Told that, I think that it is absurd saying that someone stole his ideas.

About the Harlan Ellison thing, there is a lot of EC comics stories that suffer from the same thing regarding Ray Bradbury. Man… I think inspiration comes from a lot of places (you have the Terminator movie as an example).

When one says about someone’s habit of stealing ideas, he must be very careful!!!!

Well, technically, it would have been “Six Months Later”, since the heroes were on Battleworld for six months, if I recall correctly.

>>> I’m not sure whether The Witness was originally intended to be Gambit, although I’d place my money on it.

Well, in his first appearance, it was revealled that the real name of The Witness was also the real name of Gambit (and, in fact, Bishop making that connection was the first time Gambit’s real name was ever actually revealled), so either they were originally intended to be one and the same, or the intent was to at least trick everyone into thinking they were one in the same.

>>> I could most definitely be wrong here,but I just remember him being involved in the Mastrmold/Nimrod batrtel in New York when the team went through the crystal at the end of the issue.

The Master Mold/Nimrod fight was in 246-247, at the end of which Rogue was sucked into the Siege along with the giant robot. The other X-Men didn’t enter the Siege until issue 250. Longshot left in-between those two events.

Ultram.

About Crimson Fox: One would think that the name of the late comedian, Red Foxx, would be more likely to be the cause of DC’s decision to rename their character, than some obscure British comic’s.

Perhaps, but that’s not the case.

Question for a future edition:

Over on the the ‘Rama Talk@ Marvel boards there’s a thread ( http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=126838 ) running about a Steve Ditko cover to Amazing Fantasy #15 that was ditched for the one we all know (the poster found the image over on Sam Ruby’s site, I think). Can we get the dirt on what happened to this Ditko cover that was never used? (that is, unless it has already been in a past Urban Legends that I just don’t know about…)

Amusingly enough, that thread links to the urban legend installment on the topic!

I doubt the last one is really a case of swiping BWS idea. It strikes me more as an idea whose time had come. I also note that I, at least did not read the rumor until after Bill Mantlo could not defend himself. One wonders why BWS didn’t bring it up earlier.

Over on the the ‘Rama Talk@ Marvel boards there’s a thread ( http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=126838 ) running about a Steve Ditko cover to Amazing Fantasy #15 that was ditched for the one we all know (the poster found the image over on Sam Ruby’s site, I think). Can we get the dirt on what happened to this Ditko cover that was never used? (that is, unless it has already been in a past Urban Legends that I just don’t know about…)

If both DC and Marvel received joint trademark onwership on “Super-Hero”, did they co-own “Super Villain” too?

I’m not absolutely certain, but as both companies have released books with “Super-Villain” in the title, it’s pretty safe to say they do. Marvel currently has the book “Super-Villain Team-Up Modok’s 11″, and DC will be issuing a Showcase TP of “Secret Society of Super-Villains” featuring stories from the 1970s title of the same name. The current Marvel book even harkens back to that company’s own short-lived 1970s title, which seemed to primarily be a Dr Doom team-up book. (More accurately, the book was a Dr Doom/Sub-Mariner title for 11 of the 17 issues, Doom/Red Skull for 3 issues, Doom/Magneto for 1 issue, and the Red Skull/Hate-Monger for 2 issues. There were also 2 Giant-Size issues, both featuring Doom & Sub-Mariner.)

While Byrne may well have said that, it’s a little unfair, since Mantlo was off the book by the time this happened. The issues shown were by James Hundall unless my memory is completely messing with my head.

As I mentioned before, while Hudnall wrote the majority of the stories with Dream Queen in them, she was introduced into the comic by Mantlo.

Hudnall took over the book soon after.

I can’t speak, though, as to whether Mantlo did this thing often – this is the only time I’ve heard of him doing this sort of thing, but obviously, I could just be unfamiliar with other instances.

While Byrne may well have said that, it’s a little unfair, since Mantlo was off the book by the time this happened. The issues shown were by James Hundall unless my memory is completely messing with my head.