HOW TO BE A SUPERHERO Booster Gold #1 (Feb. 1986) is a great introduction to a brand-new character. Right from his first line of dialogue, it’s obvious that this is a superhero from a different generation than those around which the DC Universe was built. In Metropolis, Booster Gold is haggling with a movie executive about how much he should be paid to appear in action movies bearing his name. Millions of dollars are discussed, as are percentage points from merchandising profits. This doesn’t sound like many other superheroes… Booster obviously has a lot to learn. He doesn’t even know what it means when someone tells him to “shake a leg,” and he has to rely on Skeets to clue him in on just what his driver is talking about. It’s a good thing that he leaves the behind-the-scenes work at his company Goldstar, Inc. to people like Dirk and Trixie. He simply doesn’t have the time to focus on the details, and a call between he and Trixie is interrupted when costumed villains show up. Booster saves a woman and her son from being hit by the villains’ vehicle. The woman somehow confuses her rescuer with Metropolis’ other famous hero, exclaiming nothing more than a “Superman!” The kid knows better: “No, Mom! Even better! It’s that Booster Gold guy!” The problem that Booster has to deal with is a villain who goes by the name of Blackguard. A S.T.A.R. Labs satellite-guidance system has fallen into Blackguard’s hands and Booster pretty easily defeats him. Before Booster can even wrap up his TV interview recapping his battle with the villain, a costumed woman descends and knocks out the hero in blue and gold. Booster Gold #2 picks up right where the debut left off—a prone Booster is surrounded by reporters, all of whom are looking for their own soundbite for the evening news. Batman or Superman never get this tied up with the media, and it’s refreshing that Jurgens wanted to emphasize this aspect of superheroics. The costumed woman who appeared on the last page of #1 is called Mindancer. She is working for a group called the 1000, which will certainly be a menace for Booster to deal with in time. In between wondering just who this Mindancer is and wanting a rematch battle with Blackguard, B.G. finds the time to work on a commercial for Flakies breakfast cereal, which he declares “Boosterrific!”
Designing a Hero (above and opposite) Courtesy of Dan Jurgens, the (writer/)artist’s earliest costume sketches for his Corporate Crusader, Booster Gold. “The black and whites were all done first, then I went to color,” Jurgens says. “By then I’d settled on a theme that was clearly the basis for the final figure.”
Issue #3 is notable for two things. First, Booster makes a very big mistake in ignoring US Senator Henry Ballard. The senator approaches him asking for a celebrity endorsement for his campaign and finds his words falling on deaf ears, starting an enmity that will increase in future issues. The other point of focus is a very humorous scene in which the superhero goes out on a well-publicized date with a TV star named Monica Lake. Lake knows how to work the reporters who show up at the restaurant, but Booster is clearly still learning about this kind of thing. He shows up in his standard spandex suit with a purple tuxedo slapped on top and has nothing to say to the media. Monica isn’t impressed, and the night is quite awkward until Skeets alerts him to the lair of the 1000. The conflict with the 1000 comes to a temporary stop in the next issue. Booster finds an ally in Thorn, a heroine with a personal mission to stop the criminal organization in its tracks. Thanks to Skeets’ memory banks, B.G. learns about how Thorn’s father (a Metropolis police officer) was gunned down by members of the 100, a group which over time grew in number to become known as the present-day 1000. While Booster thinks that they did a great job and that the 1000 will be silenced for some time to come, Thorn doesn’t see things as going so easily. She knows they will be back. Booster gets onto the airwaves in a TV interview and puffs himself up a bit. When the interviewer expresses surprise at how a large criminal Heroes Out of Time Issue
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