Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the six hundred and twenty-ninth week where we examine comic book legends and whether they are true or false.

Click here for Part 1 of this week's legends.

COMIC LEGEND:

Joss Whedon tried to get Marvel and Wildstorm to do a Captain America/Jenny Sparks crossover.

STATUS:

True

Last year, Marvel celebrated the 75th anniversary of Captain America (his actual anniversary was 2015, but I'll certainly concede that tradition has dictated for years that you celebrate the cover date of the original comic book, and the cover date of Captain America Comics #1 said 1941, even though it came out in late 1940). They had an over-sized issue of Sam Wilson: Captain America #7, with short stories featuring a few of the guys who had been Captain America over the years. Marvel was lucky enough to have the great Jose Whedon and John Cassaday, who had done a dynamite run on Astonishing X-Men together, re-unite for a story about Steve Rogers during World War II.

The concept behind the short story was Steve arguing that the military's initial idea to pair him with a special gun was a bad idea and that, iconography-wise, it made more sense for him to carry a special SHIELD.

As it turned out, Whedon's message about the varying positions of American culture vs. European culture was specifically based on a pitch for a story that he never got to write. He explained to Marvel.com's Ben Morse...

I had had a very big concept years ago that I desperately wanted to do which actually was a crossover with Captain America and Jenny Sparks from the Authority. It was about Captain America early in his career learning about the history of America, what’s good and bad about how this country was formed and how that’s reflected in Europe and so he didn’t have this jingoistic bad view of Europe and so the point that’s made in the little piece that we do here is how I wanted to end that which is him realizing what his purpose is and it’s not you know to hit people.

Jenny Sparks was a British hero who was born in 1900 and died at the end of the 20th Century. Along the way, she was dubbed "The Spirit of the 20th Century" and influenced many great figures of the 20th Century, which would have fit perfectly into a story with another one of the great 20th Century heroes - Captain America!

Man, it sounds like it would have been an awesome comic book. At least Whedon got to use some of the same ideas in his short story, while obviously in a comparatively slight fashion.

Thanks to Joss Whedon and Ben Morse for the information!


Check out my latest TV Legends Revealed at CBR: Why did Bret "The Hitman" Hart sound so different during his guest appearance on The Simpsons?


Check back later on Sunday for Part 3 of this week's legends! And remember, e-mail me at cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com if you have any suggestions for future comic book legends!