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Burbank's First Name

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RichZ

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Jan 5, 2010, 12:55:08 PM1/5/10
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I think the general consensus is that Burbank's first name was never
revealed in The Shadow, is this correct? I am in the process of reading
The Death Giver, Burbank does use a business card which says 'L
Burbank', is this as close as it gets to his name?

Kent Allard

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Jan 5, 2010, 2:05:49 PM1/5/10
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In article <icydnWAVgd5g4d7W...@powerusenet.com>,
RichZ <rz...@stny.rr.com> wrote:

I think so. John Olsen has read every Shadow umpteen times, and here's what he
says.

http://www.spaceports.com/~deshadow/agents2/burbank.html

John Olsen

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Jan 5, 2010, 4:06:34 PM1/5/10
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Is Burbank his first name or last? Judging from "The Death Giver," it's
his last name. And his first? As you point out, the story does give the
initial "L" as a clue. "L. Burbank." Hmmm... Larry? Leonard? Linus? Your
guess is as good as mine. But since Harry Vincent has a business card
"H. Vincent" and Burbank has a business card "L. Burbank" I think we can
safely assume they weren't using aliases, and the intial "L" is a valid one.

John

--


"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!"
The wonderful old pulp mystery stories are all reviewed at:

http://www.spaceports.com/~deshadow/


Captain Marvel

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Jan 5, 2010, 5:09:13 PM1/5/10
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In my limited experience reading the Shadow (a million thanks to
Anthony Tollin) I've found Burbank to be an interesting character even
though he doesn't get as much face time as the Shadow's other
agents.

I also found it interesting that comic book heroine Barbara Gordon
(former Batgirl), as Oracle, has become a present day version of
Burbank. Over the last few years I've sometimes wondered if the
architects of Barbara's transformation into Oracle (Kim Yale and
husband John Ostrander according to the Wiki article) had Burbank in
mind.

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