Being, Emptiness and Spandex Tights with the Underwear on the Outside

By Max Burbank
It’s quite possible that I know too much about comic books. That being said (and I’ll take any opportunity to say ‘that being said’) I can also say without fear of contradiction that there are many, many people out there who are way more involved than I am, and they all seem to have a lot or spare time, little human contact and easy access to the Internet. Yes, it’s true I know who penciled Avengers #100; it was Barry Windsor Smith and it was fine. Yes, I remember more than I’d like to say about the Forever People. I even have a hazy recollection of a dozen or so 12 inch tall cloned Jimmy Olsens, though that could easily be a leftover from the concussion I got in junior high or maybe some sort of adolescent fantasy. Matter Eater Lad’s given name? Denzil Kem. It’s quite arguable that this sort of useless pap is crowding other things out of my brain. My Social Security Number. My wife’s birthday. Our anniversary. Basic human communication skills.

The question isn’t really ‘Is this any way for a grown man to occupy his mind?’ or, as a young boy recently said while pointing at me and clutching his father’s leg ‘What’s THAT?!’. The question is ‘How much really dorky knowledge is too much?’ or possibly ‘Can’t you back off and give a fella room to breathe? You have no idea what I’m capable of!’ I know a lot less about this sort of crap than I used to, believe you me. Before my brain began it’s current rapid calcification, I could rattle off all the X-Men in the order they’d first appeared, including the Mimic. Prior to booking passage on the H.M.S. Puberty I could summarize every single comic book in my collection prompted only by a glance at the cover. Many a baby-sitter was broken on the rack of my total recall, reduced to a whimpering fluid bags by the relentless, dentist drill, marathon reenactment of the complete history of the Teen Titans, in particular my Aqualad, which John Lahr, New Yorker Theater Critic would have called ‘Mincing, even by Mr. Burbank’s usual standard’ had he ever reviewed the borderline psychotic behavior of New England pre-teens instead of Broadway shows.

John Lahr is Bert Lahr’s son, the same Bert Lahr who played the Cowardly Lion. See? That’s has nothing to do with comic books, and I don’t get paid for knowing that, either. Of course if I drop that little factoid into dinner party conversation, it’s a bon mot. If instead I tell them that prior to the Crisis on Infinite Earths there were two Supermen, one of who fought during World War Two on an alternate earth but couldn’t beat the Nazi’s because Hitler had a magic spear, I am a potentially dangerous freak. As luck would have it, distinctions like this are not such a big issue, as I get invited to dinner parties with about the same regularity that the Disney Channel runs “Chicken Slave’s Golden Shower Party III”.

My brain is leaking knowledge like a rotting jack-o-lantern loses its finer details, and everything is going, but there’s so much more useless comic book knowledge in there than anything else I’m in serious danger of being left with little else. Prez Rickard, was first teenage president, but was the VP that Native American guy who lived in a Tee-pee by the reflecting pool or Prez’s mom? Maybe his Mom was national security advisor. I know Val-or used to be Mon-el who did a lot of time in the Phantom Zone because of a lead allergy, and that he shacked up with Shadow Lass, but I don’t remember her real name! I’m sure I have a driver’s license, but I think it might be expired and I have not idea at all where it is right now! Do you see where I’m going with this? Doubtless someone out there on the net will write in and tell me Shadow Lass’s name and probably correct the spelling of Denzil Kem, but none of you bastards know where my licensee is, unless of course you took it, you damn, dirty ape!

Frankly, I’m getting too old for this. I’m reaching the head-out-the-window-screaming ‘you kids get the hell off my lawn’ stage of life, and I need the mental real estate all this comic book crap is parked on. When I reach the point where I’m up at 2:00 A.M. with angina, I want to remember where my pills are, not that Captain Marvel’s face was patterned on Fred Macmurray’s so his awesome powers would seem less threatening. Let someone else create a vast Internet data base of heroes who have died and come back to life as opposed to hero’s who have been believed dead, I just want to be sure I don’t leave the baby on the roof of my car when I go to work. I’m ready to lose my Super Trivia Powers, I truly want to, but I don’t know how. When the alarm goes off I want to concentrate on how many scoops go in the coffeepot, instead I’m considering the many identities of Henry Pym. (Ant-Man, Giant-Man, YellowJacket, Goliath.) What’s to become of me, and if you understand half the references in this article and are laughing I’d take a friggin’ look in the mirror, Mr. Big Ass Superior Bastard, and wonder what’s to become of you!

It’s probably way too late for me. At some critical point in my mental development this stuff was way too important to me and now there’s not a damn thing this side of aggressive shock therapy I can do. I cared more about the fact that the TV Barbara Gordon Batgirl predated the Comic Book Batgirl than I did about … well, anything, really, and now I’m pretty much screwed. I’ll forget my own name before I forget that M.O.D.O.K. stands for Machine Organism Designed Only for Killing and O.M.A.C. Stands for One Man Army Corps. Some downtrodden immigrant bastard from whatever brutally repressed fifth world nation staffs our nursing homes in a couple of decades will be saying ‘Be damned if I’m changing ‘Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth’s’ diaper, I’ve already done it eight times today. Let him stew in it for a while’.

I guess it’s okay. I mean, were the chances really that great that I have won a Nobel Prize by now if I’d never picked up that first 80 Page Giant Justice League of America for a quarter? Life is ephemeral, after all, or it might be, depending on what the hell ephemeral means. I mean, when I’m ninety there may be no one alive but me who remembers that Jeb Stuart was the ghost in The Haunted Tank . If I don’t tell the children that KISS made their first comic book appearance in the pages of Howard the Duck , who will? Somebody has to be the Guardian on the Edge of a Bunch of Really Pointless Shit. Don’t they? ###