Hot Shot of the Week Companion Feature
Ten Question About Booster Gold #7 With Dan Jurgens
Russell Burlingame reporting for Comic Related
Dan Jurgens is the artist on DC's sleeper hit, Booster Gold, as well as the creator of its title character.
In addition to being one of the best-selling comic book writers and artists of the 1990s, Jurgens can take credit for redefining the Man of Steel with his death, resurrection, marriage and "power change" stories, among many, many others. In 1985, Jurgens started an ongoing series featuring Booster Gold, an original creation by Jurgens and arguably DC's first new superhero created post-Crisis on Infinite Earths. Two years and a slew of events later, Booster is a deeply-engrained part of the DC Comics Universe and his series (this time written by Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz) is a Top 40 book every month, as well as one of the most entertaining and engaging superhero titles on the market.
Comic Related: You know—the last time around, Booster was fighting withSuperman on the cover of #7. It’s one of the most famous images from that run, based on what I see writers using as “stock images” and the ease of finding it on the Internet. This time, he made it all the way to #8 without having a run-in with Big Blue. Some would call that progress!
Dan Jurgens: (laughs) I guess it could be seen as a sign of progress. On the other hand, what happened the first time around is that from the time we first came to Booster Gold and got to that point, John Byrne got to DC and kind of overhauled Superman.
CR: So there were two big reveals at the end of this issue. The first is the new Freedom Fighters, which had many a message board fanboy chuckling. Given that we’ve seen most of the old Justice League International sharing cover space with our boys in two months, is it safe to assume that’s them? Or is there an intermediary step of time-travel magic that I’m missing if I make that assumption?
DJ: No, I think that’s probably a safe assumption
CR: The other big reveal here was the Time-Stealers. First of all, is Stealers a word?
DJ: It is now
CR: Second, it’s cool that the trio of bad guys from the first Brad Meltzer Justice League of America arc are here—I didn’t expect to see them resolved in BG after starting someplace so high-profile.
DJ: I think that you would be safe to say that yes it is. That would be something that Geoff [Johns] could answer better but by and large, most everything you’re seeing has been part of the plan since day one.
CR: The memorial statues in the JLI embassy—whose choice were the characters represented?
DJ: I know that Geoff pretty much asked for Blue Jay and he might have asked for the Crimson Fox. I’m pretty sure I made the decision to add Metamorpho, since I was working on his miniseries [Metamorpho: Year One] at that time. I think probably in some ways, of that version of the League he was the most notable member. As far as the various characters that were occurring on Max’s castle screens earlier, that was all Geoff’s call. Or I should say “the Jeffs’s” call. I know I was the one who decided to add G’Nort. Anytime I get a chance to draw G’Nort, I feel like I have to.
CR: What happened to Power Girl’s cat? Can we expect to see it in future issues? You know—Booster has Skeets, Supernova has Maxmillion—I can’t think of who would have that horrible cat. Maybe Kite-Man?
DJ: I don’t know that we’ve seen all that there is to see of the cat, that might not be fair to say, but I don’t think the cat is in issue 8.
CR: So the working assumption for a lot of people was that the “Black Beetle” was bad, and it looks like they were right. I don’t remember how The Scarab was supposed to work, but wasn’t it akin to a Green Lantern ring? Shouldn’t it only work for a worthy soul or something?
DJ: I’m not the guy to answer that one—I think the Scarab has been played a little differently by different writers over time in the DCU. I think you’re right about it in one sense but I’m not sure that it’s universal. It’s also one of those things I think you can play a little fast and loose since we haven’t revealed when and how he got his hands on this Scarab.
CR: So if Booster saved Ted and created a tangential timeline, then it’s safe to say that this timeline doesn’t have another Ted, because we stole him—but what about Booster? The one who was recovering in the hospital when “our” Booster grabbed Ted away from Max—what happened to him?
DJ: Today’s Friday? On Wednesday we were just talking about the issue of--not alternate Boosters in timelines, but the same Booster in alternate timelines. That is going to be a subject of issues to come. I can’t say whether we’ll get around to answering that particular question, but alternate Boosters will be addressed.
CR: Isn’t time-travel fun?
DJ: It can certainly be complex
CR: In the absence of Geoff next year, are you guys going to do another of those “teaser page” things that he introduced on a lot of his books? They definitely got people talking…!
DJ: Yeah, as a matter of fact that has come up. We talked about that and quite honestly the question is, do we put in a teaser page before settling all the issues on Geoff’s first teaser page in issue one? I had said that what would be cool would be to have Rip Hunter’s blackboard be a whole page by itself, the last page of some upcoming issue. I think that blackboard is the greatest invention. We could load it up with some things that are teasers and other things that we might or might not get to.
Click here to check out Booster Gold #7
and our Hot Shot of the Week Review
Ten Question About Booster Gold With Jeff Katz
Page last updated on March 22, 2008