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? ###
What do you think America?
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