Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, the longtime writers of Justice League International and its spinoff miniseries Formerly Known as the Justice League and I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Justice League, returned to one of the characters that most defined their runs on those titles in last week’s Booster Gold #32. With covers by former Justice League International penciler Kevin Maguire and interior art by Chris Batista (52, Infinity Inc.), DeMatteis told The Gold Exchange this month that while the writers are trying to keep a balance of the goofy, over-the-top feel of the Giffen-DeMatteis Justice League with the more serious, traditional superhero tone of the relaunch written by Johns, Katz and Jurgens, they’ll be bringing the bwa-ha-hah soon enough. DeMatteis joined us for a few questions about Booster Gold #32 and the future of the series.
The Gold Exchange: Manoman, this book really *is* a throwback! There’s a recycled joke on the first page! Did you guys decide the “Come with me if you want to live” line had to be there once the time-travel element was such a big part of Booster’s new status quo?
J.M. DeMatteis: The line just came out of Booster’s mouth as I started to type. I hope James Cameron doesn’t sue!
GX: Is there a significance to dropping Booster in the middle of the Great Darkness War?
JMD: Nothing beyond the fact that Keith has a connection to that old Legion of Super-Heroes story line.
GX: Is Rani goign to be a fixture for a while? Without Michelle, Booster is kind of lacking in a non-superhero supporting cast member.
JMD: Rani will be around for the foreseeable future. But, don’t despair, we’ll be seeing Michelle, too.
GX: Is Booster going to be using his tagline as he goes about his day-to-day business, or is that just kind of isolated to when he’s in the future and it can’t hurt anything for people to hear it?
JMD: I think that gag was beaten to death in the first issue. It’s time to retire it. Unless we come across a situation where it’s just perfect, in which case we reserve the right to beat it some more.
GX: I’m intrigued by the idea that very important moments in LoSH history and the like can be solidified time, kind of retroactively. Is that something that was vetted with DC Editorial or did it just require an in-story explanation as to why Booster couldn’t intervene and save the day?
JMD: To be honest, we kind of made it up as we went along, but I think it worked.
GX: What–no jokes about the Emerald Empress’s preposterous “eye, me, mine” pattern of speech? I kept expecting it and it never came!
JMD: One more balloon on those pages and the letterer’s head would have exploded.
GX: Was “PUNT” a scripted sound effect or the work of a particularly ingenious letterer?
JMD: “PUNT” was right there in the script. It might have even been in Keith’s plot.
GX: It’s interesting that, in spite of a major change in tone, Booster’s overall personality has been kept here. His mini-breakdown is actually quite reminiscent of some of the moments of serious self-doubt he had during Dan’s most recent issues. Did you guys plan that?
JMD: We’re trying very hard to find the balance between the Booster of our Justice League International era and the man he’s become in recent years. That’s one of the things that makes this incarnation of Booster interesting: he IS the old Booster and he’s NOT. Booster will be discovering that, yes you CAN go home again, but it can never be exactly as it was before. We all keep growing and evolving and trying to be the person you were last year — let alone a decade ago — doesn’t really work.
GX: That said, is he going to get a little break sometime soon? Visiting Coast City and then the Daxamite attack back-to-back had to be a little harrowing.
JMD: He’ll get a break by “bwah-ha-ha”-ing up back in time with his old JLI buddies. There’ll be plenty of patented Giffen-DeMatteis goofiness. But he can never laugh too hard, because the reason he’s back there is a dead serious one.
GX: You know–outside of holiday stories or something, most creators of mainstream superhero books tend to avoid pinning a story down to a specific date, because of the rolling nature of the characters’ timelines. Somehow, though, Im’ doubting that’ll be an issue with the April 5 (or 
date!
JMD: Well, if that date rolls around and we find out we’re wrong, well… Hey, wait a minute. We’ll all be dead by then. And reincarnated. And dead again. And reincarnated again. And…
GX: Given that Keith was writing it, and you guys’ history with the Justice League International, I kinda figured that it would tie into “Generation Lost” a little. How much is that going to play into the monthly action here and how much will Booster have his own thing going on?
JMD: The general idea behind Generation Lost — Max is back and he’s got to be stopped — will have a major impact on Booster’s book. The details of Generation Lost will have less of an impact. It’s not going to be one of those: “You must read Generation Lost before you read this month’s Booster Gold” kind of things. I’m not a big fan of that way of doing things.
GX: As a continuity note–will Rip continue to be aware of Max’s existence even after everyone except the JLI has forgotten about him?
JMD: Max who?
May 15th, 2010 at 7:25 pm
I thought BG #32 is the single best issue so far on the current BG run. It brought back the fun-spirited Booster I’ve learned to love but it did not become a simple throw back to an early BG. It certainly makes more sense than Mr. Broody from recent issues (which was plainly simple a bit too overdramatic and bland even for Dan Jurgens fare).
