Welcome to the five hundred and twenty-first 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, in honor of Avengers 2: Age of Ultron, this week is an all-Avengers edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed! Did Crisis on Infinite Earths spin out of the aborted JLA/Avengers crossover? Did the Scarlet Witch originally have a GREEN costume? Was Captain America and Scarlet Witch's ill-fated romance not originally part of Avengers Disassembled?

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: Crisis on Infinite Earths spun out of the failed JLA/Avengers crossover of 1983.

STATUS: I'm Going With False

I have actually had this one suggested a few times over the years from different readers, but here's a specific request from reader Chris M. from all the way back in 2007:

I heard that DC's original CRISIS was a result of the aborted JLA/AVENGERS 83 crossover?

The aborted JLA/Avengers crossover was going to be written by Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas and drawn by George Perez...



Due to arguments about plot approval, the crossover was squelched and so, too, did Marvel and DC's then somewhat regular series of crossovers come to an end (following two Superman/Spider-Man books, one Batman/Hulk book and one Titans/X-Men book).

So did the aborted 1983 crossover have anything to do with Crisis on Infinite Earths?

In general, the answer is no.

While his plans were not even CLOSE to being finalized, Marv Wolfman had a basic idea for Crisis on Infinite Earths all the way back in 1982, just with a basic "something to clean up DC's continuity." The first hint was the Monitor's first appearance in New Teen Titans #21...



Now again, do note that the Monitor in New Teen Titans #21 was DRASTICALLY different in scope than what Wolfman ultimately did with the character. It was somewhat similar to how Scott Lobdell started dropping Onslaught hints well before he even knew what Onslaught WAS (as noted in this old Comic Book Legends Revealed).

So Crisis on Infinite Earths definitely did develop between 1982 and 1984, when the idea for the series was fully realized. However, it had nothing to do with JLA/Avengers.

The only way that it had SOME sort of tie-in with JLA/Avengers is that because of the cancellation of JLA/Avengers, then the proposed second Titans/X-Men book was also canceled, and George Perez was originally going to draw that, as well. So when Marv Wolfman first thought about having an artist for Crisis on Infinite Earths, he initially dismissed Perez as an option because he figured Perez was too busy, likely thinking of the Titans/X-Men story.

In addition, Perez did admit that his signing on to do such a major project for DC Comics was meant as a bit of a shot at Marvel, noting to Mark Waid in Amazing Heroes #66, "It was to get revenge for not being able to do the JLA-Avengers book, as well as a way of getting back at Secret Wars, which did phenomenally well with a minimum of effort”



Crisis on Infinite Earths DID end up putting DC right there with Marvel in terms of Direct Market sales share, so Perez did succeed in getting his measure of revenge there.

Thanks to Mark Waid and George Perez for the information and thanks to Chris M. (and the others who have sent in a similar legend) for the suggestion!

Check out some recent entertainment and sports legends from Legends Revealed:

Did B.A. Baracus never actually say "I Pity the Fool" on The A-Team?

Was Charles Dickens really paid by the word?

Did two NFL teams really fight over the right to make the LAST pick in the NFL Draft?

Was Sesame Street really once banned by the state of Mississippi?

Did an NFL team once draft John Wayne...when he was 63 years old?

COMIC LEGEND: The first time we see the Scarlet Witch's costume, it is green.

STATUS: True

Often, something fans have to keep in mind is how "by the seat of their pants" comics used to be produced in the early days of the Marvel Universe. Stan Lee was overseeing the whole line of comics pretty much by himself, so things tended to come and go without a whole lot of thought put into it, in a sort of "get it done and if we screw up, say 'sorry' later on" sort of way.

One of the areas where comic production was REALLY lax was coloring. There really were no guidelines for the Marvel colorists, which at the time was mostly the late Stan Goldberg. Goldberg pretty much had free rein to do what he felt was proper.

As I noted in a recent Comic Book Legends Revealed, when artists would draw a character, they wouldn't even know what the character's costume would be colored, normally.

However, when your character's name was the SCARLET Witch, you had a good chance that she would, in fact, be drawn with a red costume, like in her first appearance in X-Men #4...





But that not the first time fans saw her, however. The first time was on the COVER of X-Men #4, and there, she's wearing a green costume!



It continued on the cover of X-Men #5...



The answer is simple enough, the colorist just decided that her red costume was too similar to the background or Magneto's costume or whatever, so he changed it. And since her costume was now green, he also changed Qucksilver's green costume to blue!

A fan asked about it in X-Men #7 and Stan gave that basic explanation...



(If you asked Stan Lee today, "Was that privacy comment a sign that you thought Iceman was gay at the time?" there's probably a 50/50 shot he'd say yes)

Check out my latest TV Legends Revealed at Spinoff Online: Did Cartman on South Park originally have both a father AND a sister?

COMIC LEGEND: Captain America and Scarlet Witch were already going to get together before Avengers Dissembled threw them together.

STATUS: True

I recently did a feature about all of Scarlet Witch's Avengers teammates who fell for her over the years.

One of them I noted was especially odd, as it was Captain America and the Scarlet Witch entering into a relationship in Christopher Priest's Captain America and Falcon series right around the time Avengers Disasembled came out, where we learn that the Scarlet Witch has had a mental break and had been using her powers to alter reality. So I suggested that perhaps her powers were the root of the situation, as after they get together, he runs in Wanda again and she doesn't remember him...





However, in a strange twist, the relationship was actually something that Priest had planned for a theoretical SECOND year of his Captain America and Falcon series, but he moved up to make it tie in with Avengers Disassembled (partially because he knew Scarlet Witch would soon be off the table for usage).

So when you read these moments, note that this was Priest writing what he WOULD have eventually written between Cap and Wanda, which would partially explain why their relationship developed so quickly in the comic, as he had to move things up pronto (art by Joe Bennett and Jack Jadson)...







The next issue has a really good bit by Priest with Wanda explaining how Cap used to look at her...







Priest used in part the Scarlet Witch's established crush on Cap from their early days in the Avengers together, like this Stan Lee, Don Heck and Wally Wood bit from Avengers #21...



Priest explained on his website:

My planned Year Two romance between Cap and The Scarlet Witch (who’d always had a crush on him, after all—I’m not making this up) had to be moved way up since events in The Avengers would be sending Wanda away for quite awhile. I was eager to participate in Avengers Disassembled because, frankly, we needed the sales bump. And a Cap-Wanda romance played nicely into Brian Bendis’s plans for the Avengers.

Moving the arc, however, was a tactical error because it pushed our big MODOK arc back three months, and some fans began grousing that the as-promised zap bolts and Kirby dots had yet to appear in CAF. Moreover, per instructions given me for the AD crossover, Cap was supposed to relive his greatest failures (which inevitably meant Bucky and an origin recap), but Cap was not supposed to know why; we couldn’t give up that piece of the puzzle because that would be resolved in The Avengers book.

Thanks to Priest for the information and thanks to reader Gurkle for letting me know about it!

Okay, that's it for this week!

Thanks to the Grand Comic Book 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.

As you likely know by now, at the end of April, my book finally came out!

Here is the cover by artist Mickey Duzyj. I think he did a very nice job (click to enlarge)...



If you'd like to order it, you can use the following code if you'd like to send me a bit of a referral fee...

Was Superman a Spy?: And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed

See you next week!