Comic Book Legends Revealed #503

Welcome to the five hundred and third in a series of examinations of comic book legends and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of the previous five hundred and two. This week, did the theme song to Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends have lyrics? Who really designed War Machine's armor? And in what strange way did Robert Kirkman kill off a major Walking Dead character in the lead up to Walking Dead #100?

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: The theme song to Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends has lyrics!

STATUS: True

I'm sure most of you are quite familiar with the theme song to the early 1980s animated series Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends...

However, did you know that there were LYRICS to that song?

Composer Johnny Dougas wrote the song and later in 1981 (when the series debuted), he released a disco single of the theme song to the series, only with LYRICS!

You have to listen to it to appreciate the madness of it all...

I imagine that the lyrics were coined AFTER the music, but I could be wrong.

Check out Johnny Douglas' Dulcima Records (Douglas passed away back in 2003, but his family is still running his company, Dulcima Records) for their page on the single, which includes a snippet of the B-SIDE of the song, which is the Firestar and Iceman theme (instrumental).

Amazing.

Thanks to David Gallaher for telling me about this!

Check out my latest Movie Legends Revealed at Spinoff Online: Did Flash Gordon nearly team up with Ralphie in A Christmas Story?

COMIC LEGEND: The War Machine armor was designed by someone other than Kevin Hopgood.

STATUS: False

My buddy Nick Marino asked me the following:

I was looking up some info on a recent storyline when I ended up on War Machine's Wikipedia page and saw something I've never seen before...

*...D.E. Johnson originally designed the War Machine armor?*

There's no citation for the factoid and it's the first time I've ever seen it credited to him! I don't remember reading anything in the early War Machine issues talking about Drew Edward Johnson doing the original design and I've never seen any articles online mention it before.

In fact, just like it says in your Comic Book Legends Revealed footer, I always thought that Kev Hopgood was the designer!

The only other website I found which corroborates the D.E. Johnson thing (and isn't just the exact wording lifted from Wikipedia) is on the (coincidentally named) Comic Book Resource page for War Machine.

So what do you think... did someone just put a random false fact up online or is Drew Edward Johnson really the original (and possibly secret) designer of War Machine's armor?

As it turns out, it pretty much is exactly that first one.

First off, I talked to comic book artist Drew Johnson about it, and Johnson noted that he wasn't even in high school when the War Machine armor originally debuted in 1992, so no, he had nothing to do with it.

I asked Kevin ("Kev") Hopgood about it and he revealed that the D.E. Johnson in question is not the actual comic book artist, Drew Johnson, but just an internet troll who had been editing various internet sources to take credit for the design of the War Machine armor.

On his Facebook page a day or two after I asked him about it, Kev had a hilarious joke where he drew Snake Plissken and noted "Snake Plissken... on a hunt & destroy mission for DE Johnson!"

Awesome.

So there ya go, Nick. Thanks for the heads up (for what it is worth, the Wikipedia entry for War Machine is now accurate once more).

And thanks to Drew and Kevin for their help!

By the way, as I mention every week but I might as well note here, too, Kevin Hopgood drew the cover of my last book, Why Does Batman Carry Shark Repellent? So thanks for that, Kev!

On the next page, in what strange way did a major Walking Dead character meet their demise? SPOILERS ABOUT THE WALKING DEAD COMIC BOOK!! BE FOREWARNED!

COMIC LEGEND: During the middle of the scripting of an issue of The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman abruptly decided to change the story and kill off a major character.

STATUS: True

SPOILERS FOR THE WALKING DEAD COMIC BOOK AHEAD!

Walking Dead #98 opens with two characters, Eugene and Abraham, out on a supply run...

That was a rough way to lose Abraham, who had become one of the more prominent characters in the series (and had been around for close to fifty issues at the time). However, what is even stranger about it all is HOW he ended up dying in the issue. You see, when Robert Kirkman first wrote the story for #98, Abraham did NOT die.

Originally, the Saviors just got into a firefight with Eugene and Abraham and the two would make it back to their base unharmed. While beginning to script the scene, though, Kirkman decided that it was "lame" for the Saviors to not be able to take at least one of the two out, so he chose Abraham and voila, the script was changed and a major character was lost.

That really speaks to the freedom a writer enjoys when he owns the series. It literally is a matter of whatever he wants to happen, happens. In this case, Kirkman actually had future plans for Abraham with a love triangle with Abraham, Holly and Rosita, but felt that it was pretty realistic that sometimes things like that ARE left unresolved.

Thanks to Robert Kirkman and the Nerdist Writers Panel for the information (click here around the 21 minute mark)

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

gives me a referral fee.

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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)...