Michael Jon Carter

Booster Gold

Michael Jon Carter

## Biography

### Early Life

Michael Jon Carter was born on December 29th, 1984 to Jack and Ellen Carter in Silicon Valley. Mike was a geeky kid and developed a fascination with technology and superheroes after witnessing the JSA’s response to the 11/2 Disasters. When Mike was in elementary school, he became best friends with Ted Kord, whom he admired for his high intellect. Ted started mentoring Mike, who struggled with undiagnosed dyslexia and attention-deficit-disorder. Mike, in return, taught Ted how to stand up to bullies - or rather he tried to little avail, as Mike would often get beat up by the same ruffians. Ted figured out how to get the last laugh by inventing tiny devices that would indisposed the bullies, often landing the two boys in detention.

Mike’s home life wasn’t the best. One day, his dad wandered off out the door, babbling nonsense, and was never seen again. Mike’s older brother, Daniel, then became the family’s breadwinner, dropping out of community college to start working at a local steel mill. Mike and his twin sister, Michelle, started trying to make ends meet. When Mike was just fifteen, he started cleaning the school he went to at night. His physique also made him a primary candidate for football, and he joined the high school football team, where he carried them into the championship. Rumors of a sports scholarship were swirling, however, that all came crashing down when the school discovered Mike was illegally betting on his own games, and he was booted off the team.

Things got worse as high school graduation neared when Ellen was diagnosed with MacGregor’s Syndrome. The family lost their health insurance when Jack skipped town, so Mike begged Ted’s uncle, Jarvis, for a job at Kord Omniversal. With Ted’s help, he landed a custodial job with enough insurance to cover some of Ellen’s treatments, however they still couldn’t get the medication they needed to make a real difference.

Mike knew the right people, so he managed to forge an ID that let him start gambling underage. However, Mike quickly got addicted, and soon lost the money he had saved up.To pay off debt collectors, he started boosting cars for them (earning him the nickname Booster). One night, he was caught by the police. He spent around a year in a juvenile facility before he was back out. Daniel and Michelle turned their backs on him, while Ellen fell into a coma. The only one who embraced his return was Ted, who drove him home when he got out.

Shortly after, Ted dropped out of college and announced he was moving to Metropolis, and invited Mike to come with him. At Daniel’s insistence, Mike waited and finished his last year of high school before going to Metropolis, where Mike became the head custodian at the Metropolis branch.

### Booster Gold

One night, Ted recruited Mike to stay a little bit later and help him test out a new project for the secret Goldstar Program. Mike, of course, brought along a 24-pack and soon Ted, a lightweight, was passed out. Mike, slightly tipsy, donned one of the experimental armors they were working on and headed out to the streets to stop a mugging. However, he underestimated his combat abilities, and got jumped and would’ve wound up dead if not for Ted’s sudden arrival - clad in an alien armor - that saved his life.

After the two were scolded out by Jarvis, they were offered to become the frontmen for the Goldstar Program. Combining his old nickname with the program title, Booster Gold was born, and would often patrol with his best bud, the Blue Beetle. Their actions attracted the attention of Superman, and won Green Arrow’s favor when they turned in their own CEO for his part in murdering Ted’s father. That was all they needed to secure an invitation to the Justice League. At just 21, they were the youngest members of the League, and were often left to clean up collateral or stay on monitor duty.

Booster had a big chip on his shoulder and struggled to prove himself within the League. He struggled with his hero identity after his mom succumbed to her illness and wondered what kind of hero he was if he couldn’t even save her. Booster fell into a deep depression and barely left his house for months. During that time, his sister took up the moniker of Booster Gold and used a pseudoderm to fill in for him.

Ted eventually figured out the ruse and talked some sense into Mike and convinced him to get back on the field. Michelle, however, had tasted the adrenaline rush and didn’t want out of it, so Mike deputized her as Goldstar. Ted also gifted him with Skeets 1.0 a hyper intelligent drone to act as his other sidekick.

Booster began renting out his suit to corporate sponsorships and started raking in money. He convinced Ted to buy into starting a casino/resort on the island Kooey Kooey Kooey as a Kord Omniversal asset and once bought out the Chocos brand for an elaborate prank on Martian Manhunter that did not go well.

