Welcome to the five hundred and fifteenth 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 the Lois and Clark TV show force DC's hands on the Super-marriage? Plus, how did a haircut get an inker a "Super" gig? And why was Iron Man different in the Brazilian version of the Daredevil classic, Born Again?

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 marriage between Clark Kent and Lois Lane was fully coordinated between the TV show and the comic book series.

STATUS: Basically False

Last week, I did a legend about how the introduction of the "Super-Mullet" (which wasn't even a mullet) did not have to do with Dean Cain's original hairstyle for Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, but I discussed other instances where that show DID have an impact on the comics. But amusingly enough (to me, at least), I went to go link to a past Comic Book Legends Revealed about one particular instance where the show had a dramatic effect on the comics, but found that I never actually got around to writing about it! So this is me fixing that sort of snafu.

As noted last week, when the comics wanted to have Lois and Clark get married, they couldn't because of the upcoming TV series (as seen in this old Comic Book Legends Revealed), so instead they had to this...



But a few years later, the show had another major impact on the comics when on October 6, 1996, Lois and Clark got married on the Superman TV series...





Three days later, it happened in the comics, as well...



Reader Jason wrote in to note that the then-recent breakup between Lois and Clark in the comics that had happened in early 1996...



was all part of a coordinated effort to sync the comics up with the TV wedding.

That is PARTIALLY true, but it's more false.

It is true that the break-up in the comics happened because of the TV wedding, or moreover, the fact that there WASN'T any TV wedding. The comics were coordinating with the TV show which did not appear to be headed to a wedding any time soon, so to cool things down in the comic, they had Lois and Clark temporarily break up.

Here's the problem, though, that coordination was based on Lois and Clark NOT getting married in Season 4 of Lois and Clark, or at least not in October of 1996!

The decision to change course and have Lois and Clark get married early in Season 4 was a big shock to the Superman team. In Les Daniels' Complete History of Superman, the (at the time) new Superman editor Joey Cavalieri noted that the plans pre-dated him taking over the Super-books, so they had to scramble to work them into the book now:

We just sort of resuscitated that story line and did it in the space of a month instead of a year.

So that's why The Wedding Album had to fit in all of the wedding plans, the bachelor and bachelorette parties and the wedding all into one issue!



Daniels notes that had the show not forced their hand, there was a possibility Lois and Clark would not have even gotten married at ALL, as the momentum had dissipated a lot by 1996. Cavalieri told him how a few of the writers who had been pushing for the marriage were now less sure about the idea.

Thanks to Jason for the suggestion (and thanks to Mike Lukash, who also answered Jason in the comments section)

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Check out my latest TV Legends Revealed at Spinoff Online: What secret message did Paul McCartney hide in an episode of The Simpsons?

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On the next page, how did a haircut get John Beatty an inking gig?

COMIC LEGEND: John Beatty got an inking gig by letting John Byrne cut his hair.

STATUS: True

John Beatty is probably best known for his work with penciler Mike Zeck on a number of famous comic book stories, like their acclaimed Captain America run...



Secret Wars...



and the first Punisher mini-series...



But by 1987, he was over at DC inking Jerry Ordway on Adventures of Superman. So he befriended the Superman creators, including John Byrne.

And then a funny thing happened:

Here Beatty and interviewer Renee Witterstaetter from 1989's Comics Interview #72:

Renee: So, I hear that Byrne was once your barber?

John: Yes, he gave me a haircut.

Renee: Why don’t you tell us about that in detail.

John: It was around his fourth of July party one year. Byrne always had this standing offer for years that if you let him cut your hair, he’d give you $100. He wanted to do the shaving…being the barber that he is. My hair was pretty long at the time – mostly because I hadn’t had time to go to the barber. So out of curiosity, I joked, “Hey, John, is that $100 for the haircut still available?” And it was funny because his eyes kind of perked up and his brow rose, and he said, “Why, yes, as a matter of fact, it is.” Are you interested?” I said I’d give it some thought and tell him at the end of the day. So throughout the day he had this $100 bill out, and everytime he’d serve me a drink, he’d have that bill right in my face. The day was winding down, and I had to decide one way or another – do it or don’t. So I tried to sweeten the deal. I told him I’d ink ACTION COMICS and take the $100.

The issue had the photos...





However, Action Comics then became a weekly book instead, so Beatty moved to Superman with Byrne...



The downside was that Byrne just did a couple of issues with Beatty before Byrne left the title entirely!

Beatty inked a couple of issues after Byrne left and then moved on to other assignments.

Thanks to John Beatty for sharing this awesome story with Comics Interview! And thanks, of course, to Renee Witterstaetter and Comics Interview for the photos and interview!

On the next page, see an amusing edit to Born Again in Brazil!

COMIC LEGEND: The Brazilian edition of the Daredevil storyline "Born Again" had a different Iron Man to fit into Brazilian continuity.

STATUS: True

Something we love here at Comic Book Legends Revealed is stories of weird edits in foreign versions of comics. Reader Miguel S. knew this, so he sent in this awesome bit from the Brazilian version of the Daredevil classic story, Born Again.

As you may or may not know, often in other countries, they reprint the comics out of order, so sometimes they would make edits to make the comics make sense to the readers in their country. One of the most famous examples of this was the Brazilian Secret Wars, which I wrote about a number of years ago.

On a much smaller scale, when it came to Born Again, Iron Man had not yet changed his armor as he had in the pages of his own book, so this classic scene from Born Again...





looked like this in Brazil...





Awesome! Thanks, Miguel!

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!