Welcome to the five hundred and thirty-sixth 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, in honor of two comic book characters in the news, we'll do a pair of legends featuring Psylocke and a pair of legends featuring Devil Dinosaur!

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: Psylocke was only supposed to turn Asian temporarily.

STATUS: True

COMIC LEGEND: It was Jim Lee's idea to turn Psylocke Asian.

STATUS: I'm Going With False

You can't really split these two legends up, so I'll do them as one legend.

Psylocke has been in the news a lot lately, with her upcoming appearance in the next X-Men film as well as concerns about the nature of her racial-switching.

What's interesting is that there is still a lot of mystery surrounding the origin of Psylocke's transformation from a white woman to an Asian ninja character in the pages of Uncanny X-Men #256 by Chris Claremont, Jim Lee and Scott Williams.

Our story begins in Uncanny X-Men #251, when Psylocke (who sensed that the Reavers were about to attack their depleted team of X-Men, as the team was down to just four members at this point in time) used her powers to trick the other three heroes to join her in transporting through the Siege Perilous, a mystical "get out of jail free" card that Roma had given them some time ago.







Psylocke then takes a trip to Mojo's Body Shop in Uncanny X-Men #256...





And when Wolverine next encounters Psylocke during the Acts of Vengeance (where superheroes fight villains they don't normally fight - here, the X-Men take on the Mandarin) storyline in #256-258, she is now an Asian assassin working for the Mandarin...





She even goes by Lady Mandarin...



Eventually, Wolverine breaks her free from her brainwashing and she is now once again a member of the X-Men, only as a telepathic Asian ninja...



The decision to make her Asian has been shrouded in a lot of mystery, including whether it was even intended to be a permanent change and whether the idea came from artist Jim Lee, who just liked drawing a hot Asian ninja.

The whole "was it meant to be a permanent change?" thing is likely born out of the fact that around the same time, Claremont also made Storm a child...



And that obviously was not permanent.

The Jim Lee stuff, well, I really don't know where that stuff comes from.

Anyhow, in an interview with Darwin McPherson in Amazing Heroes #192, Claremont gives the scoop:

Darwin McPherson: What's with this race-changing scenario you indulge in occasionally? You changed Officer Corsi and Nurse Friedlander from Caucasians to Native Americans, then you changed Psylocke into an Asian. This is a twist I don't think anyone else has done.

Chris Claremont: I guess it's a way of examining old prejudcies from new perspectives.

In the case of Psylocke, it was something we had originally just intended for the "Acts of Vengeance" three-parter, the rationale being that the Hong Kong gangs would not accept an Anglo, a pure Caucasian, as the Mandarin's emmisary, as a Lady Mandarin; therefore, the Mandarin had to take steps to make her more physically acceptable to his people.

Then Jim did such a bang-up job. It was such an effective presentation of her and it seemed to strike such a powerful chord in the audience. We figured, "Let's go with it and see what happens." And from the reader response, it seems to be an extremely positive move.

So that clears the first legend up and I think it clears the second one up, as well. This was only the second X-Men story that Jim Lee ever drew and he would not become the regular artist on the series for another NINE months, so it really doesn't seem very likely that Claremont would be taking plot cues from Lee at the time. Not only that, but right there in that interview question, if Lee HAD been the one who came up with the idea, THAT'S where Claremont would have said, "Jim suggested it." Yes, the "we" there makes it a BIT confusing, but I think it is pretty clear Claremont is referring to himself and editorial, who obviously conferred routinely. It's certainly not absolutely definitive, but I think it is enough to go with a false there.

Thanks to Darwin McPherson and Chris Claremont for the information!

By the way, a while back I did a legend about how Fabian Nicieiza had missed that Psylocke was transformed into Psylocke, which led to his "she switched bodies" storyline in X-Men.

Check out some entertainment and sports legends from this week at Legends Revealed:

Did the 1970s Gas Crisis Cause the Demise of the Original G.I. Joe?

Was Perry White Nearly Played by a James Earl Jones on Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman?

Did American League President Lee McPhail Go Against the Written Rules When He Made His Ruling in the infamous “Pine Tar Game”?

Did Chuck Norris Turn Down the Karate Kid Because it Dishonored Karate?

On the next page, was Devil Dinosaur created as an animated series?

COMIC LEGEND: Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy was designed by Jack Kirby as an animated series.

STATUS: True

A lot of people were somewhat surprised to learn that Devil Dinosaur was getting his own series again from Marvel, along with a new Moon GIRL instead of his original traveling companion, Moon Boy.

Written and drawn by Jack Kirby (with inks by Mike Royer), a lot of comic book readers didn't quite know what to make of Devil Dinosaur when he debuted in 1978...



The series was much different from other Marvel comic books, as it was clearly designed with young children in mind.

This confused readers at the time, but as it turned out, it was because it was meant to be a kid's TV series!

Jack Kirby going into 1978 was at a crossroads in his career. He was planning on leaving comics to get into animation and was just waiting until the end of his contract with Marvel. His Eternals series was recently canceled, so he needed a new project as Marvel was paying him a set rate and if he didn't come out with a new series, they were essentially "losing" money on his deal. Meanwhile, there were rumors that DC was going to turn a series Kirby had just done for them, Kamandi, into a cartoon series.

So Marvel, wanting to get into animation themselves, had Kirby come up with a pitch for an animated series like Kamandi that featured dinosaurs and Kirby came up with Devil Dinosaur. Sadly, the development deal Marvel came up with for the series never became a PRODUCTION deal and so they were just left with a comic book with new cartoon to tie into and, naturally enough, the comic book series died an early death...



The character was so cool, however, that it popped up often since and now has its own series!

Thanks to Tom Stewart for his great Back Issue article on Devil Dinosaur and thanks to Mark Evanier, who supplied Stewart with much of his info!

Check out my latest Movie Legends Revealed at Spinoff Online: How close did Disney come to canceling the original Toy Story film entirely?

On the next page, was Devil Dinosaur originally going to be set in the present day?

COMIC LEGEND: Devil Dinosaur was originally going to be set in the present day...with no Moon-Boy!

STATUS: True

Another fascinating piece of information from Tom Stewart's afroementioned great Back Issue article is that Jack Kirby's original pitch for Devil Dinosaur was NOT that it was set in the past with Moon Boy, the first human!

Instead, it was set in the present day on a lost continent!

Here, from Back Issue #21, is Kirby's development sketches for the initial idea, from May 1977!





(I did some choppy crops and rotations to make them easier to read)

What an awesome piece of history!

Thanks, TwoMorrows!

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!