Booster Gold Comes To DC Rebirth To Face The Secret Of Mr. Oz

Action Comics writer Dan Jurgens will bring Booster Gold back to DC Comics in December, with the time-traveling hero helping Superman to deal with yesterday’s blockbuster revelation about the villainous Mr. Oz.

Spoilers ahead for that issue.

DC has not yet named who will actually be drawing the issues.

Following the events of “The Oz Effect,” November’s solicitations suggested that Superman was having a crisis of faith and debating whether to remain on Earth or answer a call from the stars.

Superman will head to space, but maybe not in the way fans would have expected. The cover to Action Comics #993, unveiled via Jurgens’ Twitter account, depicts Superman and Booster Gold floating in the vicinity of Krypton at the moment of the world’s destruction.

Jurgens provided the cover, which sees Booster return to the costume he wore during the (largely Jurgens-drawn) 2006 series he headlined after 52. He wore that costume up through the events of Flashpoint, where it was destroyed in a fight with Doomsday.

With the launch of The New 52 in 2011, Booster got a new look and a shift in priorities back to day-to-day superheroics rather than the time-travel adventures he was having in his solo book. He appeared in Justice League International (also written by Jurgens) before being written out of the DC Universe at large in the Geoff Johns-written Annual issue that marked the end of that series’ run.

The New 52 Booster costume showed up again when he briefly reappeared (apparently bouncing through time) in All-Star Western. The time-lost story paid off in the Convergence event, where Jurgens brought the pre- and post-Flashpoint Boosters together, establishing the pre-Flashpoint Booster Gold as the new Waverider in the process.

That was the last time Booster made an appearance, and while co-publishers Jim Lee and Dan DiDio promised ComicBook.com at San Diego Comic-Con that any fan-favorite characters not currently in use were being actively developed for the future, there was no immediate sign of what context could be the key to bringing Booster back into the fold.

Booster might be back to his old look and Time Master-ing ways, but it seems that the comics will take a cue from The CW’s The Flash and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, introducing time wraiths who will not be happy that Superman and Booster have gone back in time to observe a moment that, as Jurgens described it on Twitter, opens “a Pandora’s Box of possibilities.”

One possibility, of course, is meeting directly with Jor-El, Superman’s biological father and the man Mr. Oz claims to be. If Superman were to travel back in time with Booster and get some familial closure out of it, that would not be the first time for such a thing to happen. In Booster Gold #25, written and drawn by Jurgens, the hero gave Dick Grayson (then Batman) an opportunity to go back in time and see his parents one last time for Christmas.

You can check out the solicitation text for Action Comics #993 and 994 below (via Newsarama), and the full cover to #993 in the attached image gallery.

ACTION COMICS #993
Written by DAN JURGENS
Art by TBA
Cover by DAN JURGENS and TREVOR SCOTT
Variant cover by NEIL EDWARDS and JAY LEISTEN
“BOOSTER SHOT” part one! As Superman struggles to cope with Mr. Oz’s true identity, the Man of Steel turns to the only “hero” he knows who can prove once and for all if Oz’s story is true: Booster Gold! But a massive power doesn’t want our heroes venturing through time, and will do anything it can to sabotage their journey!
On sale DECEMBER 13 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

ACTION COMICS #994
Written by DAN JURGENS
Art by TBA
Cover by DAN JURGENS and TREVOR SCOTT
Variant cover by NEIL EDWARDS and JAY LEISTEN
“BOOSTER SHOT” part two! It’s the time-hopping team-up of Superman and Booster Gold—and on their quest to verify Mr. Oz’s identity, a mysterious force attempts to sabotage the journey! This time (pun!) our heroes wind up in the crosshairs of a deadly new villain—the time wraith responsible for their tumultuous journey!
On sale DECEMBER 27 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T