Comments on: Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #56

By: Ian Z Lachut

Ian Z Lachut — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 06:10:53 +0000

"Thatâ€™s not really a fair approximation. When Beast originally said it, he was obviously not being serious. It was pretty clearly a sarcastic, deadpan joke.

The explanation that came later was for the people who didnâ€™t get the joke the first time. "

Thats what I always thought, but a lot of people thought Morrison was going for some radical shift there and that the explanation was Marvel backtracking. I was just wondering if we could get a full-on examination you know? So the official story would be out there.

By: Rodrigo Baeza

Rodrigo Baeza — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 19:57:16 +0000

Ok, something happened to the formatting of my previous message. In case it's not clear: the first part is in response to John Seavey's question about Marvel threatening to sue Valiant for "X-O Manowar", and the second part is in response to Jamie Colville's question about whether First Comics or Now Comics sued Marvel and DC in the 80's.

By: Rodrigo Baeza

Rodrigo Baeza — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 19:55:05 +0000

> This happened. Marvel sent Valiant a letter (probably a "cease-and-desist" letter) which I remember seeing in one of Mile High's monthly subscription service catalogs (Mile High's Chuck Rozanski is a good friend of Jim Shooter). One of the early issues of X-O Manowar then featured a Steve Englehart character named "X-Calibre" (who had originally appeared in the creator-owned "Coyote" comics published by Marvel), in order to show that there had been in the past other non-Marvel characters whose names began with the letter "X". > It was First Comics, this case was extensively covered by the Comics Journal.

By: yo go re

yo go re — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 07:51:30 +0000

The rumor is that Wolverine's mask changed from its original, animalistic look to the one with the big head-wings because Gil Kane drew it wrong (either accidentally, because he didn't know, or intentionally, because he didn't like it) on the cover of Giant Size X-Men #1, and that Dave Cockrum then had to go through the entire issue, which was otherwise finished, and re-draw the mask.

It's a good story - the image of Cockrum, called in at the last minute, furiously inking new ears on every drawing of Logan and handing the pages off to a waiting copy boy, who would run them downstair to the camera - but is it true? And if it is, why did Kane redesign things on the fly?

By: Brian Cronin

Brian Cronin — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 07:34:18 +0000

Ha!

That's a great story, Cej!

By: Cej

Cej — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 00:56:29 +0000

I saw Shooter at a convention circa 1983. Despite all the terrible stories I've heard about him since, he was great toward this 13 year old comic fan. He talked about living with Cockrum, and according to Shooter, the splash page in X-Men 103(?) with Firelord flying into the scene was based on a pose of Shooter in his briefs and holding a broom (for Firelord's staff). He acted out the whole scene.

By: Apodaca

Apodaca — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 21:42:17 +0000

"I would like to see an explanation about whether or not Grant Morrison really intended Beast to be gay in New X-men, or if it was just an off-handed joke as it was explained away as later."

That's not really a fair approximation. When Beast originally said it, he was obviously not being serious. It was pretty clearly a sarcastic, deadpan joke.

The explanation that came later was for the people who didn't get the joke the first time.

By: Ted Watson

Ted Watson — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 18:51:47 +0000

I, too, agree about the other genres, and was totally disappointed in DC's "Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told" tpb. So many superheroes which were actually in decline at the time, and no Roy Raymond TV Detective at all. Even the few westerns presented involved double-identity heroes. One of the text pieces let slip that there was an executive edict that only series entries were to be included, which didn't justify the selections anyway (and an exception for romance was obviously made in the event).

By: Jamie Coville

Jamie Coville — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 17:29:32 +0000

How about that lawsuit.. I think it was First Comics (or maybe Now) that sued Marvel/DC in the early 80s for anti-competitive behaviour and won (but only got a very small dollar amount - as in $1).

I believe the arguement was DC/Marvel had figured out the direct market could support 75 ongoing titles. When the indy publishers began to get popular, they then flood the market with the thought that the indy readers were Zombies with money left over and they'd drop the indy books and spend it on the new Marvel titles.

The lawsuit stopped a discussion/negotiation between Marvel and DC in where DC would stop making comics themselves and just license the characters to Marvel to make.

By: Ian Z Lachut

Ian Z Lachut — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 17:06:41 +0000

I would like to see an explanation about whether or not Grant Morrison really intended Beast to be gay in New X-men, or if it was just an off-handed joke as it was explained away as later.

By: John Seavey

John Seavey — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 10:19:33 +0000

One Urban Legend I'd like to see verified/debunked/explained: I'd heard that at one point, Marvel tried/threatened to sue Valiant Comics over the use of the letter "X" in "X-O Manowar", claiming copyright infringement. Was this true, was it more complicated than that, or was it just one of those things comic book owners hear third-hand and pass along to fans as their inside knowledge?

By: Jim Kosmicki

Jim Kosmicki — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 04:17:37 +0000

I have to second what Steven Grant says in the first post. Just because we look at comics today from a post-Marvel, superhero dominant perspective does not give us the right to dismiss non-superhero genres. Superheroes were the initial fad/catalyst that got comics going, but they barely lasted through the war with very few exceptions. War comics, western, romance, crime, funny animal, teen humor, horror, educational ala Classics Illustrated and Treasure Chest, all were significant genres for far, far longer than superheroes in their initial flurry. And they proved their worth as genres in a highly competitive market when almost all children and close to 50% of adults responded that they read comics at least sometimes. It was only well after the Code, the Wertham scandal, and the rise of TV hit comics with a whole sequence of knockout punches that comics went back to the two genres that they could still do more easily than TV or movies: Science Fiction/fantasy and superheroes. But the market for those genres has never been as strong as the other, more mainstream genres, and the continual sales decline for comics since the 50's has only borne that out.

By: Bill Reed

Bill Reed — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 18:36:22 +0000

Holy crap, that first story's insane.

By: Steven Grant

Steven Grant — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 16:47:58 +0000

Brian, Brian, Brian: Crime comics were not a "fad." Anything that lasts eight years is not a "fad," and sales on the book weren't slowed so much by dwindling reader interest, though of course by the mid-'50s there was dwindling reader interest across the board, as by the creation of the Comics Code, CRIME DOES NOT PAY being one of the things the Code was specifically instituted (basically by an alliance of Archie Comics, by then viewing itself as the bastion of all that's right and decent in American comics, and DC Comics, which controlled much of comics distribution through IND distributors) to shut down. (EC Comics being the other, ironic considering the Code was originally Bill Gaines' idea, which Archie and DC took and shut him out.) Superhero comics were, in fact, deader than San Fernando Valley orange groves by the time CRIME DOES NOT PAY shut its doors, and had the Comics Code not come along and comics survived anyway (which they almost certainly would have, since the heat on them was dwindling by that time as well), crime comics might well be the dominant force in the business today rather than superheroes. But we'll never know for sure. - Grant