Last night, we talked to Dan Jurgens, the creator of Booster Gold, about how he would approach writing the announced Booster Gold TV pilot. Today it seemed like it could be fun to take a look at how I would approach the series.For readers unfamiliar, I wrote a column for years called The Gold Exchange. Published by Comic Related and Newsarama, it followed each issue of Booster Gold‘s ongoing, monthly comic (which started after 52 and ended after Flashpoint) and served as a kind of running commentary on the issues by the folks I interviewed, including writers Geoff Johns, Jeff Katz, Dan Jurgens, J.M. DeMatteis, Chuck Dixon and Rick Remender.10. “Dancing girls in every episode” OK, so maybe not literally–but Dan Jurgens had a point when he said that Geoff Johns’s take on the character in Smallville had embodied Booster pretty well. If there’s going to be a Booster Gold series and, presumably, minimal-if-any involvement by the rest of the DC Universe, he’ll have to get his own supporting cast. This opens up the door for his commercial side to really take center stage, building a group of agents, promoters, employees and and hangers-on who could make up the core of his 21st Century support network.9. An acknowledgment of the DC UniverseGranted, DC characters are valuable properties in their own rite and there’s not a ton of chance that we’ll see most of them appear as a supporting player in Booster’s story. Still, what’s to say he can’t at least acknowledge that he doesn’t wear a cape anymore because “the Big, Blue Boyscout took it away from me” or referring to that time he made a pit stop in the Old West to drink a famous gunfighter under the table? Subtle nods to continuity often work better in a fairly low-budget show than actually trying to present the stories alluded to onscreen anyway.8. Follow Vol. 1’s FormulaToo much origin story in the pilot would be a mistake. There’s a lot of really cool stuff you can do with Booster’s backstory, but I’d be in favor of starting with Booster already in his costume, in the 21st Century, and filling in the gaps along the way, as Jurgens did in the first volume of Booster Gold in 1986.7. The Space MuseumThat said, when we eventually see the Space Museum, I don’t want it to just be some back alley outside where we see Booster shoving his stolen weaponry into a duffle bag along with Skeets. Have a little fun with the place! It should be one of the coolest sets you’ll ever build, so building it a few episodes later in the series should let it live up to that. Making it a big part of the pilot would just put it in competition with Booster’s costume, the Time Sphere and other things which require a hefty initial investment.6. Special EffectsGranted, it’s Syfy and there’s only so much you can do on an episodic TV budget, but there were wild variations (sometimes within an episode) in terms of what they were able to do on Smallville. I say less is more, as long as the “less” looks cool and believable.As an extension of that” Let’s see a cool and believably futuristic take on his costume. The Smallville one looked OK, but really was just another of the many “guys in jackets” superhero costumes on the show.5. HumorMany readers came to Booster for the first time as a result of the Keith Giffen/J.M. DeMatteis Justice League run of the late ’80s. The superhero sitcom became a staple of fan libraries and many of its references and images endure. To try and play Booster Gold too straight would be a death sentence for the show, especially considering that mainstream, non-comics viewers really only know him from his appearances on Justice League Unlimited and Batman: The Brave and the Bold, where he was mostly played for laughs.4. Rip Hunter, Time MasterNot only did Rip play a minor role in the first volume of Booster Gold (he invented the Time Sphere, then later helped Booster repair it to get back home briefly), but in recent years he’s become a major supporting character in Booster’s stories and (spoiler alert)was once revealed to be Booster’s son. Alone, he probably wouldn’t draw enough of a bid to make selling his rights separate from Booster’s a boon to Warner Brothers, so with some luck hopefully we’ll get to see Hollywood’s take on the Booster/Rip dynamic.
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