Welcome to the five hundred and nineteenth 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 Daredevil: Man Without Fear really originate as a script for a Daredevil movie? Learn the secret origin for Wonder Man's ugliest costume! Plus, what is the bizarre story of the Ghost Rider vs. Hulk comic book cover that didn't have Hulk inside the comic?

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: Frank Miller's Daredevil: The Man Without Fear was originally a screenplay for a Daredevil film.

STATUS: Technically False but Roughly True

COMIC LEGEND: Daredevil's look in Man Without Fear was inspired by Daredevil's look in 1989's The Trial of the Incredible Hulk

STATUS: I'm Going With False

Frank Miller, John Romita Jr and Al Williamson's Daredevil: The Man Without Fear mini-series was already an acclaimed part of Daredevil history (it finished third on our recent countdown of The 50 Greatest Daredevil Stories Ever Told), but it has taken on a new prominence as the new smash hit Daredevil Netflix TV series was greatly influenced by Man Without Fear, especially Matt Murdock's initial costume...

Like some of his other acclaimed works like Born Again and Year One, Man Without Fear is so tightly plotted by Frank Miller that it really DOES read like it is practically meant to be a screenplay. That is not surprising, as the series actually began life when Miller was working on a Daredevil TV movie years ago!

However, that truth has been extrapolated into stories about how Miller wrote a screenplay for a Daredevil film and that is what Man Without Fear became.

That's not technically true.

First off, it was only for a TV movie, but more importantly, the project never even got past pre-production. Miller never actually wrote a screenplay for the project. What he DID write was a plot synopsis. So is a plot synopsis for a TV movie the same thing as a screenplay for a film? Not technically, but honestly, it's probably close enough to count.

What happened was that Miller was contacted by John Romita Jr. in 1987. Romita wanted to work with Miller on a project. He pitched Miller on the two doing a Wolverine graphic novel. Miller didn't like the idea. However, as Romita recalled to Anya Martin in Marvel Age #127, "He said everybody's doing Wolverne, but I do have this idea, let me send it to you."

The idea was Miller's plot synopsis for the failed TV movie. Originally it was just an expanded re-telling of the Daredevil origin story from 1964's Daredevil #1. So the whole thing was going to be a 64-page graphic novel.

You can see this original idea in the first two issues of Man Without Fear...

Now inspired, though, Miller started adding more ideas to the book. Romita recalled, "Frank had mentioned a couple of times that he wanted to add some stuff to it. He felt there were so many things that had gone by the wayside with Daredevil when he worked on it, he didn't want to leave anything out. 'Let's make this the Daredevil bible,' he said."

The project was now ballooning to nearly 150 pages long.

Then a bit of a problem showed up. Miller's then-recent successes with Dark Knight Returns, Year One and Born Again made Hollywood take notice, and Miller was hired to write the screenplay for the sequel to Robocop. So he just flat out dropped out on Romita.

In the meantime, the 1989 TV movie, The Trial of the Incredible Hulk introduced the first live action TV appearance of Daredevil...

Miller and Romita had already started doing some design work on their series, so the similarities between the two visual looks is simply a coincidence.

Anyhow, eventually editor Ralph Macchio got back into contact with Miller and Miller re-committed to the project, only now with the series re-envisioned as a mini-series.

It came out in 1993 and was a major success and has been widely accepted as "the" origin story for Daredevil ever since.

It's worth noting that since it began life as an adaptation of the comics, that COULD explain why the continuity is a bit off on the comic (Matt is young when his father dies in Man Without Fear but was already college age when his father died in Daredevil #1), but I don't know if that's necessarily why. I don't think Miller was particularly worried about continuity, ya know?

But anyhow, imagine that we could nearly have had a Miller Daredevil on TV practically thirty years ago! I think we re almost certainly better off with what we got instead (the Netflix show) than what we could have gotten in 1985!

Check out my latest TV Legends Revealed at Spinoff Online: Did CBS really make Cagney and Lacey switch Cagneys after Season 1 because they thought that the show seemed like it was about two lesbians?

On the next page, what is the secret origin for Wonder Man's ugliest costume?

COMIC LEGEND: When designing Wonder Man's costumes, George Perez never knew what color they would be.

