The Batcave II

Okay, have I mentioned that I have a room upstairs completely devoted to my comic book collection? I have two dozen long boxes and a bookshelf full of geek stuff, and some cool posters. I have some Bill Sienkiewicz art on the wall, a kick ass Alex Ross Space Ghost poster, and my pride and joy, some framed Neil Adams Avengers pages. Envy me, fanboy.

Elsewhere in the house is the Secret Chamber, where I keep all my Velvet Marauder stuff.

Without getting into too much detail, I have a hidden door that leads into a room behind my never-used fireplace. I’m pretty sure the renters who lived in the house before me used the Secret Chamber as a grow room, because when I bought the house it smelled like pot in there.

The Secret Chamber is pretty fucking cool. I can’t afford proper subterranean headquarters, but I still wanted it to feel like a superhero hideout, so I kind of went crazy with the interior décor.

A motion sensor triggers recessed lighting when you open the secret door, and a small spotlight illuminates a jumbo Velvet Marauder logo on the opposite wall. My costume is mounted on a pedestal in one corner in a Plexiglas display tube -- sort of like how Batman has the dead Robin costume on display in the Batcave. It's very dramatic, it's got its own little floodlight and everything.

The command console takes up an entire wall of the not-so-big chamber. Honestly, it’s just a computer, a panel of six video screens, and assorted paraphernalia, but all the hardware is mounted into this custom console that makes it look like more “superhero” if you know what I mean. My close-circuit cameras in the front and back of the house feed into the command unit, and get this – if you ring the doorbell, red alert lights switch on in the command center to let me know I have a visitor/intruder. Cool, huh?

I designed the whole chamber myself. The floor is polished black Formica. The walls are covered with dull-finish metal sheeting that look suitably militant. I have a couple steel girders on the ceiling. They’re not load-bearing or anything, they just look like the kind of thing you'd have in a secret headquarters. I threw in a couple of finishing touches like pointless blinking lights and a flat screen video map of Evergreen City on one wall.

I love my Secret Chamber. Most nights I don’t even watch movies in the living room, I just kick it in the Chamber with some pizza and watch DVDs on the command console.

I have this recurring fantasy where Margo finds out my secret identity. She’s over at my house having drinks or something and she accidentally finds the entrance to the Secret Chamber while I’m out of the room. I find her in the Chamber, stunned, checking out the Velvet Marauder set-up. She turns to me and says, “Somehow, I’ve always known.” Then she falls into my arms and we kiss and kiss.

File this fantasy under: "Fat Fucking Chance"