First Friday's Just for Fun: Comic Book Librarians

I don't have a guest post lined up for today (this time of year seems to be soul-crushingly busy for most of the inhabitants of Biblioterra). However, "necessity is the mother of invention," so I've decided to that I'll publish a Just for Fun post on the first Friday of every month. [The crowd goes wild.]

For the inaugural First Friday's Just for Fun, I'm going to be true to my nerd nature and talk about comic books. Specifically, my favorite comic book librarians.

Barbara Gordon/Batgirl:

Yvonne Craig as Batgirl.

As popular culture representations of librarians go, Barbara Gordon (the second Batgirl), is one of the more popular amongst us librarian-types. Not only does she kick bad guy tuches, but she's also got a PhD in Library Science. This combination means she's a superhero twice over.

Lucien:

Lucien in his element.

Lucien is the Chief (and only) Librarian of the Dreaming. (The Dreaming is the realm of Morpheus/Sandman - the eponymous lead character of Neil Gaiman's comic book series. If you haven't read it, you really should.) His library houses a copy of every book of which anybody has ever dreamed, even the ones that have never been written. He doesn't have a library science degree, but he does run the coolest library ever.

Rex Libris:

Rex Libris is not to be messed with.

A comic book series where the lead character is a librarian? Yes, please. Rex used to work at a library of which you may have heard: The Royal Library of Alexandria. He slipped out to run an errand and when he returned he found the place had been destroyed. Many centuries later, he's still working in the same industry, in overdue book retrieval. Evil doers with overdue fines, beware.

Stanislaus Johns:

Detective Comics 643: Library of Souls

Any talk of comic books wouldn't really be complete without at least one villain. Enter Stanislaus Johns, lunatic and murderer. In DC 643, "Library of Souls," Batman finds dead bodies scattered around Gotham. They are all wearing jackets that have had numbers stitched onto them... Dewey Decimal numbers as it turns out. Stanislaus Johns is finally identified because of his peculiar way of cataloging. You see [gasp!] Johns refused to use the most recent version of DDC and the mousy librarian who helps Batman recognizes Johns' cataloging. This comic is so bad that it's good. The kitsch factor makes Stanislaus one of my favorite popular culture representations of librarianship and my favorite comic book librarian of all time.

How about you? Do you have a favorite comic book librarian? Who is it? Why do you like him or her?