This is "My Name It is Nothin'," a look at when comic books guest star celebrities, but their names are changed so as to avoid any legal problems. Today, based on a suggestion by reader Riccardo N., we look at Isaac Asimov in a way that you have never seen him before - as a muck monster fighting Superman!

Isaac Asimov was one of the most famous science fiction authors of all-time. He is perhaps best known today for formulating the so-called "Three Laws of Robotics," which he developed in his short stories featuring robots in the 1940s, namely:

First Law – A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Second Law – A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Third Law – A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Unlike some of his other contemporaries, Asmiov did not have as much overlap with the world of comic books. That is, except for a famous story that claimed that Asimov was friendly with Mort Weisinger from back when Weisinger was a literary agent for science fiction authors (but not Asimov) and that Weisinger went to Asimov to settle a debate with Albert Einstein:

An MIT class sent Mort a letter from Albert Einstein, who asserted that nothing, not even Superman, could move faster than the speed of light. Mort consulted his "good friend" Isaac Asimov, the science fiction writer, who said that "Professor Einstein's statement is based on theory. Superman's speed is based on fact."

As I detailed in an old Comic Book Legends Revealed, however, Asimov said just a few years after that story first started showing up places that, "I assure you it never happened and I never said it, but it will be repeated, I am quite certain, indefinitely, and it will probably be found in Bartlett's quotations a century from now, attributed to me, after all my writings have been forgotten."

Perhaps in response to Asimov's rebuttal in 1980, he showed up in a Superman comic book at the end of that year in a story by Cary Bates (with artwork by Curt Swan and Frank Chiaramonte) in Superman #355. Here, Asimov is, instead, Asa Ezaak, and he is a bit of a condescending jerk to Lois Lane at a science conference....

Weird things seem to be happening when the moon gets full in Metropolis and it turns out that Ezaak has some theories about this whole deal...

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As it turns out, he is talking to Jimmy Olsen, who he has captured! He plans on injecting himself with a special "potion" that gives him gravity powers! He is now Momentus!

Yup, he's now a big ol' muck monster...

Jimmy Olsen manages to get help from Superman and they go to Ezaak's place where they discover that he grew tired of just writing about science fiction, he now wanted to OWN all sorts of wonderful science objects!

As it turned out, though, Ezaak didn't think ENOUGH about science, as Superman used science to stop him and it all led to Ezaak's death!

I'd really love to know whether it really was a case of someone being irked at Asimov or if this was all just meant as no shot as Asimov at all.

Thanks for the suggestion, Riccardo!

Okay, people, there are obviously TONS of great examples of this sort of thing in comic book history, so get thy selves to thine e-mail and send in suggestions for future editions of My Name It is Nothin' to brianc@cbr.com!