Welcome to the five hundred and twelfth 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, did a letter from a reader convince Charles Schulz to introduce an African-American character into Peanuts? Was Spider-Man Unlimted originally intended to be a continuation of the 1990s Spider-Man cartoon series? Finally, were the Team Titans originally intended to become a NEW Teen Titans?

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: A reader convinced Charles Schulz to include an African-American character in Peanuts.

STATUS: True

As Black History Month comes to a close (be sure to check out our month-long spotlight on comics by African-American creators), I thought it would be nice to spotlight a legend suggested to me last week by longtime reader Gerard M.

On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. His tragic death inspired a Los Angeles schoolteacher named Harriet Glickman to write Charles Schulz, creator of the ultra-popular Peanuts comic strip, a letter...



Perhaps surprisingly enough, Schulz not only wrote back, but he was very candid in his reasons for not having a black character in the strip...



Glickman, undeterred, used Schulz's response to offer a way that she could allay his fears...



Schulz took her up on her offer.



As you might imagine, Glickman then collected a series of letters from African-American parents and they uniformly told Schulz that they would very much like him to add a black character to the strip.

Finally, Schulz dropped Glickman a note in early July, telling her to keep an eye out on the strips in the last week of the month, as "I have drawn an episode which I think will please you."

Here, then, are the three strips that introduced Franklin to the cast of Peanuts, from July 31-August 2, 1968...







Schulz got some negative reactions from editors and newspapers in the South (especially when he started drawing Franklin as a classmate of Peppermint Patty, as school segregation was still an issue at the time), he just ignored them all, famously telling Larry Rutman, president of the United Features syndicate, after he complained about Franklin, “Well, Larry, let’s put it this way: Either you print it just the way I draw it or I quit. How’s that?”

Very cool story.

Thanks to Gerard for the suggestion, thanks to the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center for posting these letters and thanks to Christine Erickson for her excellent article on this topic last year.

EDITED TO ADD: Here's a video interview with Glickman from last year at the Charles Schulz Museum...

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Check out my latest Movie Legends Revealed at Spinoff Online: Was the villain Max Schreck in Batman Returns really originally written as Harvey Dent/Two-Face?

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On the next page, was Spider-Man Unlimited originally intended to be a continuation of the 1990s Spider-Man Animated Series?

COMIC LEGEND: Spider-Man Unlimited was originally intended to be a continuation of the previous Spider-Man animated series.

STATUS: False

Reader Aggieborn wrote in to ask about a legend involving the 1999 Spider-Man animated TV series, Spider-Man Unlimited,



which featured Spider-Man traveling to the High Evolutionary's Counter-Earth and getting a new costume...



It only lasted a single season and the final episode was actually a cliffhanger!

Anyhow, Aggieborn asked about a legend saying that the series was originally intended to be a continuation of the popular 1994 Spider-Man animated series. That is not the case.

My pal Zack Smith did a great article series a few years back on Spider-Man's various TV and movie series. In it, he asked Will Meugniot, producer of Spider-man Unlimited, how, exactly, the series came to be. Here is what he said..

It’s complicated, but the short version is: Both Marvel and Fox Kids needed a new series with Spider-Man in the title to fulfill contractual obligations.

Doing the new episodes, which couldn’t be a continuation of the previous show, would allow Fox Kids to keep airing their earlier Spider-Man series for several more years.

Initially, the goal was to do an extremely low budget adaptation of the first 26 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man comic book. We’d started work on that version of the series, but then Marvel and Sony locked the Spider-Man movie deal, and we were suddenly cut off from our source material. We could no longer adapt the early comics or use the classic Spider-Man costume.

We toyed with Spider-Man 2099 for a week or so, but realized that had more or less appropriated that property’s territory.

But all parties still needed a series, and Marvel had some characters they needed to be seen on TV, so Marvel gave us a list of what they wanted in the series, and Michael Reaves and I sorted through it and came up with a storyline to accommodate Marvel’s needs, including setting the show on Counter-Earth.

The initial story focused on Peter arriving on Counter Earth, realizing he needed help to get home, and trying to hook up with that world’s Peter/Spidey. But he soon discovered the glitch in his plan; Uncle Ben had not been killed on C.E., which resulted in that world’s Spider-Man not having the moral fortitude to resist becoming Venom. Everybody seemed to like the pitch and we went into production.

However, after we were already full into script, someone at Marvel freaked out, misinterpreting what fans found onerous about the end of the Clone storyline in the comics, and declared we couldn’t do a story with two Peter Parkers. So we found ourselves in production with a show whose dramatic core had been destroyed.

So there you go, Aggieborn, it specifically was never intended to be a continuation of the previous series!

Thanks to Aggieborn for the question and Zack Smith and Will Meugniot for the information!

On the next page, were the Team Titans nearly going to be alternate reality versions of the New Teen Titans?

COMIC LEGEND: The Team Titans were originally going to become a NEW Teen Titans.

STATUS: True

A while back, I did a column that touched on the Team Titans, the ill-fated New Titans spin-off from the early 1990s starring a group of Titans from the future.



Reader Frank W. wrote in to ask about something that he had heard regarding an alternate plan for the Team Titans and as it turns out, he heard correctly, and boy, the alternate plans were out of this world! My good buddy Bill Walko interviewed then-Titans editor Jonathan Peterson about what the original plans for Team Titans were and they really were quite shocking. Peterson wanted to bring the original New Teen Titans back...in a fashion!

He said...

I wanted to get the Teen Titans back, so I explained my whacked out idea. I really wanted Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, Changeling, Raven, Starfire and Cyborg back to what they were originally, so I wanted to do an alternate dimension or timeline, and I turned to Kevin and said “You get to launch an all-new Titans book and design them from the ground up.” Not only that, but this alternate universe would have an alternate young Robin, and alternate young Starfire and all the rest. The plan for Team Titans was a secret one. With the first Team Titans Annual, or at the end of the first 12 issues, I told Kevin he would then be relaunching the Teen Titans with alternate versions of the core-seven members.

and he later explained further...

Then you have Team Titans. My plan there was to have those members slowly grow in those twelve issues. They would grow or move on or be phased out. That would lead into the first Annual. That Annual would introduce our alternate [universe], younger Teen Titans. The book would change it’s title to Teen Titans and feature the alternate, younger versions of those core-seven Titans. That was the plan.

Wow, how nuts would THAT have been?

Sadly, it didn't come to fruition (Peterson left DC soon after launching Team Titans, which likely explains why it DIDN'T happen, as with a lot of his other plans for the title, which you can read about at the above link to Bill's site).

Thanks to Frank for the suggestion and thanks to Bill and Jonathan Peterson for the info!

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!