After the Justice League shutdown, Ted and Mike moved to Malibu to live with their girlfriends, Ice and Fire. However, over their period of living together, both relationships fell apart. Mike was surprised on a drunken night of drowned sorrows to hear Ted confess romantic feelings to him. Caught off guard, Mike left the next morning, and shortly after returning to his childhood home, he received word that Lex Luthor wanted to meet with him.

### The Conglomerate

He arrived at LuthorCorp HQ, where Lex offered him a spot on his corporate-sponsored superhero team, the Conglomerate, even offering to pay off all his previously standing contracts and put him on payroll with full benefits (including a lucrative DNA test to see if he would be afflicted with MacGregor’s syndrome). Booster agreed on the condition that his sister also be allowed to join. Lex agreed and Booster became a member.

He was put up in a swanky new place in Metropolis, where Ted showed up a few days after the public announcement to curse him out. At the advice of his sister, Mike decided to give him some time to get over it. Meanwhile, he excelled on the Conglomerate and became more renowned in Metropolis than even the Man of Steel (although he was bizarrely often confused for Green Lantern). He and Ted eventually mended fences after making it clear he had no romantic feelings for him.

While serving on the Conglomerate, one day Mike was awoken to find his father standing over him, sporting a beard and a trenchcoat and begging for his help. He stepped through a portal of shimmering light and found himself on board a satellite, alongside his sister and several other individuals he didn’t recognize. In some bizarre mission for the Linear Men, Mike and Michelle were reunited with their missing father to combat a rogue war-bringing satellite called Mageddon. The resulting battle brought the siblings closer together, but eventually they had to return to Earth, according to their father, who vowed to see them again soon.

Booster returned and found a full-scale invasion of OMAC androids happening on Earth. Time passed differently where he was, and over a year and a half had passed. When the dust on the battlefield cleared, Mike learned that Ted had been killed by Maxwell Lord. In the following days, Mike learned he gained full ownership of Kord Omniversal and decided to shut it down, selling all of their assets to STAR Labs.

### Stranded

Mike began living in the Presidential Suite of the Marino Casino, where he was found by Jaime Reyes, a former intern at Kord Omniversal who convinced Mike to help Ted’s legacy live on. Mike was inspired by the moxie on the kid and they started flying home in his private jet. Partway through the ride, the kid generated a nanotech cannon and blew a hole in the side of the jet, destroying Skeets, shattering Booster’s energy shield, and sending him plummeting into a nearby island.

Mike awoke on the island amidst the flaming wreckage of his plane. Mike was surprised to turn around and find himself face-to-face with a dinosaur. Somehow, Mike ended up on “Dinosaur Island”, which has managed to inhabit dinosaurs for thousands of years after their believed destruction.

Mike spent the next year scavenging and trying to put his suit back together. Thankfully, he stumbled upon an old Blackhawk pilot jet and scrapped together a jetpack that got him off the island and to Australia, where two Justice Leaguers got him a zeta to the Hall of Justice, where he exchanged notes with several other heroes and deduced that the big power players behind a number of bizarre occurrences was the alien armada the Reach.

Booster constructed a new Skeets and then jetted off to New Mexico, where he, Black Canary, Micron, Bumblebee, Dan Garrett, Darkstar, and Zatanna lured Jaime out of hiding and ambushed him. Skeets broke through Khaji Da’s programming, freeing Jaime from the Reach’s control.

With Jaime as their inside man, Michael helped lead an assault on the Reach’s secret hideout on Oolong Island. After foiling the Reach’s plot, Michael turned in his resignation to Lex Luthor, finally feeling comfortable being in the Justice League. He’s started helping STAR Labs salvage a digital upload of Ted’s consciousness, while also working on bettering himself and his substance problems.

## Trivia

* During his time on the Conglomerate, Booster dyed his hair blonde because he "didn't think he was blonde enough."

## Notes

* Majorski High School is a nod to the DC Comics character Steven Majorski aka Haywire.
* Due to there being no time travel in Earth 76, his origin had to be altered.
* In Earth 76, the Linear Men are not time travelers, but are agents of the Monitor to deal with inaccuracies and prevent plot points from straying beyond the intended goal.
* Being confused with Green Lantern is a nod to *Justice League Unlimited*.