Buckaroo Banzai
“This article wrote itself. Thank you, Jeff Goldblum, you Jewish cowboy you.”
Dr. Buckaroo Banzai is a physicist, neurosurgeon, rock musician, Samurai, Jet Car driver and Comic Book hero. He has made many contributions to humanity, saved the earth on at least two occasions.
Early Life[edit]
Buckaroo was born in 1950, in London, to the physicists Masado Banzai and Sandra Willoughby. At the age of four his parents died testing out a prototype of the Oscillation Overthruster, a device that could pass though solid matter. It was later determined that a shadowy underworld figure named Hanoi Xan had placed an incendiary device in the vehicle and both his parents were killed in the ensuing explosion. Raised in a modest mansion deep in the Colorado Rockies by a friend of his parents, Professor Hikita, he became a Rennaisance man. Amongst his other professional achievements Buckaroo mastered a dozen languages, became a black-belt in Bujutsu, and was faster with a sixgun then Wyatt Earp. He formed a rock band called the Hong Kong Cavaliers; an eclectic mix of other scientists made up the band. Every man was a top-notch researcher, well-respected in their respective fields.
Adventures Across The 8th Dimension[edit]
At the age of 34, Banzai successfully tested one of his jet cars which had been equipped with his own Oscillation Overthruster, passing through a mountain in Texas and into the back room of the Suds Hog Bar in Amarillo.
But all was not well! In a titanic battle for the very future of the Earth, Buckaroo and his band of merry musicians had to stop Dr. Emilio Lizardo, head of Yoyodyne propulsion systems, from using the device as a means of opening a portal to the 8th dimension. The 8th dimension is inhabited by Red Lectroids, who are just poopy and are also very bad guitar players. Yoyodyne was operated by about 1,000 Red Lectroids who had come to earth in October 1938 and, though reported by Orson Welles, many took the Martian landing in Grover's Mill, New Jersey as fiction.
Rival Black Lectroids had informed Banzai that if he did not stop the army of invading Red Lectroids lead by Lizardo that they would be forced to start a Cold War scare and destroy every donut on Earth. Using his nearly superhuman intelligence and his determined but vulnerable sexy facial expressions, Buckaroo destroyed the Red Lectroids, saving Earth.
But still all was not well. His sweetheart, collaborator, and second in command, Penny, died in an unfortunate accident while participating in a donkey show while vacationing at Juarez, Mexico. Soon after, Buckaroo learned that his method of doing calculus always gave the wrong answers.
World Crime League[edit]
Run by Hanoi Xan the World Crime League (WCL) was Banzai's next great adventure. Working with the Cavaliers again he infiltrated their base in Bermuda in 1995. Banzai had spent the last ten years since the Yoyodyne incident investigating and learning about the WCL, convinced that almost all of the world's crimes were planned by an organization of vast wealth, connections and resources. His first crack in the case came in 1991 when he got information from Lloyd Kaufman, a crime boss in Chicago, that he was working under orders of higher-ups. Tracing the names of bosses up the ladder of power Banzai eventually traced the source of the WCL to a man called Hanoi Xan.
Xan proved a very skilled opponent, and difficult to track down. The Cavaliers and Banzai infultrated their Head Quarters in 1995, arresting some 75 world crime bosses, but the mysterious Xan had left the day before, aparently aware of the impending raid. Banzai continued to track Xan for five years. In 2000 he aprehended Xan in Pun-Tang, North Korea, Xan's home. The two had never before met, but Xan, now an elderly man, had studied Banzai for most of his life, and aimed to be just as skilled as Banzai in everything he undertook, with the exception that Xan chose to put his extraordinary talents to work for evil. Xan was a master of all the same talents as Banzai, but instead of using his knowledge of neuroscience, for example, as a means of helping others he used it to inflict pain and torture on prisoners.
Banzai and Xan fought in Xan's ancestral home. Xan was an equal match to Banzai in Bujutsu, and only when each were given a khatana were Banzai's superior skills proved. Xan was cremated and had his ashes dumped in international waters, so no country would have to be the location of his remains.
Retirement[edit]
Having caused the collapse of the WLC, then aged 45, Banzai effectively retired in 1995. He now lives in Newark, New Jersey, and occasionally still practices medicine and writes childrens books. He is married to actress Ellen Barkin.
Comics[edit]
Banzai is a well-known hero in the Marvel Universe, with stories about his real adventures and fictitious ones. He is included as a member of Justice League International.
Appearances
The True Stories of Dr. Buckaroo Banzai May 1980-June 1983
Buckaroo Banzai: Real Hero Jan 1984-Sept 2000
Marvel Super Special #33
Justice League International #7, 18, 19, 20, 45, 102
Rock Musician[edit]
Along with the Hong Kong Cavaliers Banzai enjoyed a 30 year career as a popular East Jersey musician. Banzai is known to be able to compose songs in all 12 languages which he mastered, and though the Cavaliers primarily stayed in the US they did do one world tour in 1997, where the skill came in handy. (The actual reason for the tour was so that Banzai could continue to track Xan, and merely put on a show in the cities he travelled to.) The band refuses to break up even though they have not performed since 2004. They have released no albums, insisting on being known as a live band, but thanks to the internet some of their music from concerts is available online. The band has taken no measures to stop the Internet leaks.