L.L. BURBANK

Real Name: L.L. Burbank (first name unrevealed; see comments)

Identity/Class: Extradimensional (Earth-712/Earth-S) human technology user

Occupation: Movie director

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Squadron Supreme (Amphibian, Cap’n Hawk, Doctor Spectrum, Golden Archer, Hyperion, Lady Lark, Tom Thumb, Whizzer)

Enemies: None

Known Relatives: Master Menace (Emil Burbank (brother))

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Mobile on Earth-712

First Appearance: Thor I#280 (February, 1979)

Powers/Abilities: L.L. Burbank was a renowned film director, and was skilled at operating the advanced motion picture cameras provided by Hyperion.

History: (Thor I#280 (fb) – BTS) – The past of L.L. Burbank is unrevealed, but at some point he chose a different path in life than his criminally-inclined brother and entered the film industry.

  As an act of charity to help his world’s League of Nations Children’s Fund, the heroic Hyperion agreed to make a movie featuring the public portions of his life -- the movie was to be directed by L.L. Burbank .

  (Thor I#280) – Since one segment of the film would deal with the clash between the Squadron Supreme and the Avengers (@ Avengers I#148), Hyperion used a dimensional teleporter to travel to Earth-616 and enlist the aid of the Avengers. But the other Avengers were away from their mansion, so Hyperion took Thor to his world and gave him a guided tour. When the two heroes got to the film set, Hyperion introduced the thunder god to the film's director. Burbank hastily excused himself because he had to check on some script re-writes, but he commented that he loved Thor’s “nutty” accent.

Comments: Created by Roy Thomas and Wayne Boring.

…and while Burbank was at his script conference, his evil brother Emil showed up with Hyperion’s duplicate from Earth-616, and their resultant battle with Thor and the Squadron Supreme gave the crew enough film footage for two movies.

Since Hyperion is the Marvel equivalent of Superman, the “L.L.” in Burbank’s name was probably an in-joke/reference to those initials which are so prevalent among characters in Superman’s life (Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Lex Luthor, Lori Lemaris, etc.) -- he also seems to have a slight resemblance to former DC editor Julius Schwartz.

It was never revealed what the initials in Burbank’s name stood for, so I propose that his full name be Lucas Lee Burbank (after movie directors George Lucas and Ang Lee).

Profile by John Kaminski

CLARIFICATIONS:
L.L. Burbank has no known connections to:

• Burballak, mystic entity invoked by Urthona @ Dr. Strange III#58
• Carl Burbank, aka. Bushwhacker @ Daredevil I#248
• any other characters with similar names

images:
Thor I#280, p15, pan2