Welcome to the five hundred and sixty-fourth 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, was Deadpool's roommate, Blind Al, supposed to be the first Black Widow? Is Alan Moore banned from the United States by the CIA? And was one of the 1993 Marvel Annuals characters just the Dungeons and Dragons character of the Annual's writer?

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: Deadpool's roommate, Blind Al, was originally going to be the first Black Widow (and she was the responsible for Deadpool getting cancer).

STATUS: True

Deadpool's roommate, Blind Al, played by Leslie Uggams, was a scene-stealer in the Deadpool movie...



And in the comics, Blind Al, Deadpool's housemate/prisoner, was also a scene-stealer, like when they went back in time to an old issue of Amazing Spider-Man in Deadpool #11 (by Joe Kelly and Pete Woods) and Al impersonated Aunt May...



However, we never really got TOO much info into Blind Al's background outside of the disturbing as heck Deadpool #14, where she explains some of the messed up stuff Deadpool has done to her as his prisoner (while maintaining that she sort of owes it to Deadpool to stay with him).

So anyhow, in Deadpool #25, by Joe Kelly and Walter McDaniel, Deadpool is dealing with a huge crisis of confidence as he debates whether to essentially destroy peace on Earth for the sake of freeing everyone on Earth from being mind-controlled into becoming peaceful.

Blind Al gives him a pep talk...



At the end of the issue, after Deadpool successfull "saves" Earth after defeating a possessed Captain America, Captain America comes across something familiar to him...



That plot was never resolved...in the comics, that is.

Joe Kelly, in an interview with Comic Book Resources' Robert Taylor, revealed his original plans for Blind Al:

We were going to do the origin story of Blind Al, and show her as the original Black Widow and show how she was responsible for Wade getting cancer.

By "original," this doesn't mean the actual Golden Age character named Black Widow, but rather a 1940s version of the current Black Widow, Natasha (the one in the Avengers).

That story could still be told! Come on, Joe Kelly is writing Deadpool again in Spider-Man/Deadpool! There's still time!

For now, all we have is this...



Thanks to Joe Kelly and Robert Taylor for the information!

Check out some recent entertainment and sports legends from Legends Revealed:

Did a Woman Accidentally Get a Speaking Role in a Star Trek Movie?

Was the Brady Bunch’s Dog Replaced Mid-Episode Because Their Original Dog Was Killed?

Why Were Two Little League Teams Each Trying to Lose in the Final Inning of a Playoff Game?

COMIC LEGEND: Alan Moore was banned from traveling to the United States because of his graphic novel, Brought to Light.

STATUS: False

In 1989, Alan Moore released one of his first independent comic book projects, one half of the graphic novel anthology Brought to Light (the other half was by Harvey Pekar's wife, Joyce Brabner, and artist Thomas Yeates).

Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz tell the story of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) through the words of a retired agent (represented by an anthropomorphic American Eagle)...











As you can see, the comic was quite critical of the CIA and the whole thing was a controversial release at the time. Anyhow, over the years, a rumor has circulated that the CIA was so pissed off at Moore that they blocked him from ever traveling to the United States.

Moore discussed the story with Frank Beaton, and debunked the story:

"Yeah, I have heard the rumours about how I'm not allowed to visit America because the CIA are still cross with me about BROUGHT TO LIGHT. That's not true. The reason I can't visit America is that I haven't got my passport renewed, and getting one doesn't really sound like something I can see myself doing at the moment.

Apathy is the key to an awful lot of my behaviour. It's the reason I've got this ridiculous beard and haircut. It's just simple laziness. I can't be bothered to shave every morning like ordinary people do. I can't be bothered going to the barbers or places like that. I could be sitting here writing my silly-arse comic books or composing some new incomprehensible magical tract, which is much preferable to me."

Sounds about right to me.

Thanks to Alan Moore and Frank Beaton for the information!

Check out my latest Movie Legends Revealed at Spinoff Online: Is Deadpool a part of Fox's X-Men Movie Rights?

COMIC LEGEND: One of the new heroes introduced in the 1993 Marvel Annuals was the writer's Dungeons and Dragons character.

STATUS: True

Last week, I did a piece about the 27 new characters that Marvel introduced in their 1993 Annuals.

I made a comment about the character of Khaos from Excalibur Annual #1 by Evan Skolnick, Chris Marrinan, Audwynn Newman, Mark McKenna, Danny Bulanadi and Keith Williams and how oddly elaborate his back story was...













Well, as it turns out, it was with good reason. My buddy G. Kendall, who writes The Guide to the Guide to Comics at this here blog, told me about this great article by Patrick Tobin about the 1993 Annuals at Multiversity Comics. In the article, Skolnick confirms that Khaos had an unusual origin:

“I’ll freely admit that the Khaos character was an exercise in self-indulgence. Somewhere on a blog at some point a comics fan very astutely identified him as a ‘Mary Sue’; a character that’s an embarrassingly idealized stand-in for the writer himself as he inserts himself into an existing fictional universe. Khaos was indeed that, because he was a close adaptation of the Dungeons and Dragons character I played during my high school and college years. What can I say? I was young!”

Awesome stuff.

Thanks to G. Kendall for the head's up and thanks to Patrick Tobin and Evan Skolnick for the information! After I started working on this, commenter Drax also mentioned it in the comments section of my 1993 Marvel Annuals article.

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!).

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



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Was Superman a Spy?: And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed

See you all next week!