And about inflation. Jer rightly points out that price and wage controls are heavy-handed interventions, but like many people seems not to realize that rising prices and wages are not the cause of inflation, but rather a result of inflation. It is monetary inflation that usually leads to price increases, as the value of the currency is driven down. Our monetary supply is mostly controlled by the Federal Reserve and the fractional reserve banking system. The Fed has long had a policy of small but continual inflation every year–usually about 3% a year. The more recent Quantitative Easings would have been disastrous if the banks hadn’t been cautious about lending out that money. As it is, QE has still resulted in more noticeable price inflation in the last couple of years.
I’m not trying to rant or lecture–I’m just trying to correct an economic urban legend.

Interesting that the subject came up shortly before Marvel came up with the idea, though. Maybe Quesada was watching the DVD commentary (or reading this article!) shortly before he pitched it…

Note how Lee has not been used as a source for any of these Urban Legends so far – the guy, great as he is, just doesn’t have the best memory, and he seems to go by the theory of “If I don’t remember it, let me just go with what sounds most interesting.”

In this interview, Stan Lee himself, said the name ‘Bruce’ was changed because it sounded ‘gay’.

–yo
went to school with Sara Stewart

On the other hand, they are in fact fictional characters and are better remembered with a snappy name, whether it’s their real name or their super-hero name. I don’t see what the problem is, especially when most of them are pretty common first and last names to begin with.

Fictional characters, particularly superheroes who have their “super” names for recognizability, are supposed to be everyday type people with everyday type names. There are some explicit exceptions, of course, but THEY are just that, exceptions.

If it works for entertainment industry figures, why doesn’t it work for fictional characters?

It works for entertainment industry figures the way it allegedly worked for Stan, i.e., it makes the name easier to remember, and it’s important to those folks that WE remember them. I still say such names sound silly in everyday life and, analogously, with fictional characters.

I don’t think Bill Bryson considers alliterative initials silly. Or Mike Marts. Or Stephen Stills, Parker Posey, Robbie Robertson, Mike Myers, Joe Jackson, Jermaine Jackson, Janet Jackson, Geoff Johns (phonetic), Jack Johnson, Ben Browder, Claudia Christian, Alan Alda, Don Davis, Dom DeLouise, Mark Millar, Gary Groth, Helen Hunt, Holly Hunter, Chris Kattan, Kevin Keegan, Dana Delaney, Noel Neill, Barry Bonds, Bob Barker, Brigitte Bardot, Ted Turner…

I don’t believe Stan actually made it to Nixon’s enemies list. It sounded more like a little bureaucratic issue.

It’s not really an urban legend as such, but I’d like to know whatever happened to the Doctor Strange series JMS was supposed to be doing, and which kept being footnoted and set-up in issues of Amazing Spider-Man, and ended up with Strange bing whisked off to stand on trial for crimes against the timestream in ASM #500, complete with a “To be continued in Doctor Strange #1″. The subsequent orgin retelling that JMS co-wrote doesn’t seem to have much to do with that plotline, so what happened to JMS’ original series? Did it get cancelled, turned into the origin miniseries, or is it still on the way?

Was there a New Avengers tie-in issue that featured Daredevil as a member in previews, only to include “Ronin” when it was published? I don’t remember which book it would be, but I recall it waas one of the third-tier titles, possibly one of the anthology books, and undoubtedly cancelled since.

Oh, and did Warren Ellis really [SPOILER!] tell fans that Planetary‘s Elijah Snow wasn’t the “Fourth Man” because he’d made the mystery far too obvious?

That one’s been nagging me for a while

Regards!