Comments on: Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #64

By: Brian Cronin

Brian Cronin — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 01:59:08 +0000

Hehe…I guess I SHOULD add “DC’s” to the legend.

By: anthreed

anthreed — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 01:37:03 +0000

Jeff –
On the “Earth X” bit (NOT the Alex Ross ones!) I had the same thought. What’s after this, “Paradise [Swastika]“? “Earth [Tilde]“? “Universe [Schwa]“?

Oh, oh, oh! The OTHER company’s Earth-X.

Gotcha.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 07:12:27 +0000

I take it I’m the only one who read the Urban Legend, was intrigued why Alex Ross wanted to call his series Earth Swastika, then had no idea what was being talked about until the mention of Earths 1, 2, and 3?

Imagine: first the Nazis take over the Earth, then the Universe (swastika)…

By: bgxgiqrgfw

bgxgiqrgfw — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 20:21:54 +0000

http://eausrtibcs.com

By: upCqARG0M1

upCqARG0M1 — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 16:54:09 +0000

Hi! Very nice site! Thanks you very much! WHeN1qjOVLSQ

By: Zeke

Zeke — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 00:07:30 +0000

Gah! Don’t start that again. The Kilg%re debate raged through the FLASH lettercols for about a year. There was no consensus. Six or seven different versions were proposed, and editor Brian Augustyn left it up to the reader which one was correct. He and the writers had always just said “Kilgore.” (By the way, Brian’s original joke was slightly misquoted above — he said it was pronounced with a long %.)

The timing of that debate was particularly interesting. The Kilg%re first appeared in issues 3 and 4 and wasn’t seen again for a long time. Eventually someone wrote the letter that ignited the debate, saying “You never did tell us how to pronounce Kilg%re.” That letter was printed in issue 42 — which just happened to be the same one where the villain himself returned.

One of my favourite letters made the clever suggestion of reading the percent sign as 0/0… and then blew it by saying zero over zero is zero and should be ignored. If you’ve ever tried it on a calculator, you know you can’t divide by zero. (Well, you can sort of divide zero by zero, but the answer can be whatever you want. In math, we call it an indeterminate form.)

Finally, the debate really heated up when people read issue 43. For a few issues before the Kilg%re story, Wally’s friend Linda (the same Linda he’d end up marrying) had apparently been channeling the spirit of an Irish bard named Seamus O’Relkig. In 43, Wally realized that the one possessing Linda had actually been the Kilg%re — what tipped him off was the fact that “O’Relkig” was an anagram of Kilg%re. But wait, said the readers! Can you do that? It’s not an O, it’s a percent sign — and what about the apostrophe?

The internet didn’t invent fanwank. It just fed it.

- Z

[PS: Saying "Prof. X" aloud is dumb, I agree. But not as dumb as the systematic mispronunciation of "Xavier" in the shows and movies.]

By: C_Master

C_Master — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 03:48:10 +0000

â€œKilg%reâ€ is pronounced like â€œKilgoreâ€

I always pronounced it Kilgolore… taking the % and tilting it a bit to get the “olo”. Worked for me when I was a kid, I guess.

By: D Bernstein

D Bernstein — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 20:50:55 +0000

“â€œKilg%reâ€ is pronounced like â€œKilgoreâ€, but with a modem screech over the â€œoâ€. ”

Thank you!! I needed an answer on that.

By: Ted Watson

Ted Watson — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 19:38:56 +0000

Talking about DC’s real and phony giant replica/reprints has made me think of something. The last two—that *I* know of, anyway—were “Weird Secret Origins” (phony) and “DC One–Hundred Page Super–Spectacular” #6 (real; the first comic in that series/format to focus on super–hero material). The latter is the center of a mystery, as it is only the THIRD issue. Not even any Overstreet edition I’ve examined gives any explanation for it starting at #4, and they are generally pretty good about reporting where the numbering of a series starting at something other than 1 (or 0) came from. They said that Charlton’s Western/super–hero hybrid “Gunmaster” had its numbering picked up by their war/super-hero/martial arts hybrid “Judomaster” and when THAT was cancelled, by “Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt,” as one example. As the practice was reportedly based on saving money for new mailing permits (i.e., no new #1, no new permit, no new fee paid for it), logic demands that DC used those numbers SOMEWHERE! Does anybody here know ANYTHING about those first three (non–)issues?

By: John McDonagh

John McDonagh — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 03:08:03 +0000

http://www.captaincomics.us/forums/index.php?showtopic=14385&hl=Zemo&st=30

I have some urban legends I have accumulated as Scathach80.

By: Superecwfan1

Superecwfan1 — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 23:43:03 +0000

Yeah thats pretty wild….Crisis on Infinite Swastika would have been crazy to see. But yeah…nice column. The GL Annual one was also good as in Wizard I believe at the time they too spoiled that the Annual was from 1998.

By: Andrew Perron

Andrew Perron — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 03:48:14 +0000

Dangit. Less than three.

By: Andrew Perron

Andrew Perron — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 03:36:28 +0000

I disagree!

By: Robert McKinney

Robert McKinney — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 08:47:10 +0000

I think the whole ‘unpronouncable symbol as name’ bit is really silly. A cutesy-pie joke that’s not really that funny.

By: Derek B. Haas

Derek B. Haas — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 05:30:12 +0000

“Kilg%re” is pronounced like “Kilgore”, but with a modem screech over the “o”.

By: Doggie Doo Hop-Skip-And-Jump

Doggie Doo Hop-Skip-And-Jump — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 22:11:15 +0000

Hee! And here I was a-thinkin’ that trying to pronounce Prince’s symbolic alias was a bee-yotch and a half!

By: hostile17

hostile17 — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 19:45:09 +0000

I agree with the contention that “All Star Squadron” was a great book. I remember it from my DC reading days of my youth. My brother would buy them and I would read Marvel, but they put a smile on my face anytime I remember them

By: Omar Karindu

Omar Karindu — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 20:13:04 +0000

But again, at the end of the original story the Nazis are defeated. How can it be “Earth-Nazi” if it’s no longer, y’know, a Nazi-controlled Earth? Wouldn’t it be Earth-formerly-Nazi or Earth-Nazi-until-recently-now-under-new-management?

Of course, the Nazis portrayed were Comic Book Nazis, indistinguishable in behavior from the hordes of HYDRA or the legions of Kobra, and with none of the racist ideology or systematic genocide on display. Playing with an Earth that had only just gotten out from under something closer to real Nazism might be an interesting, if dark story.

By: Green Arrow Jr

Green Arrow Jr — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 19:23:47 +0000

I think calling Earth X Earth swastika would not have been the best idea but going with Earth Nazi might have added some interest.

By: Omar Karindu

Omar Karindu — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 17:31:00 +0000

I read parenthesized dialogue as under-the-breath or sotto voce speech.