The latest issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine is out just in time for Comic Con and includes Chancellor Agard's interview with Tom King about many things, but especially his plans for Heroes in Crisis:

EW: Based on the cover, it looks like Booster Gold and Harley Quinn will play a big role in Heroes in Crisis. Why did you pick those two characters?

King: They're the two stars of the book along with the Trinity. I do this comic called Mister Miracle, which I really like. The way Mister Miracle started was me going to [co-publisher] Dan DiDio and asking him, "I want to do something amazing with a character, but you have to give me some room to do some stuff, and you pick the character." He picked Mister Miracle and that's how that started. It's unoriginal, but I wanted to repeat that success. So when I came up with this Heroes in Crisis idea, I went back to Dan and said, "Can we do this again? Give me two heroes, I'm going to put them through the ringer and at the end we're going redefine them to be central to the DCU, pillars of this universe." And the two he gave me were Booster Gold and Harley Quinn. I think they're perfect because they're almost two sides of the same coin. They're both, like, these manic dreamers who have made huge mistakes and come back from them. They're kind of these survivors.

I'm not sure I like the idea of Tom King "redefining" Booster Gold, but "pillar of this universe" sounds nice.

You can read the rest of the interview online at EW.com or in the magazine on newstands now. Heroes in Crisis will be in comic shops everywhere on September 26.

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Happy Independence Day! If you can tear yourself away from fireworks and hot dogs, get yourself to your Local Comic Shop today and get your hands on Injustice 2 #29, featuring Booster Gold's new jacket!

Finally! A costume update that looks better than what he was already wearing!

While you're there, consider picking up a copy of the suddenly very controversial Batman #50. Your LCS probably ordered too many of them.

(A quick aside for those of you not glued to the comics press: on Sunday, with the consent of DC Comics, The New York Times newspaper spoiled the events of Batman #50. According to ComicBook.com, DC vice-president of sales John Cunningham defended the company's actions by essentially saying that DC wanted to mitigate what they knew would be terrible backlash if fans didn't find out about the issue contents until the day of release. That's practically an admission that they had promoted and sold the issue — retailers had to commit to orders for the 50+ covers two months ago — on false pretenses. I'm no lawyer, but I would think that qualifies as fraud.)

But I'm not advocating that you pick up Batman because I'm a nice guy who wants to see Local Comics Shops stay in business. No, like Booster Gold, I'm a little shallower than that. I'm suggesting you pick up an issue because Skeets is in it.

What is Skeets doing here? I have no idea. It being a Tom King written book, I bet there's no logical reason, probably just an excuse to get Booster Gold fans to buy a copy. At least in my case, it will work.

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I've noticed that Dan Jurgens has been publicly silent about Tom King's recent reinterpretation of Booster Gold. However, Booster's creator did recently speak up about Clay Mann's pencil art for the upcoming Heroes in Crisis mini-series.

That's an endorsement of sorts.

Despite the pretty art, I'm still not any more optimistic about Heroes in Crisis than I was last week. But I'm perfectly willing to admit that I'm a hard-to-please blowhard. Maybe it's time to hold a finger to the wind and test which way public opinion is blowing on this thing.

This week's poll question: What is your reaction to the news that Tom King will be writing Booster Gold as a murder suspect in the HEROES IN CRISIS mini-series? Please visit the Boosterrific Polls page to view results for this week's poll.

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DC Comics announced a new comic series on Wednesday via a press release. Mainstream media sites which usually ignore comic books, such as Entertainment Weekly, The Hollywood Reporter, and Newsweek, decided the announcement was newsworthy.

What could make this series such a big deal? Perhaps because Booster Gold is invlovled.

Per the original press release at DCComics.com:

(June 13, 2018 — Burbank, CA) There's a crisis headed toward DC's greatest heroes, but it isn't coming from outer space or another dimension—this time, the threat is homegrown. DC proudly presents a new seven-issue miniseries debuting in September by Tom King and his BATMAN collaborator/artist Clay Mann, titled HEROES IN CRISIS.

A former counterterrorism operations officer with the CIA, [Tom] King's bestselling, critically acclaimed comics—including THE SHERIFF OF BABYLON, THE OMEGA MEN, BATMAN, MISTER MIRACLE—have often grappled with war and conflict, and a hero's struggle to put their war and their trauma behind them. This new series will explore similar themes against the backdrop of a murder mystery involving Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn, Booster Gold, and the rest of the World's Greatest Super Heroes.

Boy, doesn't that sound exciting? Booster Gold working with DC's heaviest hitters solving a mystery? It's a Booster Gold fan's dream come true!

But not so fast! Yesterday, Newsarama revealed what appears to be the issue's upcoming solicitation text. The solicitation casts the story in a slightly different light that might *not* be everything a Booster booster could hope for.

