STORY SYNOPSIS & SONGS
1905 Sophia Crabbe, a svelte and scrumptious beauty queen, first encounters Digbie Crabbe -- a crab deity formerly worshiped by the ancient Egyptians and now appearing at various celebrity functions in the United States and Canada -- at a beauty contest wherein she is competing and he is serving as a celebrity judge. Sophia falls in love with Digbie during the course of the pageant, but in the excitement of the moment she confuses love for hunger and tries to eat him. Digbie quickly sets her to rights, severing one of her ears with his magical pincer, and their love blossoms. While recovering from her injury, Sophia inadvertently drinks the glass of water in which Digbie had been sitting during the contest, whereupon Buster is immediately born from her ear cavity.
1914 Buster's special powers soon become manifest when, at the moist and tender age of six, he retroactively frees the slaves in an ex post facto feat that has never been completely understood, and certainly never equaled. Buster contemplates his special calling in Buster's Lament. Not long afterward, Buster's parents take him to the infamous Cirkus Modak, where the nefarious ringmaster clown Modak, evil master of puppets, kills Digbie and serves him to Buster as Crabcakes.
1923 Buster covers the emotional scars of his feast by channeling his supernatural abilities into the superficial world of film, and he quickly becomes a sensation as Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and other superheroes. At this time he becomes entangled with the physically and psychologically infirm Norah Gunta, who threatens to make him Forget to Breathe. Norah's psychotic machinations engender frequent hallucinations in Buster, during which he becomes the twisted little nevish, Two-Saw George. Buster laments the cruel workings of love in I'm Lonely.
1941 Buster's experiences with Norah force him back onto the path of righteousness, and he rededicates his life to the performance of manly and virtuous acts. He becomes a hero in World War II, using the skills he developed as an Olympic swimmer to place mines under Nazi ships. Modak, angered by Buster's newfound moral rectitude, sends his right-hand man, Boris Kräbs, to maim him. Boris, who is secretly married to Norah, confronts Buster underneath a Nazi warship where, during the course of their titanic underwater struggle, he professes his mission in I am the Anti-Crab, and reveals that they are brothers. This sudden revelation allows Boris to defeat Buster, who sinks into the depths while lamenting his fate in Brothers.
1968 After having been missing for twenty-seven years, Buster mysteriously reappears as a special guest star on an episode of the Batman TV series, prompting Octavius Snow to label him The Deadest Man Alive. In a characteristic confusion of fantasy with reality, Buster then confesses his love to Lee Merriweather in Catwoman. Buster's reappearance catapults him to worldwide fame, and he decides to put his newfound status to use as a politician.
1977 Buster becomes a powerful political figure, and the masses sing his praises in Ode to Buster. He then inexplicably takes on the cryptic Spanish puppeteer Seņor Wences as his right-hand man, a move that miraculously puts him on the fast track to become world dictator. Octavius sings of Seņor Wences's mysterious influence in Seņor Wences Song. As a result of his relapse into superficiality, Buster begins to be haunted by Ghosts from his past, and relives his nightmarish experiences with Norah in No One Stands (Alone).
1986 Buster, with the help of Seņor Wences's magical puppets, carries his campaign for world dictator to the masses, and proclaims his quest for world peace. Secretly, he deplores his shallowness, of which he sings in Pop Song.
1995 After an eighteen year campaign, Buster is on the verge of becoming world dictator and bringing peace in our time. His hard-earned success brings on another fit of reminiscence, during which he sings Break Me Like a Rock. On election day, he recovers sufficiently to learn of his unanimous selection as world dictator, but his joy and unforeseen rapture at the prospect of finally realizing his calling and bringing perfect peace and happiness to the masses is cut short by Seņor Wences, who in the Finale reveals that he is in fact the evil master of puppets, Modak, in disguise, and then kills Buster, thus plunging the world into eternal warfare.
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