By Jonathan Klotz
| Updated
Disney made headlines by canceling Wonder Man Season 2 and then, a day later, Mahershala Ali came out and said that he was stepping away from Blade. David Jenkins, creator of Our Flag Means Death, took to social media and confirmed that his Booster Gold series with DC will also not be moving forward, and expressed the same sentiment as Ali. That’s three canceled superhero projects in the last week, and the first of James Gunn’s revamped DC Universe that won’t be happening. The Jenkins news will hit DC fans especially hard since Booster Gold is the greatest hero nobody knows.
The Man From Tomorrow Is A Hero Today
Booster Gold is one of DC’s top comedic heroes. A time-traveler from Gotham City of the 25th Century, Michael Carter was a great collegiate football player who threw a game and just like that, all of his fame and prospects went away. Working as a night watchman at a museum, he stole gadgets, weapons, and even convinced a security robot to help him out. Traveling back to the 20th Century, Michael goes by the name Booster Gold to become the hero he never was.
A mainstay of Justice League International, Booster Gold was paired up with Ted Kord’s Blue Beetle as the comedic relief of the team. When it comes to live-action, Booster Gold has appeared in both Smallville, played by soap star Eric Martsoff, and Legends of Tomorrow played by Scrubs’ star Donald Faison. When Peter Safran and James Gunn included Booster Gold in their initial announcement for the DC Universe back in 2023, it stuck out among Superman and Batman for good reason. Now it seems the project was cursed.
David Jenkins was the second creator to take a shot at Booster Gold, taking over last year from Danny McBride. Ironically, Jenkins had celebrated turning in his pilot script last month, a few weeks before revealing that the series wasn’t happening. That doesn’t mean Booster Gold is dead in the water. We could still get the comedic adventures of the man from the 25th century with a different showrunner. Realistically, the project is likely canceled.
The Optimism Of The DCU Is Slowly Fading
James Gunn’s new-look DCU got off to a great start with Superman. Introducing David Corenswet’s take on the Big Blue Boy Scout alongside the Justice Gang of Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), and Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi), dropped audiences into a world where superheroes were already active and avoided the whole need for an origin story. Supergirl wasn’t as successful, and it remains to be seen how the first real new live-action series of the DCU, Lanterns, will be received when its HBO Max in August.
Between re-starting the DCU and the upcoming MCU reboot following Secret Wars, both superhero franchises are an in an awkward spot right now. Projects announced back when the genre was on the upswing are being canceled left and right, while the usual faces, Batman and Spider-Man, are getting pushed. Again. If Lanterns and Clayface both fail to perform for Warner Bros this year, then who knows if we’ll ever get to see the rest of Gunn’s vision for the DCU.
