www.boosterrific.com

Does April Fools Day have any value in an AI-driven post-truth society? I sure hope so.

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More 2014 art by Walter. (Two pieces in one year? Hot damn!)

Blue Beagle and Rooster Gold. Merry Christmas.

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After a focused site re-tooling and a couple of long nights, Boosterrific.com is now the number 2 return in Google on the key phrase "Booster Gold" (behind Wikipedia, curse them). I consider this to be something of an accomplishment. Maybe not so great as founding a country or curing smallpox, perhaps, but certainly better than having a million Twitter followers or running a multi-million dollar business into the ground. So, congratulations to me.

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Death and taxes? Not if you're a superhero: then it's just taxes.

Superman never accepts rewards for performing hundreds of thousands of good deeds each year. Not only is it ethically questionable to do so, he would no doubt have trouble with the United States government Internal Revenue Service if he did. Each of those "gifts" could be considered taxable income if they were given in exchange for services, such as saving a life or preventing property loss. Hopefully, mild-mannered newspaper reporters earn enough to keep the Man of Steel in fresh pairs of tights.

Booster Gold, a hero who uses his identity for merchandising opportunities, was once arrested for income tax evasion. This was an especially tricky situation for Gold, for as a time-traveler, he had no birth certificate, Social Security Number, or even finger prints on record. He was only extricated from the situation because he had very recently saved the president's life and cashed in a few political favors to earn a tax identification number and honorary American citizenship. Remember, kiddies, it's always who you know, not what you know.

When the Justice League was sponsored (and bankrolled) by the United Nations in the 1980s, Batman, Captain Marvel, and Dr. Fate were forced to quit the team. Although each gave a different reason at the time, they all had very secret identities to maintain and would have had to reveal those identities to their handlers in order to receive the United Nations stipend. All of the remaining heroes on the team were more casual with their secret identities (generally they had less at stake) and were no doubt pleased to be receiving some pay, even at the cost of compromising their secret lives.

Makes you wonder if it's worth saving the world if you're going to have to save your receipts, doesn't it?

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At long last, I've launched my tribute site to Booster Gold, DC Comic's second greatest super hero. You can browse the site (10 months in the making!) at your leisure here: www.boosterrific.com. There you can marvel at my mad skillz.

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For the first time in a year, I drop in at Newsarama.com to see if I can find any information on the rumored upcoming Booster Gold comic book series, and I immediately stumble into a major spoiler for the final issue of 52. I'm so pissed off right now. Who the hell posts major spoilers the week after a book comes out without alerting the reader that there are spoilers ahead? What kind of world do we live in where the endings of all stories have to be given away at all times? Well, screw you, Newsarama. Hank Hall is Monarch! Soylent Green is people! Maggie Simpson shot Mr. Burns! And Darth Vader is Luke's father, you jerks. Take that!

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In the comic book Justice League Quarterly #9, six members of the Justice League are told they are infected with a virus that causes insanity in one in six people exposed to it. Blue Beetle, aka Ted Kord, the League's resident brain at the time, immediately tells the other 5 members (Booster Gold, Flash, Fire, Guy Gardner, and Ice) that one of the group is going insane. He presents it as an absolute certainty. And the others buy that. (Granted, this is probably the reason that these 6 Justice Leaguers were chosen for this story. Not known for their thinking caps, these 6.)

Apparently, the Justice League needs to get Ray Palmer back, because Ted Kord's understanding of probability is a little weak. A disease that maims one in six people is not a certainty to affect exactly one person in any sampling of six people. There is a chance that none of the six will nut up just as there is a chance that all of the six will go off their rocker. Sure, there is a better than average chance that at least one of the six will be affected, but it is hardly a certainty.

I suggest that this complete misunderstanding of probability is the fundamental reason that Beetle was killed a few years back. He probably assumed that since he had been shot at many times before and was never killed, he could not be killed by a bullet shot at him. Sorry, Ted. You're dead.

It is exactly this sort of careless premise and sloppy writing (by industry heavyweight Mark Waid no less) that causes many people to decide that superhero comic books are for children. Only a kid would fall for Beetle's assertion as an absolute, right? No adult would enjoy reading this sort of trash, would they? Let me tell you, I've worked in bookstores, and the answer to that question is "Yes, almost exclusively."

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I need some help. I'm trying to identify the character in the bottom right of this panel from DC's Invasion Book 3, page 40, published in 1989. If you know, please tell me. Not knowing is slowly killing me.

Top left is Booster Gold, who is descending from the Blue Beetle's Bug ship alongside Beetle himself. At the bottom left is Two-Face, one of Batman's many villains. Next to Two-Face is the mystery character. I assume from his reaction to the arrival of two Justice Leaguers that he is a villain, but for all I know he's just surprised to see a flying bug. It is the only appearance of either Two-Face or the unknown mystery fellow in the entire Invasion event, and though it is not expressly stated, I believe that it is supposed to take place in New York City since in previous panels Oberon mentions that Blue & Gold are "battling villains" in NYC.

But who, oh who, is in the foreground bottom right? I've been pouring over issues of DC's Who's Who from 1985, but with little luck so far. (It would probably go faster if I could stop reading every single entry. I mean, I know that there is no way that this is the Legion of Substitute Super-Heroes Color Kid or the original Doom Patrol ally Mento, but I just can't stop myself from reading about them. It's yet another one of my character flaws.)

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DC Comics new 52 week series (cleverly titled 52) hit shelves today. Though I had said that I wasn't going to spend cash on a book that ran continuously for 52 weeks (could I really get $130.00 worth of entertainment out of it?), I did buy the first issue. And I was very pleasantly surprised. If DC can keep the focus on the world's second greatest super hero, Booster Gold (as pictured below from the pages of said book), I might be in for the long haul.

Go ahead, DC. Keep impressing me.

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