Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the six hundred and thirty-sixth week where we examine comic book legends and whether they are true or false.

As we've been doing it for some time now, one legend today, one tomorrow and one Sunday.

Let's begin!

COMIC LEGEND:

Daredevil wasn't in the original Secret Wars miniseries because Mattel wasn't interested in making a toy of him.

STATUS:

True

Released in 1984 to tie in with a new line of Marvel action figures, Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars was a major blockbuster.

There were a ton of superheroes involved in the event...

However, noticeably absent was one of Marvel's most popular superheroes at the time (due to his recent Frank Miller run), Daredevil. And Daredevil was IN the toy line!

So what gives?

My buddy Kuljit Mithra asked Shooter about it at Kuljit's amazing Daredevil website, ManWithoutFear.com and Shooter was pretty clear about it - Mattel didn't have him on their list of characters that they wanted in the first series of figures, so he didn't use him. Shooter later explained further on his own website that with so many characters involved, if Mattel didn't specifically ask for anyone, he leaned towards just not using the character, since he had such a full boat of characters.

How simple of an answer!

Thanks for the information, Kuljit and Jim!


Check out some legends from Legends Revealed:

Did the Simpsons Edit a Scene Out of Syndication Because it was Offensive to People with Tourette’s Syndrome?

Did Iraq Really Use Playstation 2 to Help Develop Their Weapon Systems?

Were the Rolling Stones Playing “Sympathy for the Devil” When A Crowd Member Was Killed at Altamont?

Did the Pulitzer Prize Committee Choose to Award No Prize Rather Than Award Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?


Check back Saturday for part 2 of this week's legends!

And remember, if you have a legend that you're curious about, drop me a line at either brianc@cbr.com or cronb01@aol.com!