STATUS: True

One of the interesting aspects of early comic book coloring was that the pencilers on the titles almost never knew what color their character's costumes would be colored until the book was released. This was the status quo well into the 1980s. This led to an amusing result for George Perez when he designed a new costume for Wonder Man.

Here is Wonder Man's costume from his first appearance in Avengers #9...

He then "died" for many years. After he returned to life in Avengers #151, George Perez designed him a new costume in Avengers #161. It was...not well received.

While it is really not a good design period, the biggest problem is likely how the colors turned out, and Perez had no say in that. He later recalled to Erin Nolen-Weathington in Modern Masters: George Perez:

So when I saw the red and green I said, "Oh my God. I never counted on that." [laughter] In those days colors were rather limited and so many of the colorists were fine comic book colorists, but it wasn't like they had painting backgrounds. "We want these characters to stand out. Whar are the primary colors we can use that nobody else in the panel is using?" So poor Wonder Man ended up looking like a Christmas ornament, making an arguably hokey looking costume look a hell of a lot worse. [laughter]

The color scheme thing was an issue, although a lesser one, for his next costume, the more iconic safari jacket look.

Perez explained:

The idea I was going for - and I don't know if it was my idea or the writer's suggestion - was a Doc Savage type of approach to the character, where he wouldn't look quite as super-heroic with the spandex and everything. I consciously avoided giving him jodhpurs - I couldn't go that far into Doc Savage territory. [laughter] Just trying to make him the reluctant super hero.

Here's a Jim Steranko drawing of Doc Savage, just for a general idea of what a Doc Savage safari shirt looks like (so often they're torn to shreds)...

That look debuted in Avengers #167...

And once again, a primary color, red, is used for a safari jacket that was likely intended to be khaki. But at least it stood out in a good way this time!

Thanks to my pal Alan S. for suggesting this topic to me a while back.

On the next page, what was the reason behind the Ghost Rider/Hulk comic that didn't have the Hulk in it?

COMIC LEGEND: An issue of Ghost Rider was delayed after being mostly finished because the inker never returned the finished pages.

STATUS: True

Let's say you picked up the following comic book...

Cool cover, right? I bet you can't wait to read the Hulk/Ghost Rider fight inside!

But you open it up to find...a reprint of Ghost Rider's first appearance?!?!

The following issue had ANOTHER Hulk/Ghost Rider cover...

but finally, the insides has the Hulk.

So what the heck was up with that?

The writer of the issue, Tony Isabella, revealed the mystery decades after the fact to Jon Knutson in Comic Book Artist #13.

Sal Buscema had done very tight layouts from my plot for "The Desolation Run" (which ended up appearing in Ghost Rider #11). I had scripted the issue and it had been lettered. That's where the problems started.

The finisher was supposed to be Bill Draut, a teriffic artist who had worked with Joe Simon and Jack Kirby on Black Magic and many other classic comics. Most recently, he had been drawing stories for Joe Orlando's mystery titles over at DC.

For some reason, Draut wasn't getting work or enough work from DC. He came to Marvel and we all thought his style would work well on Ghost Rider. What I didn't know was that Draut was going through some serious personal problems. I won't speculate on the nature of these problems, but, whatever they were, we never received even a single page of finished artwork from him. Worse, he didn't return any of the penciled and lettered pages either.

Out of desperation, I grabbed the biggest assistant editor I could find - Scott Edelman - and took a taxi to where Draut lived. Where he lived was some sort of enormous welfare hotel in Hell's Kitchen. The cab driver refused to wait for us. He said he would circle the block for ten minutes and then he was out of there. I was usually too stupid to let stuff like that scare me, but this time, it did. When Draut refused to answer his door, we returned to Marvel empty-handed. I figured a reprint issue was a small price to pay for my and Scott's lives.

If memory serves me correctly, Mike Esposito, Frank Giacoia and John Tartaglione had to ink the issue from Xeroxes of Sal's laouts [The issue credits Tartaglione and George Roussos - BC] and on vellum overlays. The lettering had to be redone and pasted down onto the overlays. What a nightmare.

We never heard from Draut, but the post office eventually returned one of the two packages of layouts he had been sent. He had never picked them up. Naturally, the package arrived weeks after we had sent Ghost Rider #11 to the printer.

Wow.

Draut worked for Warren in the 1980s and for the G.I. Joe animated series. He passed away in 1993.

Thanks for the great info, Tony and Jon!

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!

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See you all next week!