Booster Gold & Blue Beetle welcome back Kevin Maguire

Blue Beetle and Booster Gold
(Image credit: Kevin Maguire (DC))

Artist Kevin Maguire made a name for himself with the 'bwahaha!' era of the Justice League International, and now he's reuniting with two of his favorite members: Booster Gold and Blue Beetle.

As revealed in DC's October 2021 solicitations, Blue & Gold #4 will have Kevin Maguire and writer Dan Jurgens coming in to provide some guest art alongside series artist Ryan Sook. Looks like it's all hands on deck for this series, which follows the superhero duo as they try to make an honest living with their own superhero business.

(Image credit: Ryan Sook (DC))

"Bros over heroes no more!" reads DC's description of Blue & Gold #4. "Booster Gold and Blue Beetle find running a superhero business together more difficult than it looks when these inseparable friends end up on the verge of a breakup! What could be the cause of such a schism? Enter Blackguard, looking to destroy this dysfunctional duo for good!"

Blackguard is a longtime adversary of Booster Gold, but you might better know him soon for Pete Davidson's portrayal of him in James Gunn's The Suicide Squad movie. In comic books, Blackguard was a mercenary who ended up on the losing side of a battle with Booster Gold. After being imprisoned for his crimes, he tried to break from the life of crime and stuck up a friendship with the Green Lantern Guy Gardner.

From the sounds of the upcoming Blue & Gold #4 description, however, it looks like he's fallen off the do-good wagon.

For Maguire, Blue & Gold #4 seems to be a break from his recently-announced plans to commit to creator-owned work for the rest of his career. Over on Gumroad, Maguire plans to re-release his creator-owned series Tanga, then follow that up with a sci-fi/workplace sitcom series called The Cosmic Badlands: The Worst F***ing Place in the Universe.

But we can enjoy that and enjoy Maguire's brief return to the DCU, right?

Blue & Gold #4 (of 8) goes on sale October 19, however, the series begins in a few days - July 20 to be exact - with Blue & Gold #1.

Here's an oral history of the 1987 Justice League, which cemented Maguire's place in comic book history. 

Chris Arrant

Chris Arrant covered comic book news for Newsarama from 2003 to 2022 (and as editor/senior editor from 2015 to 2022) and has also written for USA Today, Life, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher's Weekly, Marvel Entertainment, TOKYOPOP, AdHouse Books, Cartoon Brew, Bleeding Cool, Comic Shop News, and CBR. He is the author of the book Modern: Masters Cliff Chiang, co-authored Art of Spider-Man Classic, and contributed to Dark Horse/Bedside Press' anthology Pros and (Comic) Cons. He has acted as a judge for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the Harvey Awards, and the Stan Lee Awards. Chris is a member of the American Library Association's Graphic Novel & Comics Round Table. (He/him)