Per the "Heroes in Crisis" fact sheet:

There's a new kind of crisis facing the heroes of the DC Universe, ripped from the real-world headlines by C.I.A.-operative-turned-comics-writer Tom King: How does a superhero handle PTSD? Welcome to Sanctuary, an ultra-secret hospital for superheroes who've been traumatized by crime-fighting and cosmic combat. But something goes inexplicably wrong when many patients wind up dead, with two well known operators as the prime suspects: Harley Quinn and Booster Gold! It's up to the DC Trinity of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman to investigate — but can they get the job done in the face of overwhelming opposition?

Apparently Booster Gold has a new archnemesis, and his name is Tom King.

Arrgh. Murder! Death! Kill! What kind of "community-building" story about overcoming PTSD could be built upon the death of all the patients who sought help?

Before I work myself further into a frenzy over this, let me remind me that advance solicitations for King's stories tend to vary widely from what actually sees print. The solicitations for Batman #45 is a prime example.

Per the original solicitation for that issue:

"THE TRAVELERS" part one! Booster Gold has come to Gotham City, and he's enlisting Batman and Catwoman to go on a time-traveling mission to rescue...Booster Gold! It seems a younger Booster Gold has gone back in time to kidnap an even younger version of himself, and to rescue his own past, Booster must pursue both of his previous incarnations through Batman's history to find out what is going on. The start of a new story that will sow the seeds for a whole new epic to come....

As we now know, when that story was eventually published as "The Gift," it looked almost nothing like what was promoted outside the inclusion of Booster Gold and Batman. Maybe Heroes in Crisis will be something like that. Maybe Booster Gold will be the detective that solves the crime and saves the day.

Or maybe Booster will be the same as the last time we saw King write him: a short-sighted idiot who enabled a mass homicide.

My hopes are not high.

Everyone can decide for themselves if King redeems his poor treatment of Booster Gold when the first issue of Heroes in Crisis is released on September 26.

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I'd like to stop talking about the recent Batman story "The Gift", really I would. I'd like to file the three issues away in my longboxes and forget it was ever published. But it seems Tom King doesn't want to let me do that.

Please, no.

#BEGIN RANT (Warning: rant may contain spoilers)

I'm not intimately familiar with King's entire body of work, but I find it unlikely he's grown as popular as he is if all of his stories are as carelessly crafted as "The Gift."

The premise is laughably bad, an idea that should have been left on the back of whatever cocktail napkin King first jotted it on. How, exactly, is changing time to prevent the wedding of Batman and Catwoman supposed to be a gift? What kind of person would choose a vague dream over the lives of two loving parents? What kind of person would expect someone else to? Booster Gold was a former member of the Justice League, not a super villain. The excuse of immaturity can only be stretched so far.

The conclusion is no better. It's the worst kind of time travel plot device, where the resolution invalidates everything that came before. The Booster Gold who has been tortured by Bruce Wayne for the previous year can no longer exist. How can any Booster remember an event which never happened? (By the way, what happened to the corpse of the impossible Bruce Wayne? Or Skeets? Or the "other" Booster Gold? Damn this rabbit hole!) The resolution of "The Gift," as nonsensical as it is, makes it clear that its events can only affect one character (at most), and that character wasn't even the guy whose name is on the cover. If King hadn't tweeted otherwise, I would have assumed this story was filler so the wedding could take place in an issue with a nice, round number.

Speaking of Batman, he comes off just as poorly as Booster Gold does. As I wrote back in April, King ostensibly set out to recreate Alan Moore's "For The Man Who Has Everything..." by showing that the world was a worse place without Batman. However, instead of affirming the heroic value of one of the most popular fictional characters of all time, King instead successfully invalidates another of Moore's stories, The Killing Joke. In the end, all it takes is "one bad day" for Bruce Wayne to become a gun-toting murderer. Was that the goal, to demonstrate not that the world is better with Batman in it but that *Batman* is a better person because his parents died young? Unlike Booster, who King treats as a brain-dead court jester, Batman should be deserving of some respect. But no, his character is dragged through just as much mud.

If this story is any indication, King clearly cares nothing for characterization. Any excuse to write a feral Catwoman who kills for no apparent reason or a Batman who shoots first and asks questions never. (Or worse, Green Lanterns who shoot themselves in the head on a dare.) Judging by the quote above, I'm guessing that King intentionally ignored years of character development so that Booster Gold would be in position for that other story he wants to tell. Otherwise he certainly went out of his way to mangle some beloved characters for no obvious reason.

#END RANT

Maybe you were one of those people who who read "The Gift" and liked it. More power to you. In that case, perhaps you'd like to hear what BleedingCool.com has to speculate about this announcement.

Personally, I found the ridiculous premise, careless resolution, and misguided characterization insulting to some characters and artists I'm actually quite fond of. If "The Gift" is any indication of the kind of story that King likes to write, I'd prefer that he left Booster Gold on the sidelines instead.

FOOTNOTE 2018-05-18:

I'm guessing... lobotomy? (As I said above, "the excuse of immaturity can only be stretched so far.")

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