That Civil Rights crusader Martin Luthor King Jr. was killed by an assassin's bullet on this day in 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, is a fact no one disputes. What is disputed is who pulled the trigger.

James Earl Ray, a career criminal, pleaded guilty to the crime and accepted a sentence of life imprisonment rather than face a jury trial with the death penalty on the line. Three days later, Ray recanted his admission and would maintain for the rest of his life that he hadn't been the trigger man. King's wife and children sided with Ray, blaming MLK's death on a criminal conspiracy reaching from the Mafia all the way to the top of the United States government.

Was Ray guilty? Did someone else shoot the gun that killed MLK? The only way to know the truth might be to go back in time and take a look for ourselves.

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This is not an April Fools joke. Boosterrific.com really has gotten a facelift for 2018!

Arg! Change is bad! Why did I do it? The last significant site redesign was nearly a decade ago, and people don't use the Internet in the same way in 2018 as they did in 2010. (For one thing, no one capitalizes the word "Internet" anymore.)

While I was beginning to feel that the site was looking a little stale, the chief purpose of this overhaul was twofold:

1. to allow smartphone users greater access to the site. Previously, mobile devices only had access to a specially designed portal. Now every page should render in the narrower smartphone viewport, including the individual comic pages.

2. to prepare for future changes. As I mentioned two weeks ago, Google's announcement of big changes to how they intend to police and present the web to its customers has me contemplating the best path forward. I don't know exactly what Google's changes are going to do to site traffic, but I do know that I wanted this aging site to be nimble enough to survive whatever hunger games Google sets off.

As always, thank you for your patience as I work through this site overhaul. There are definitely still some bugs to work out and some site functionality has yet to be fully restored (like the next/last issue buttons for the comics details pages). If you stumble across something that doesn't seem to be working to your satisfaction, please drop me a line. The contact form is working fine, and you can always send an email to webmaster at Boosterrific.com.

Thank you to everyone who has ever visited. You have all contributed to making Boosterrific.com the Internet's greatest Booster Gold archive.

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For nearly two decades, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold were best friends. First meeting when Booster joined Max Lord's Justice League International, the pair formed a bond strong enough to overcome the gravest challenges. Their shared pranks and misadventures, exemplified by infamous Club JLI on KooeyKooeyKooey, became the stuff of legend. Those were good times.

The good times ended thirteen years ago today with the release of Countdown to Infinite Crisis.

It's a testament to the relationship between the two heroes (and a perfect example of the value of continuity) that their unexpected and violent parting continues to inform Booster Gold's story all these years later.

See you in the funny pages, Ted.

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Last week at CBR.com, Jason Cohen postulated that Booster Gold is the solution to most of the problems with the DC Extended Universe (read: movies).

Booster may not seem like the blockbuster name that will fix the DCEU, but the character could do the necessary legwork to "boost" confidence in the future of the troubled cinematic universe. Between the character's bumbling wannabe hero schtick, his time traveling capabilities, and a character arc on par with Iron Man or Ant-Man, he's the perfect choice to cement the redefinition of the DCEU.

I certainly agree with Cohen's larger point that the DCEU needs an overhaul. I'm not so sure, however, that Booster is the solution.

I'm really of two minds about this. On the one hand, I'd love to see a good Booster Gold movie. On the other hand, I'm not sure that Warner Bros even can make a good Booster Gold movie.

Until Warner Bros demonstrates to me that they can consistently make the kind of superhero films I want to see — Wonder Woman's first two acts were a good start — perhaps it would be best if Booster remained the greatest hero the cinema-going public has never heard of.

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This delightful Booster Gold sketch by LawfulStudios9646 can be found on DeviantArt.com.

I find it refreshing in this age of high definition to be reminded occasionally that not all super hero art has to be hyper-realistic. It's enough just to be fun.

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