THE TROUBLE WITH GIRLS

Lester Girls is an adventurer.

He does not really want to be. He wants to be a normal guy, someone who wakes in the morning to enjoy a breakfast reading the paper, head to a boring everyday job in his middle-income car, maybe some friendly jawing at the water cooler, heading home to a simple dinner of meat and potatoes and then reading a good book in his armchair before retiring, planning to do it all over again the next day.

Unfortunately...as is put beautifully in The Comic Book Heroes, "A guy named Lester Girls, who just wants to live the quiet life with a mousy wife in a bungalow in a small town. But he's cursed to live the life of the American mass media dream - dames, action, Ferraris, caviar, 7.8 percent of the world's wealth". Wikipedia laments, "Lester can't go for a drive without terrorists launching missiles at him, or walk into one of his many mansions without a beautiful, talented, curvaceous woman reposing half-dressed on his bed. Wealth, adventure, sexual magnetism, dashing good looks, and the savoir faire of a Hollywood action hero are what he calls 'the curse of Girls'". What an unbearable shoulder load to carry!

Girls is shown to be a quite tall, brawny individual with short dark hair and frequently wearing glasses. He is ruggedly handsome and, as you gathered by the statements above, incredibly wealthy and constantly having to deal with the attentions of scores of scantily clad, if at all, women wanting to get to know him better.

By his own words in a 'Confidential' essay he would write, Girls "was born in Dullsville, USA, the quietest place in which you'd ever want to laze away your life". It was there that his father, the incredibly famous Chester Girls, moved to escape the kind of life that Lester Girls now has to deal with; this coming as a result of his father having "won World War II by accident". Lester Girls never knew his mother as he was left on Chester's doorstep with "an anonymous note saying we were his". The 'we' is referring to Lester and his twin brother, Cal - what happened to Cal is ... well, just never mind.

Girls has his best friend in fellow Dullsville alum, Apache Dick, a fellow with whom Girls once fought for hours until they decided they were just too evenly matched and decided to become best buds and later blood brothers. Apache is always there for Lester, helping him make use of the sports cars and sleek jets and millions of dollars and scads of amorous woman.

On the negative side of his life, Girls is constantly having to deal with Maxi Scoops, a "pesky reporter who'd do anything to get the exclusive" on Girls' life. She is described as a "swaggering, driven, chain-smoking creature". No matter where he goes, it seems that Scoops is able to track him down and annoy him with offers of anything and everything to get inside info on him.

And then there is the lascivious Lizard Lady who enjoys dressing in ultra-tight full-body fishnet and a nun's headpiece. She is frequently at odds with Girls while also captivated by him and it seems if she cannot have him, let the alligators have a go!

One final word - Girls is in this compendium because he is constantly being asked to help out on this matter or that by the CIA and that probably explains why the terrorists are always after him.

I firmly believe that if I had to deal with the sort of problems Lester Girls has to put up with - wealth in the gazillions and all the trappings it brings and dozens of sexy gorgeous women throwing themselves at him, well, I'd get tired of it, too. Well, it might take a decade or four. Of course, the constant attacks by terrorists would get old pretty fast.

This is a wonderfully silly, over-the-top send-up of the stereotypical action hero done to extremes and having a blast with it. I loved it. I read them all - in small doses - and was glad I did.