Welcome to the four hundred and twenty-sixth in a series of examinations of comic book legends and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of the previous four hundred and twenty-five. This week, did Superman comics inadvertently lead to kids in Bosnia intentionally entering minefields? Were the Dreadnoks originally going to be anthropomorphic BEARS?!? Was a comic book story reprinted twice times in ten years...with a different lead character each time?!
Let's begin!
NOTE: The column is on three pages, a page for each legend. There's a little "next" button on the top of the page and the bottom of the page to take you to the next page (and you can navigate between each page by just clicking on the little 1, 2 and 3 on the top and the bottom, as well).
COMIC LEGEND: Superman comic books about the dangers of landmines inadvertently led to children in Bosnia going into minefields because they wanted to meet Superman.
STATUS: I'm Going With False
Reader Jonathan S. wrote in with this suggestion based on a recent piece he saw on reddit that cited the following:
An unfortunate outcome of this apparently well-thought-out production was that some Bosnian children actually entered a minefield because they wanted to see Superman come rescue them.
The discussion here is related to the 1996 Superman giveaway comic book Superman: Deadly Legacy, about the dangers of landmines.
It was given out in Bosnia. A few of the sample comics (especially those given to UN peacekeepers there) were in English, but the vast majority of the giveaways were in the two main languages of the area. Here are some samples from the comic in English (the book was written by Louise Simonson and was drawn by Kieron Dwyer)...
Now, the effects of these comics have been studied over the years, but a major problem with the studies (admitted in the studies) that it is pretty difficult to gauge the effectiveness of these materials in places like Bosnia where the population was constantly being spread about. There was not enough manpower to accurately test these things. However, the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) DID do a study on the effectiveness of propaganda tools (including comics) in the cases of Cambodia, Nicaragua and Kosovo. Kosovo used basically the same comic that was used in Bosnia, just with slight alterations. Nicaragua used a different comic book starring Superman and Wonder Woman.
In the Nicaragua study, they noted that:
Group participants who had used [the Superman and Wonder Woman comic book] to give talks or classes to children affirmed that their students’ comprehension of the messages was often mistaken, precisely because of the intervention of the comic book characters in the narrated story. In almost every case, children said that they would try to find minefields so as to be rescued and to meet the superheroes. The participants complained that this interpretation had caused significant problems, and its clarification cost them much time and effort.
So that would be on point. However, note that they said that children just SAID that they would try to do it (before being dissuaded). Nowhere do they specifically note that children DID go into minefields. Similarly, there have been no proof that any such instance took place in Bosnia, either. There have certainly been talk to that effect, but I've read a number of general studies on the effects of the comics in Bosnia and none of them have mentioned anything about children going into minefields. I have seen some criticism that suggests that PERHAPS children WOULD be willing to go into minefields to meet Superman and that was a criticism of the use of the comics (and a reason why most studies have shown that these comics are best used for children 10-up, as they fear that younger children COULD become confused and believe that Superman and Wonder Woman are real and that they could meet them if they went into minefields) but not that it actually happened. In addition, a whole lot of these studies have been critical of the comic, so they're not exactly trying to sugarcoat things in favor of the comics, so if they ever had instances of this happening, it would certainly be something they'd report on.
Now COULD it have happened? I would not be shocked, but I think such an occurrence would have gotten more attention and would have been featured in one of the many studies of the effects of these comics. So I am going to go with a false for this one.
Thanks to Jonathan for the suggestion! And thanks in particular to Delmont Stephens (who was actually in Bosnia as a UN peacekeeper back in the 1990s), who wrote a great paper back in 2011 sort of coalescing all the various studies on the use of comics (and other propaganda) in landmine education into one thoughtful paper.
Check out some Entertainment Urban Legends Revealed!
Was Peanut Butter Really Used to Make Mister Ed "Talk"?
Was the Violinist for Bob Dylan’s Album Desire Hired Right Off of the Streets?
Did Star Trek Once Get John Drew Barrymore Suspended From the Screen Actors Guild?
What Weird Reason Did ABC Have for Baretta Having an Instrumental Theme Song Originally?
On the next page, were Dreadnoks originally supposed to be like Ewoks?
COMIC LEGEND: The Dreadnoks were originally going to be fuzzy creatures like Ewoks.
STATUS: True
Return of the Jedi was a major success in 1983, and perhaps the "breakout" characters from the film were the Ewoks, furry little folk who helped the Star Wars heroes save the day...
Well, as you might imagine, toy companies up and down the line figured that creatures like the Ewoks would be the biggest new trend in toys.
So much so that Hasbro wanted Zartan's gang, the Dreadnoks, to be fuzzy humanoid bears. Larry Hama fought the idea and in an interview with Toy Fare magazine, he recounted his argument, "you can't have the good guys running around shooting at teddy bears." He pitched them on the idea of the Dreadnoks being bikers, instead, and that won out...
However, during the cartoon series where the Dreadnoks first appeared, they WERE working with the "Fatal Fluffies," cute little creatures...
the turned into vicious beasts and served Zartan and the Dreadnoks.
Imagine how the G.I. Joe comic book would have gone if Hama had had to work in fuzzy Dreadnoks?
You know, now I am sort of wondering if Candy (Bongo the Balloon Bear) from the comic book wasn't a sly reference to this attempt to make the Dreadnoks bears, because Candy did interact with the Dreadnoks a lot..
Check out some classic Comic Book Legends Revealed related to G.I. Joe!
Was the GI Joe series partially based on a previous Marvel pitch Larry Hama had made to Marvel?
Was Rocky Balboa a member of G.I. Joe?
Was the G.I. Joe comic made as an attempt to get around advertising restrictions?
Did Larry Hama's band play in the G.I. Joe episode "Cold Slither?"
What G.I. Joe member was based on Larry Hama himself?
On the next page, marvel at how the same story was reprinted twice - with different characters each time!
COMIC LEGEND: A Lady Satan story was reprinted twice in ten years, with a different character starring in the comic each time!
STATUS: True
During the Golden Age, comic books definitely went through the idea that kids who read comics two years ago would not be reading this year's comics, so recycling of comic stories were rampant all over the place. So was the use of reprints. However, what was especially unusual was just taking a story and changing the character from one to another. In this instance we're looking at today, it happened TWICE!
The first story appeared in 1946's Red Seal Comics #18 (from Harry A. Chesler's comic book company). Drawn by Ralph Mayo, the story starred Lady Satan...
Two years later, St. John's Authentic Police Cases #5 had the SAME story, only Lady Satan's mask is removed and the heroine is now Mairetta...
Four years later, the comic appeared again in St. John's Strange Terrors #1 with the heroine now dubbed Celeste...
Bizarre!
Thanks to Atomic Kommie Comics for the suggestion! And for the scans! Check out his site here for the full versions of each of these stories!
Check out the latest edition of my weekly Movie/TV Legends Revealed Column at Spinoff Online: Was a Sci-Fi comedy forced to change its title because, of all things, the Trayvon Martin case?
Okay, that's it for this week!
Thanks to the Grand Comics Database for this week's covers! And thanks to Brandon Hanvey for the Comic Book Legends Revealed logo!
Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is cronb01@aol.com. And my Twitter feed is http://twitter.com/brian_cronin, so you can ask me legends there, as well!
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Here's my book of Comic Book Legends (130 legends - half of them are re-worked classic legends I've featured on the blog and half of them are legends never published on the blog!).
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Was Superman a Spy?: And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed
See you all next week!