This is the one-hundred and eighty-second in a series of examinations of comic book legends and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of the previous one-hundred and eighty-one.

Let's begin!

COMIC LEGEND: Marvel once did a special G.I. Joe comic made up of a comic by Todd McFarlane that was deemed unacceptable by Marvel only a few years earlier!

STATUS: True

Reader Billy Ray asked me about this a ways back (towards the end of last year), but I could not really help him out, as I did not have the issue in question either until recently.

As it turns out, this certainly was quite an interesting situation.

Some readers might recall that Todd McFarlane was slowly breaking into Marvel Comics in the late 1980s, and among the work he did was a fill-in issue of G.I.Joe, specifically #60.



What is NOT as well known, however, is that McFarlane actually drew the NEXT issue, as well!

For whatever reason, though, McFarlane's issue was deemed unacceptable, so venerable veteran, the late, great Marshall Rogers was brought in to draw the issue, and that was G.I. Joe #61.



Rogers WAS asked back, as he would go on to draw two more issues of G.I. Joe in the next couple of years.

By 1994, the title was no longer the top seller it was in the mid to late 80s, when it was routinely Marvel's top selling comic book (it even had a spin-off comic, G.I. Joe Special Missions). So with #155, Marvel ended the book.

However, in the time between #61 and the book ending at #155, a funny thing had happened, the young, inexperienced fill-in artist, Todd McFarlane, had gone off and become a major comic book artist superstar!

So now, somehow, the same pages that were considered unacceptable in 1987 were good enough to be published, for the first time, in a G.I. Joe Special, coming two months AFTER the cancellation of the series!!

Here's the Phil Gosier drawn McFarlane homage cover.



Here, for your amusement, is a side by side comparison of five pages from McFarlane's unaccepted take on Larry Hama's script and Marshall Rogers' accepted one.





















Rogers did seem to do a better job. EDITED TO ADD: I apologize for being unclear here - it appears as though I'm knocking McFarlane's work, but by "better" I only meant that Rogers seemed to better match the style that G.I. Joe comics were using at the time, which was very straightforward storytelling. I think McFarlane's work isn't bad, and Rogers' work actually looks quite rushed (as it almost certainly was), but I just think he achieved a more standard G.I. Joe approach, based on how the books looked like back then.

All in all, though, it's a weird situation through and through.

Thanks to Billy Ray for the suggestion!

Now, for something a bit different this week.

I've gotten enough suggestions involving Madelyne Pryor that I could get four or more urban legends just out of covering the story behind her creation and subsequent usage, but at the same time, it is a bit difficult to answer ONE of them without, in effect, answering ALL of them, so I'm just going to answer all of them at once here.

COMIC LEGEND: The Madelyne Pryor in Avengers Annual #10 was the first appearance of the Madelyne Pryor who married Cyclops.

STATUS: False

As has been established in more than one installment of Comic Book Legends Revealed (here and here, for two), Chris Claremont likes to work in the names of people he's fond of into his comics. I think it's a neat little thing he does.

However, his fondness for doing this has led to some confusion when it comes to Madelyne Pryor's origins.

Claremont was a fan of the folk band, Steeleye Span, and of their popular lead singer, Maddy Prior.



I do not believe Claremont was a personal acquaintance with Ms. Prior, but I could be wrong there.

In either case, in the pages of Avengers Annual #10 (one of the first comics written specifically to address what a writer found to be a bad story by a different writer - in this case, Claremont addressing his distaste for how Carol Danvers was written out of the Avengers), Claremont featured a young girl named Madelyne Pryor as a minor background character.



A few years later, Claremont introduced a new character named Madelyne Pryor as a love interest for Scott Summers, Cyclops.



The two characters were not meant to be the same people - just the same name. That said, I'm sure someone will ultimately come up with a way for them to be the same person. Claremont actually even joked about the confusion in an issue where he had the little girl show up again (wearing the same clothes) as a mental manifestation by Pryor, while singing one of Steeleye Span's more popular songs!

A helpful reader sent me the pages featuring that mental manifestation, from Uncanny X-Men #238 by Claremont and Marc Silvestri, as the seeds for Inferno were being planted....









Thanks to Mike, Jason and a few other readers over the years that escape my memory for the Maddie suggestion!

COMIC LEGEND: Madelyne Pryor was meant to be Jean Grey with amnesia.

STATUS: False

Fans also freaked out at the time, thinking that Madelyne Pryor was just Jean Grey returned with amnesia. Chris Claremont has always insisted that that was not the case, that Madelyne was always her own unique character who just happened to look like Jean. That, of course, didn't turn out to be the case in the end, but that was not Claremont's original intent.

Okay, that's it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is cronb01@aol.com.

See you next week!