advanced scientists, and Luthor adapted their technology into a "warsuit" that would allow him to defeat Superman once and for all. Or so he hoped.

The new power suit was indeed a considerable upgrade over what came before. Its energy gauntlets were so strong, they could destroy space-going vessels with a single blast. Alas, it was not powerful enough to make Luthor Superman's equal. It was, however, powerful enough to accidentally destroy Lexor (and Luthor's wife and child along with it). With great power can come great regrets.

Superman vowed to destroy the warsuit once and for all in Superman Annual #12 (published in 1986 but set in pre-Crisis, Silver Age continuity). How it survived to make its way from the 20th century to the 25th-century Space Museum will likely always remain a mystery, but we don't have to wonder whether they were the one and the same thanks to the original pencils from Booster Gold #6 included in the superb collection Booster Gold: the Big Fall.

Since returning to the 20th century, Booster Gold has integrated the power gauntlets into his crime-fighting arsenal. Renaming them "Booster Shots," he has used them as his primary weapon in his eternal quest to rid the multiverse of those who would destroy it. If there were any left, the citizens of Lexor would be proud.

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