Comic Book Legends Revealed #445

Welcome to the four hundred and forty-fifth 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 forty-four. This week, was the Scarlet Witch originally supposed to die at the end of Marvel's Siege crossover? Did Lou Reed really used to dress up as Robin from Batman and Robin at kid's birthday parties? And what was the deal with the secret countdown during the Death of Superman?

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: Scarlet Witch was originally going to be killed off during Siege before Marvel decided to kill off the Sentry instead.

STATUS: False

In the time leading up to Marvel's 2009/2010 crossover Siege, the event was promoted as being the culmination of the various stories that writer Brian Michael Bendis had done ever since taking over the Avengers back in 2005 with Avengers Disassembled. Here's a video trailer Marvel did saying as much (there were other promos saying this, as well, but I couldn't find any handy)...

Therefore, since the story was seen as a culmination of events that began with Avengers Disassembled, there were some fans who thought that the Scarlet Witch (the driving force behind both Avengers Disassembled and House of M) would be involved. At the time, it seemed clear to me that the theory was more just a matter of "this is where these stories have all led" rather than "this will directly tie into the plot of Avengers Disassembled" but hey, I certainly don't know everything.

So in my recent Abandoned Love piece about how the Scarlet Witch was redeemed of her actions in Avengers Disassembled, reader David Fullan wrote:

Just got here, hope this hasn’t been asked or answered yet. I heard tales that Witch was supposed to be the sacrifice at the end of Siege. That the whole thing was plotted way ahead of time by Bendis, but that Marvel felt it would be too upsetting. So he was forced to use the Sentry instead. Anyone else heard this?

While I figured it was not true, who better to ask than the always informative Tom Brevoort, who was the editor of Siege. Tom not only confirmed that it was false, he even shared with me Brian Michael Bendis' original outline for Siege, then titled Dark Siege. While a few things DID change here and there from Bendis' original outline, the death of the Sentry was always part of it.

Here's the important part of the outline...

So that pretty much explains that, doesn't it?

Thanks to David for the suggestion and thanks to Tom Brevoort for going above and beyond with the excellent information!

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Check out some Entertainment Urban Legends Revealed!

Did Barry Manilow Seriously Write “Mandy” About His Dog?

Did Bill Cosby Really Try to Buy the Rights to Amos and Andy to Keep it Off the Air?

Did Giorgio Moroder Write "Danger Zone" and "Take My Breath Away" with his Former Mechanic?

Was Masi Oka on the Cover of Time Magazine as a Child?

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On the next page, did iconic rocker Lou Reed really used to dress up as Robin from Batman and Robin at kid's parties?

COMIC LEGEND: John Cale and Lou Reed used to dress up as Batman and Robin for kid's birthday parties before the Velvet Underground hit it big(ger).

STATUS: Appears to be False

Sadly, we lost one of the great rock and roll singer/songwriters recently when Lou Reed passed away (the artists of the Line it is Drawn did a fine tribute to him last week). An interesting thing about Lou Reed's amazing first rock band, the Velvet Underground, was that they were not particularly successful at first, at least not commercially. There is a very famous quote by Brian Eno about the Velvet Underground that barely anyone bought their albums, but whoever did formed their own bands. That's how influential they were to a whole generation of rock and roll bands.

But even THAT level of success (actually having an album professionally released) did not come about until Andy Warhol became fascinated with the group and became their manager in 1965 (their first album was recorded in 1966 but did not come out until 1967). In the early days of the group, when Reed formed the band with John Cale in 1964, they were not exactly a professional outfit. In fact, when they got their first paying gig ($75 for the group), their original drummer quit because he felt that taking money to play music was "selling out."

So the group had to find other ways of making money until they hit it big(ger, at least).

One story is that Cale and Reed and dressed up as Batman and Robin at kid's birthday parties!

Here, courtesy of Sonic More Music (suggested to me on Twitter by Steven Getman ) is a picture supposedly of John Cale as Batman and Lou Reed as Robin...

The photo, sadly, appears to be a hoax. Here is the original use of the photo, from someone just sharing a photo of themselves from the 1980s. Thanks to reader Rodrigo for the head's up!

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Check out some classic Comic Book Legends Revealed related to rock and roll!

Did Devo get their name in part from an issue of Wonder Woman?

Did a musician try to take on the persona of Eclipso for his albums?

Did Jack Kirby pitch a syndicated comic strip based on Frank Zappa's "Valley Girl"?

Did Steve Vai perform the X-Men Animated Series theme song?

Was Neil Gaiman inspired by Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" to create Morpheus?

Did Devo take the lyrics of one of their songs from an old Silver Age DC sci-fi comic book story?

Did the Winter Brothers sue DC Comics for their likenesses appearing in a DC Comic?

Is Ben Orr of the Cars related to famed letterer Tom Orzechowski?

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On the next page, what was the secret countdown during the Death of Superman?

COMIC LEGEND: The Death of Superman had an unusual way of counting down to the final issue.

STATUS: True

As you may or may not have noticed, we've been counting down the Top 100 Comic Book Storylines of all-time (as voted on by the readers of Comic Book Resources).

The other day, we reached the Death of Superman on the list (check it out here). Reader Lynn J. wrote in to say that he/she (sorry, Lynn, your name is a bit non gender-specific) had heard that the storyline had some weird easter egg where you could tell which issue you were reading and ~~he/she~~ Lynn wanted to know if that was true, sort of like the classic easter eggs Jim Aparo would put in Brave and the Bold issues to let you know who the guest star would be in the next issue.

The answer is SORT of true, Lynn, but maybe not the way you're thinking of. I think I've actually written about this in the past with regards to the Death of Superman but here's the deal.

There was nothing special about the first three parts of the Death of Superman storyline (Man of Steel #18, Justice League America #69 and Superman #75) but when they reached the final month of stories (at the time, there were four interconnected Superman titles, so they each got one week of the final month of the story), then they began a fascinating countdown sequence. I believe at the time the theory was that this would show how things were getting more and more intense as time went by. So anyhow, in the first issue that month, Adventure of Superman #497, Tom Grummett and Doug Hazlewood drew four panels on every page...

Then in Action Comics #684, Jackson Guice and Denis Rodier drew three panels on every page...

Then in Superman: Man of Steel #19, Jon Bogdanove and Dennis Janke drew two panels on every page...

And finally, Dan Jurgens and Brett Breeding drew splash pages only in Superman #75...

Pretty cool idea.

Thanks for the suggestion, Lynn!

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Check out the latest edition of my weekly Movie/TV Legends Revealed Column at Spinoff Online: Was E.T. The Extra Terrestrial originally intended to be a horror film!? Find out which classic horror film was made with the original plot of E.T.!

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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)...