Comic Book Legends Revealed #489

Welcome to the four hundred and eighty-ninth 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 eighty-eight. This week, did the U.S. government pay Marvel to do an anti-marijuana Spider-Man story? Why didn't we get Frank Miller and Roger Stern together on Doctor Strange? And did Mark Gruenwald really regret creating the Scourge of the Underworld?

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: The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) paid Marvel to do an anti-marijuana comic starring Spider-Man.

STATUS: True

This is a weird one for me. Way back in 2007, I was asked by a couple of readers whether the The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) paid DC and Marvel to do two different stories involving marijuana. One was the Batman story "Leaves of Grass" and the other was the Spider-Man story "Fast Lane."

I got an answer on the Batman story right away but I was stuck on the Marvel one. Years passed and I was no closer to the truth of the Spider-Man one. It certainly SEEMED like it was something that the government would have paid Marvel to do, but nowhere in the comic does it say so and, as I learned from the Batman comic, the Batman comic WASN'T paid for by the government (or written at the behest of the government) so how could I tell for sure?

Well, after five years of waiting, I ultimately decided to just ran the Batman story one week on its own. Here's the column for that one.

Finally, though, earlier this year (on 4/20, of course), Chris Sims did a great piece on the origins of Spider-Man: Fast Lane at Comics Alliance.

Here's what we really need to know for this legend (be sure to read the whole history - it's interesting stuff!), courtesy of Gregg Schigiel, the artist on the story:

I was an assistant editor at Marvel at the time, and I’d drawn some issues of What If? and maybe by then an issue of Generation X, and was looking for more opportunities to draw. I met the gang in Marvel Creative Services, which was the department that handled licensed products, style guide art, custom comics and things of that nature. We got along, they liked my work, and there was work there; not comics, per se, but drawing superheroes, for sure. I think one of the first things I did with them was a piece for the Spider-Man Monopoly game…or possibly a milk ad. At some point they offered me this Spider-Man story, an anti-drug story in conjunction with the White House ONDCP (Office of National Drug Control Policy), which was a big deal project spearheaded by John Fraser (then Senior VP for Strategic Promotions and Advertising), and Steve Behling, the original editor on it (he then left to work at Disney Adventures magazine) (they also developed the overall story).

They explained the job involved drawing a poster image and four 8-page chapters, and that this thing was going to appear EVERYWHERE. And not just in every single Marvel Comic (every other month for four months), but in Boy’s Life, Girl’s Life, National Geographic World, a magazine called Muse… and I’m sure other places I can’t remember (in the magazine versions they’re on slick magazine paper, which was cool). Basically the circulation was going to be massive, the estimate being around 11 million

So there ya go!

The story involved Peter Parker working on a story about a rock star who really pushes the drug angle with his music. Peter is working on the story with two Daily Bugle college interns, including one guy, Sam, who has gotten into smoking marijuana because of the rock star.

When they show up at the music video shoot, Sam learns that the guy is a phony...

Ultimately, a distraught Sam almost dies after driving his van off of a bridge. Luckily, Spider-Man and a bunch of other Marvel heroes are there to save the day...

and Sam (AND the rock star) learns his lesson...

So there ya go, while my 2007 readers were wrong about the Batman story they were right about the Spider-Man story.

Thanks to the readers for their suggestion and thanks to Chris Sims and Gregg Schigiel for the answers!

Check out my latest TV Legends Revealed at Spinoff Online: How close did Boy Meets World come to not having Cory and Topanga?

COMIC LEGEND: Frank Miller taking over Daredevil led to him dropping a potential run as the artist on Doctor Strange.

STATUS: False

Last week's discussion about how Frank Miller came to become the artist on Daredevil brought up this tale.

One of the most legendary examples of a comic book series never coming about was Roger Stern and Frank Miller doing a run on Doctor Strange together. This never-to-be-seen run was particularly famous because it actually had a house ad promoting it (a BEAUTIFUL house ad, at that)...

That run, though, was never to be.

An interesting side legend about the project, though, is that Miller didn't do it because of his run on Daredevil. Either that he dropped Doctor Strange when he got the gig drawing Daredevil when Frank Robbins abruptly retired (as noted last week), as suggested by reader Wes W. last week or that he dropped Doctor Strange when he got the gig WRITING Daredevil on top of drawing it (which I've seen suggested a number of places).

However, the gig on Doctor Strange was announced two years after Miller began drawing Daredevil...

and a couple of months after Miller began writing Daredevil, as well...

I asked Roger Stern about it years ago and he explained what the reason was for Miller's departure from the project...

I'm afraid that the story of why Frank never drew Doctor Strange isn't very interesting. As I recall, Frank was under consideration for some sort of James Bond project, so he bowed out of drawing Doc -- temporarily, we thought at the time -- to get ahead on his other deadlines. Luckily, Marshall Rogers came along and delivered six very tasty issues. And after that...well, by that time Frank was really caught up in writing and drawing Daredevil (and later, Ronin), so we never did get to work together on Doctor Strange.

That James Bond project was the adaptation later that year of the then-new James Bond film, For Your Eyes Only. Howard Chaykin ended up getting the gig...

So there you go! It's too bad we missed out on such a cool project.

Thanks to Roger Stern for the information!

On the next page, did Mark Gruenwald regret creating The Scourge of the Underworld?

COMIC LEGEND: Mark Gruenwald regretted creating Scourge.

STATUS: Basically True

The Scourge of the Underworld was a character who first popped up at the end of 1984, killing a supervillain in Iron Man #194...

It was a cool company wide event. Minor supervillains would be killed off in the pages of various comics. It was all coordinated by Marvel Editor (and writer) Mark Gruenwald, with the story culminating in a two-parter in Captain America (written by Gruenwald) where we officially meet the Scourge (and Cap defeats him) but not before he has his biggest killing spree of all in Captain America #319...

The whole thing was clearly intended as a sort of culling of dead weight supervillains. The other day, though, reader Captain Speedbump asked me if it was true that Mark Gruenwald later regretted creating Scourge.

The answer is BASICALLY yes. I don't know if Gruenwald regretted the character itself, but he DID regret his idea to wipe out "lesser" characters.

In a 1993 Mark's Remarks column about the concept of killing characters (I featured this column, which was about the then-upcoming death of Wonder Man, in an old Comic Book Legends Revealed about how the Falcon was set to die for a bit), Gruenwald discussed Scourge:

Well...occasionally for dramatic necessity or long-term character development I still have to - ahem - write out certain characters, but I'm no longer the advocate of wholesale housecleaning. I believe that every character, no matter how humble his origins, may be of use to some writer or another, so I have no right to retire that character from the character pool we all share!

So since that was the basic purpose of Scourge, I think it is fair to say that the answer is yes.

Thanks to Captain Speedbump for the question and thanks to the late, great Mark Gruenwald for the answer.

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!

Here's my newest book, Why Does Batman Carry Shark Repellent? The cover is by Kevin Hopgood (the fellow who designed War Machine's armor).

If you want to order a copy, ordering it here

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Also, be sure to check out my website, Urban Legends Revealed, where I look into urban legends about the worlds of entertainment and sports, which you can find here, at urbanlegendsrevealed.com.

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!).

The cover is by artist Mickey Duzyj. He did a great job on it...(click to enlarge)...