Hopefully, we will get to see a bit more on one of my favorite Booster Gold moments: his Conglomerate team – arguably the first time he decided to “sober up” after becoming a Leaguer.
May 15th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
The whole “Max never existed” brainwashing thing can’t work. Too much hardcopy evidence, too much off-Internet E-evidence(CDs, DVDs, whatever else is used in the DCU) scattered worlds-wide. (Pluralization of “worlds” intended.)
May 15th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
And, yeah, the Conglomerate’s worth a story arc every year or two to me as well.
May 16th, 2010 at 10:42 am
Too much evidence to forget max? Six words: one more and brand new day. Of course, can i really say it worked since I haven’t picked up spidey since?
May 16th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
The Mindwipe/records: That hasn’t been addressed in the book yet. Current theories are that Max will give people psychic blindspots that will make it impossible for any mindwiped person to connect Max with those records and Max simply getting rid of them by some other means. Brother Eye for example.
I liked this issue but I wouldn’t go as far as saying it’s my favorite. A lot of the jokes were reused and I’m still not sure what to think of Boosters’ misjudgment. Glad to hear that Michelle is returning but what about Rose and Daniel? Specifically Daniel, are we finally going to see him trying to use the Supernova suit to fight crime/impress Rose?
With Rani I’m split, I like the idea of kids in comics but with the recent killings of children I’m very leery about her joining. Especially with what it means once another writer takes over. It does raise more interesting questions about Rip though. I assume he’s not adopted since Jurgens implied that Rip was going to lengths to change his appearance to keep anyone from connecting the dots and the mystery of who his mother. But having a big sister or perhaps cousin (if Michelle adopts her instead) that’s interesting. She’s about the same age as Jaimes’ sister, right?
May 16th, 2010 at 2:41 pm
This issue achieved a simple task – to show that Booster wasn’t suddenly snap back to the money-gubbing huckster the pair wrote him as back in JLI. He’s still doing his job, he’s still making it up as he goes, and it’s working fine.
I’ll be curious to see how much this and JLI:GL will tie together. Will we get issues continued in the other book, or will this remain a relatively stand-alone adventure?
May 16th, 2010 at 6:20 pm
I like the fact that this story has a bit more humor in it, and as I said in my spoiler of it, the humor doesn’t come from Booster being an idiot. The humor comes from the idiots around Booster, and how he snarks right back at them. Booster has a bit of bitter humor in him…if old Booster was the jokester and the clown, this Booster is more like Dr. Cox…which is actually a good way to describe Booster’ current attitude in a way.
I LOVE Rani already and I hope they keep her around…come on, we need Rip to whisper to her as she is sleeping that she is his sister or cousin, so she is protected from death (Booster, Rip, Michelle and Mrs. Booster are already…).
Also, I love Skeets getting a bit more of a grumpy, sarcastic personality. I always want Skeets to be either one of two personas: Billy West’s take on JLU (where Skeets is a naive suck-up “I’d like your autograph”/”Shut up Skeets”), or make him a bit more sarcastic, kinda like Kiff on Futurama.
But as I told Erin, the only woman forSkeets is the Batcomputer!
My hope, with this title, is that the team only continue to improve upon what they did here (that isn’t a slam…every writer wants to make each new piece they do better). While I still miss Dan, this issue eased my fears. Now, all we need is a permanent JLI book and a permanent Time Masters book.
May 16th, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Glad to see that The Gold Exchange will live on into the Booster Gold title’s newest incarnation. Great interview (and comic)!
May 16th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
@Owen – It works very well with the fact that I thought “The Life and Times of Savior 28″ was mind-bogglingly good, and so developed a relationship with JMD last year. The moment I found out he and Keith were taking over “Booster Gold,” I e-mailed him to say, “I want The Gold Exchange to live on–you game?” At that point, he had no idea what they were going to do, other than that he’d been hired…but he said yes anyway.
And to show him my appreciation, I’ve still got a book that was supposed to be his Christmas present. It’s actually changed apartments with me at this point without ever seeing the interior of a post office.
@Kevin – I like the tweaks to Skeets’ personality as well; my only concern is that I don’t want him to just become an extention of L-Ron.
May 17th, 2010 at 4:45 am
Great comic, great interview.
May 18th, 2010 at 10:07 pm
I really enjoyed character development in the more serious Geoff and Dan runs. The comedy character really feels like a step backward. I hate to say it, but I have to step away from this one. I’ll follow Time Masters, though!
May 21st, 2010 at 11:43 am
As to the OMD/BND comparison, that cuts no ice with me. I dropped the Spider-series over that.
As to the logistics of destroying physical records of Max’s life and activities, it can’t be done. Max and whatever agents he might still have cannot physically get at every single collection, archive, cache of such records still “in the wild”. And imposed psychic “blind spots” can fade with time.
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