The Wit and Wisdom of Magnifying Glassman, Retired Superhero

“Back when I started out all the cops in New York were Irish, so if you weren’t a son of Erin you weren’t going to be one of the city’s finest. That’s why a lot of the superheroes during my time were either Jewish or Italian. It was our only ticket into crimefighting. And in the end I think it really worked well for both groups. We usually lived in the same neighborhoods so we could help each other out, one group would fight crime on Saturday, the other on Sunday.”

“If you think Wonder Woman was the only broad in the Superfriends you really don’t know those guys.”

“I got screwed out of every royalty check owed me. Magnifying Glassman action figures. Magnifying Glassman lunchboxes. Magnifying Glassman x-ray specs. I didn’t see a damn dime from any of it.”

“It was better when we had the superhero system. No lone wolfs, just leagues. Everybody had a specific identity and knew what their role would be. The leader would say, “This one deals with national threats. That one prevents world annihilation. That one handles bank robberies.” You played the role assigned to you and you got good at it. You got recognized for it. Sure, sometimes you wanted to stretch or work with another group but you were secure in your job. You were secure in your powers. None of this anxiety masked as mystery. You want a mystery? Then find out who took all the cheesecakes from Lindy’s!”

“I’m just saying, if someone calls a superhero for help they shouldn’t have to talk to customer service in Jaipur.”

“When I was just starting out everybody suggested superhero names, none of them good. An agent even said I should go as ‘Eumenides.’ I asked, ‘Who the hell is Eumenides?!” He said it was the Greek god who punished the wicked and unjust. Great, just what I wanted—to strike fear in the hearts of classics professors.”

“Okay, what I don’t get about the Wonder Twins is say the girl just polished off a rice dish when some emergency required her to take the shape of a pigeon. Would her stomach explode?”

“Of course, it was imperative back in the 40’s that no one knew you were ethnic, superhero or not. So a lot of the original crimefighters had to change their names to come across as all- Americans. You never heard of Clark Kentilowski, did you? That’s why I put the word “magnifying” in front of my last name. Only problem, now I was stuck carrying around a magnifying glass for no reason. I mean seriously, what the hell was I supposed to do with that thing? Set someone on fire if they sat real still under a hot sun?”

“Who knew when the Justice League merged with the League of Doom there’d be so many redundancies?”

“There was this villain, The Conjurer, who enjoyed great success as an archcriminal. He raised the dead to rob banks. He not only turned all the cats against their owners but also somehow taught them to use guns. The guy was good. Real good. But after awhile he felt he had gone as far as he could as an evildoer. I mean, once you get an entire city to give up recycling there’s only so much more you can do. So he decided to see flex some new muscles as a superhero, use his powers only for good. Only problem was, despite how many lives he saved everyone kept seeing him as a bad guy. The cops kept following him. People would run back into the burning building rather than let him carry them to safety. No matter how hard he tried, the public just would not see him in a new light. To them he would always be the guy who exploded the panda exhibit. Eventually he turned his back on doing good all together and became an entertainment lawyer. Heard he just brokered the Paramount-DreamWorks buyout.”

“Sometime in the 70’s we got all these new, politically-correct superheroes. Suddenly every ethnic group had a their own crimefighter. But they were all one-note stereotypes. Really demeaning. Plus, whenever El Dorado drove to the rescue he had like 12 relatives in the car with him.”

“I never had a long-term partnership with anyone. Sure, some women were drawn to my mysterious air and somber mood. But two months later they’re saying I’m a miserable, detached bastard and I’m left thinking, “I’m the exact same person I was when they met me so what the hell just happened?!”

“A lot of the new heroes ask me for advice and I always tell them the same thing—‘Don’t fly when you can run, don’t run when you can walk, and don’t walk when you can just call someone who is closer to the scene of the crime.’”

“Today the superhero biz is all about appearance, not action. For example, a few years back there was this very popular heroine called The Maiden who had this beautiful ringlet hair. Top-shelf looker. Then on a lark one summer she cut her hair real short. I think she now does some field reporting for the Oxygen Network.”

“Being a superhero has always been a hard road. You assume because you have the will to help people and the desire to do good you’ve got what it takes. But then some crazy bastard points a raygun at your genitals and suddenly you’re thinking, “Gee, would it have killed me to become a big and tall men’s tailor like my dad? Of course not!” Well, not literally, any way.”

“Once Google started their own superhero unit, the rest of us were fucked.”