Welcome to the five hundred and thirtieth in a series of examinations of comic book legends and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of the first five hundred (I actually haven't been able to update it in a while). This week, did Marvel create the Spider-Mobile because they had a deal with a toy company to make a Spider-Mobile toy? Did Walter Simonson have feathers on Velociraptors before scientists proved that they actually DID have feathers? Did the same comic that got sued for ripping off Superman also get sued for ripping off the title of a pulp magazine?
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: Spider-Man gained a Spider-Mobile because Marvel had a deal with a toy company to make a toy Spider-Mobile.
STATUS: I'm Going With False
The Not-So-Amazing Spider-Mobile made its debut in Amazing Spider-Man #130.
Here it is in action...
Writer Gerry Conway discussed the behind-the-scenes motivation behind the creation of the goofy-looking vehicle at San Diego Comic Con back in 2013. CBR's Travis Fischer relayed what Conway said:
"This was a notion that Stan had. Stan was put in an odd position because he moved up from being an editor/writer to being the publisher of Marvel Comics in 1970-71, and as a result of that, his priorities towards how to find revenues for the company changed," Conway said. "He was approached by, I think it was Hasbro, or it might have been Tonka Toys or something, who said, 'Listen, we found that what really works for toy characters, in addition to the figures, is if they had a lot of cool stuff with them. Could you maybe give each of your characters a cool car?' And so Stan said, 'Sure!' He didn't have to do it. He told me, 'You know, Spider-Man needs to have a car.' And I'm like, 'You do realize that Spider-Man swings on a web between buildings and the car would really slow him down doing that?' and he said, 'I don't' care what you do with it, just do it.' So we played it for laughs and we sank it in, I think, the same issue."
Conway is a bit off, as he didn't sink the Spider-Mobile until #141.
Len Wein then had it brought back only so he could destroy it entirely early in his run on Amazing Spider-Man in Amazing Spider-Man #160.
(That last panel features a different angle on this story that I'll feature in a future Meta-Messages column!)
The rough gist of Conway's story is undoubtedly true. Stan Lee clearly told him to give Spider-Man a Spider-Mobile for toy reasons. This is the precise thing that DC did with their Super-Mobile a bit later in the decade. So why the "False"? It is because I think the time line is a bit off.
Marvel DID get a Spider-Man toy license in 1973, right around this time. However, there was no Spider-Mobile toy.
Mego did not release a Spider-Car toy until 1976.
And then a Spider-Mobile toy later on...
It appears that it was actually the other way around. It was Stan Lee who wanted a Spider-Mobile created so he could then pitch IT to toy companies. Mego's executive in charge of marketing, Neal Kublan, turned down Lee's initial request, but as Kublan later recalled, "when you tell Stan Lee you don't want to make a Spider Car, he takes it personally."
So the basic story is true - the Spider-Mobile WAS invented for a toy, but it was for a PROPOSED toy, not an actual deal in place at the time.
Check out some entertainment and sports legends from this week at Legends Revealed:
How Did Playing “Sweet Caroline” Become a Red Sox Tradition at Fenway Park?
Was the Ghostface Mask From Scream Really First Discovered in Real Life in an Abandoned House?
Was Linebacker Jack Lambert Once Ejected From a Game for “Hitting the Quarterback Too Hard”?
COMIC LEGEND: Walter Simonson depicted Velociraptors with feathers before scientists had proven that they DID have feathers.
STATUS: True
Here is a display of a Velociraptor at the Vienna Museum.
Notice the feathers? In 2007, a Velociraptor fossil was discovered that was so well preserved that the quill knobs were visible, thus proving that velociraptors had feathers.
Amusingly enough, Walter Simonson beat the scientific community to this by almost two decades!
In Fantastic Four #345, in the midst of his excellent run on the book, Simonson had the Fantastic Four end up on "Dinosaur Island." While there, they fought some velociraptors, and Simonson depicted them with feathers!
This is because Simonson (who was a geology major in college, focusing on vertebrate paleontology) decided to be as accurate as he possibly could in the depiction of the dinosaurs in the issue. He relied heavily on Gregory Paul's book, Predator Dinosaurs of the World, which was a controversial call at the time as Paul's theories regarding dinosaurs having feathers was not yet proven and drew much skepticism from other scientists. Simonson split the baby a LITTLE bit by only depicting them with some feathers rather than covered with them, but still, that was a big leap, a big leap that was confirmed nearly twenty years after the 1990 comic book!
Thanks to long-time reader, Arthur K., for the suggestion!
Check out my latest Movie Legends Revealed at Spinoff Online: Was Disney's original version of Beauty and the Beast scrapped and redone because Belle was not enough of a feminist hero?
COMIC LEGEND: The same comic that was sued for ripping off Superman was also sued for ripping the name of their comic from a pulp magazine!
STATUS: True
Many, many moons ago (as it turns out, it was literally the second edition of CBLR EVER!) I wrote about the story of Wonderman, the comic book star of Wonder Comics, a comic book created pretty much entirely to rip off Superman...
DC sued them and won, with Wonderman being lost to history.
However, here's the weird thing. They had a second issue, but not a third.
While they couldn't do their Wonderman character, they should still be able to call themselves Wonder Comics, right?
Well, as it turns out, as show by research by reader Rob H. (as he has been retyping old fanzines from the 1930s and 1940s), they had to change their name because they were sued by someone ELSE!
They were sued by the makers of Thrilling Wonder Stories, the famous pulp magazine!
So with #3, they changed their name to Wonderworld Comics...
Isn't that awesome? Sued twice (and losing twice, although I think the second instance they just backed off on their own instead of going to court again) in your first two issues! That has to be some sort of record!
Thanks to Rob H. for the great information!
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!
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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!