Comments on: Comic Book Legends Revealed #219

By: The Parallels in Censorship Between Comics and Gaming | Golgotron.com

The Parallels in Censorship Between Comics and Gaming | Golgotron.com — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 18:42:21 +0000

[...] to having the last name Wolfman, (supernatural monsters were a no-no) and a sequence in an issue of Nick Fury: Agent of Shield was made more explicit via innuendo from a code approved panel [...]

By: Fred

Fred — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:51:13 +0000

Here’s a nice collection of Milquetoast strips (do you call them strips if they are only one panel?)

http://lileks.com/institute/funny/comics/milquetoast/

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:20:55 +0000

The problem with Danger Unlimited was each issue felt like a tease with no payoff. We kept getting hints and promises of cool stuff, but we never actually got to see the cool stuff.

I think it might have been better if Byrne had started out with at least some of the cool stuff, instead of starting with just the hints.

It was like offering a Fantastic 4 fan-fic to someone who had never actually experienced a Fantastic 4 story.

By: Comics Should Be Good! @ Comic Book Resources » Comic Book Legends Revealed #221

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:50:06 +0000

[...] Travis wrote in after reading the Comic Book Legends Revealed from two weeks ago, where I discussed how John Byrne's series proposal for DC, Freaks, was used as a partial basis for [...]

By: pmpknface

pmpknface — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:58:22 +0000

Steranko was so sick of being edited that he’d wait until the last possible minute to bring pages in so that they didn’t have time to edit them. Specifically Stan the Man himself was one to do it too. I’ve heard Jim tell that story about the gun before. Totally hysterical!

By: Blackjak

Blackjak — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:03:14 +0000

I always wondered why the cockroach in Bloom County was called “Milquetoast”…

Well I never.

As for Steranko. Who cares if he only did a ferw issues for Marvel, as lots of others have pointed out, his talent was amazing. One of my first ever comics was Captain America #111… It utterly blew my mind.

Unlike Kirby, who I didn’t really appreciate until I was much older, Steranko was an artist I adored right off the bat. Maybe it’s the European style, I don’t know…

By: Ed Z

Ed Z — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 23:53:01 +0000

Wasn’t Steranko’s first appearance (or so) of Viper/Madame Hydra censored somehow? I recall hearing that they had him change the whip in her hand to a rope. No idea why one is somehow all that more objectionable than the other – seems kinda silly and downright puzzling to me.

By: Kimota94

Kimota94 — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 21:33:04 +0000

Wow, that Milquetoast legend was complete news to me! I used to wonder why General Ross was always referring to Bruce Banner as a “milquetoast” (or maybe he spelled it “milktoast”, I can’t remember) in the pages of The Incredible Hulk since I hadn’t really heard the word used when I was a kid (in the 70s). Just one more hole in my understanding of the world of comic books now filled by this great column!

By: Alexa D

Alexa D — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:50:14 +0000

I think it’s the combination of the gun and the holster than makes it sexual.

By: DesertSon915

DesertSon915 — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:25:02 +0000

Am I the only person in the world who looks at a long, cylindrical object and DOESN’T immediatly think of penises?

By: Luke

Luke — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 15:24:59 +0000

“Did Steranko sleep with your girlfriend or something?”

More importantly, was it replaced with a phone on the hook and a gun in a holster?

By: Mary Warner

Mary Warner — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 04:37:46 +0000

I’m really shocked that everyone didn’t already know about Casper Milquetoast. I thought he was really famous. Sometimes you even hear someone described as a ‘Casper Milquetoast’, not just a ‘Milquetoast’.

There was a good Milquetoast cartoon printed in one of the 1988 anniversary issues of National Geographic. That was the first time I’d ever seen the actual cartoon itself, but I’d seen references to it in books before.

By: Martin

Martin — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 02:06:55 +0000

>>That one is in the book, Martin

Fair enough! I do seriously plan on buying it when it finally reaches my local bookstore (it hasn’t yet)…even when I thought it was just a compilation of your articles! But knowing that there’s original material is great news!

By: Omar Karindu

Omar Karindu — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:58:52 +0000

There’s at least ione interview of recent provenance in which Ditko states that hewas intentionally drawing Norman in the background issues before the character was even named; in any case, he’s often stated that his differences with Lee were not about the Goblin’s secret identity.

By: Brian Cronin

Brian Cronin — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:55:36 +0000

That one is in the book, Martin.

By: Martin

Martin — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 21:58:32 +0000

Hi Brian, I’m a newcomer to this column but I love it.

I’m just wondering, I’ve looked over the archives, but I don’t think I found any reference to one of the most popular Spider-Man legends of all:

Was part of the reason Steve Ditko left Amazing Spider-Man because of the Green Goblin’s secret identity?

I know a big reason was Steve not feeling properly treated by the company (like Jack Kirby at the time did), but I’ve heard a lot about how he wanted the Green Goblin to be someone other than Norman Osborn (hence why he leaves right before the Goblin is unmasked!). I even hear different versions of who he wanted the Goblin to be; the most common is he wanted him to be “just some ordinary guy”, but I’ve also heard that he wanted him to be Ned Leeds (and that Ned being framed as the Hobgoblin much much later on was an homage to that).

By: The Mutt

The Mutt — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 12:53:43 +0000

Caspar Milquetoast gets a shout out in the Tom Waits song The Piano has been Drinking:

The bouncer is this Sumo wrestler
Cream puff casper milk toast
And the owner is a mental midget
With the I.Q. of a fencepost

By: Andrew Perron

Andrew Perron — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 10:58:48 +0000

This reminds me of another legend I wanted to ask about. In the same story as the buttocks shot comes from (Strange Tales #168, “The Day Earth Died”), there’s an alien who comes to earth in the form of a man (you can see him on that page, in the viewscreen in that middle panel). In the 2000 collected version of Steranko’s stories, he looks exactly like Ozymandias from Watchmen – tanned, blond, purple robe, gold trimmings – he’s even got the headband. Was he like this in the original? If so, was this story an influence on Dave Gibbons and/or Alan Moore?

By: Brian Cronin

Brian Cronin — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 09:10:39 +0000

It’s interesting. I figured that people would get that it was the Comics Code who were pushing for these changes, so I didn’t even mention them in the piece because I thought that was clear, but I see that some folks think that it was just Marvel making editorial decisions. So I’ve edited the piece to reflect the fact that the Comics Code was the driving force on the changes.

By: JosephW

JosephW — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 06:11:58 +0000

Matt Bird wrote, “I don’t see how any of the above changes can be considered censorship. When the editor does it, it’s not censorship, it’s editing.”

Um, no. It’s editing when the editor requests the ARTIST make a change; it’s CENSORSHIP when, as Brian wrote, “Marvel had another artist literally draw the phone ON the hook, because a phone off the hook was too suggestive.” As to the gun in the holster, I still call it censorship since, as Brian also wrote, “Marvel had someone on the production staff take Fury’s gun from earlier in the page and copy it and put it into the last panel.” There’s just no way that was mere “editing.”
By your way of thinking, it’s not censorship if a filmmaker makes changes to his film in order to get a more favorable rating from the MPAA. The filmmaker can reject the MPAA decision, but he’s going to lose more than 90% of his potential audience since most theaters will not accept any unrated film–and you’ve got to get that rating from the MPAA.