Listening to the Lunatik

Of all the opponents the Defenders faced, Lunatik was the most insufferable. As if being a serial killer wasn't bad enough, Lunatik persistently littered his speech with popular song lyrics and catch-phrases of the 1970s.

Growing up in that era, I got some satisfaction in recognizing when Lunatik was quoting the cuckoo bird from Cocoa Puffs or Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones. But identifying the Lunatik's source material was no guarantee that he was making much sense. The Defenders, in fact, tried their hardest to tune him out.

Lunatik turned out to be not one man but several—each a splintered version of an extra-dimensional tyrant named Arisen Tyrk. The truth came out after drama professor Harrison Turk revealed that he too was one of the fragmented selves.

Reading between the lines, I now see the distracting use of quoted material in the Lunatik stories as an indirect indictment against popular culture.

The above image comes from Defenders #70, the issue when Professor Turk revealed he had a connection to Lunatik.