Welcome to the five hundred and twenty-eighth 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 Marvel's editor-in-chief retroactively keep Wolverine from being a killer? Did Marvel squelch plans for a trans superhero during the 1980s? And was Brian Michael Bendis really going to be the original artist on David Mack's Kabuki?
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: Chris Claremont was forced to reveal that the people Wolverine had seemingly killed during the Dark Phoenix Saga were secretly not dead.
STATUS: I'm Going With True
One of the most famous panels in comic book history is the final panel of X-Men #132, as John Byrne and Terry Austin draw a marvelously awesome shot of Wolverine, though to be killed by the Hellfire Club, popping out of the sewers, swearing vengeance.
Since they tried to kill him, it sure seems like he is going to then try to kill them right back, right?
That's what it seemed like at the start of the next issue, the classic X-Men #133 (by Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Terry Austin), as Wolverine tears through the Hellfire Club's guards...
Besides an awesomely written (and beautifully drawn) fight sequence, do note that it sure looks like Wolverine just killed some dudes, right?
A while back, I wrote about how Wolverine was first shown to be a killer through the addition of a "snikt" sound effect. Like I said then, this was a BIG deal at the time, as superheroes just didn't kill like that. However, it is fair to say that we don't actually see Wolverine kill the guard in that panel. It's all off-panel, so we don't know for sure what Wolverine did. He could have just cut him or did something else. Here, though, it is pretty clear that Wolverine sliced these dudes to pieces.
As we discussed last week, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter had a different view of heroes killing. He wouldn't allow Jean Grey/Phoenix to "get away" with committing murder, and as Chris Claremont said in the original X-Men Companion (seriously, Peter Sanderson, you are the man - the X-Men Companion is one of the most informative interview tomes EVER), Shooter had similar views about Wolverine:
Jim came back to the office and said we must either present Wolverine’s victims alive and hale and repaired and unhurt, or Wolverine must pay for his crimes, stand trial and be punished.
Byrne went further when discussing the character with Sanderson again, this time in Back Issue #4:
This, then, led to Uncanny X-Men #152 (by Chris Claremont, Bob McLeod and Joe Rubinstein), where those guards Wolverine seemingly killed turned up alive...
I don't even necessarily have a PROBLEM with the idea of them not being dead, but it is just interesting how we got to that point.
In an amusing sidenote that I covered in another Comic Book Legends Revealed, while Shooter didn't want Wolverine to KILL, he also got irked that Wolverine wasn't enough of a berserker, which led to him insisting on the addition of an interesting scene in X-Men #143.
Thanks to reader Cory Strode for reminding me of this last week, and thanks to Chris Claremont, John Byrne and, of course, the great Peter Sanderson, for the information.
Check out some entertainment and sports legends from this week at Legends Revealed:
Did No One Guess the Right Answer in The Simpsons’ “Who Shot Mr. Burns” Contest?
Did Harrison Ford Accidentally Audition for the Role of Han Solo in Star Wars?
Was 50 Cent Sued Over the Use of the Phrase “It’s Your Birthday” in His Hit Song “In Da Club”?
COMIC LEGEND: Marvel forced Peter Gillis to change Cloud's origins so that there was no hint of the character being trans.
STATUS: False
A couple of weeks ago, I did a piece on the history of trans characters at Marvel and DC Comics.
One of the interesting cases, although not actually truly counting was the character of Cloud, from the New Defenders in the 1980s.
It began with Defenders #132, where Iceman flirts with his new teammate, Cloud...
In #134, Cloud, though, shows an interest in her female teammate, Moondragon...
She struggles with her feelings the following issue...
In #136, she solves her problems by turning into a man....
Iceman doesn't handle it particularly well...
Cloud changes back and forth and Bobby has a particularly hard time when he's consoling Cloud on her bed when she changes into a man. Bobby freaks out, and tells Cloud that he wants to help, he just can't.
But eventually he remains friends with Cloud...
And as they come closer to learning Cloud's origins later on and whether she actually DID "turn" into a guy or if she is perhaps two person merged into one...
Then, of course, her origins were revealed to be something COMPLETELY different as the series abruptly ended. So in the end, Cloud really didn't count as a trans character, but for a while there, it DID seem like Cloud was heading that direction. Either way, it was a fascinating angle for a mid-1980s Marvel superhero book, that is for sure.
Anyhow, this naturally led to people wondering if writer Peter Gillis was PLANNING on going another direction with Cloud but was told otherwise by Marvel's then-stricter guidelines. Commenter Justice specifically mentioned it in the comments of that trans characters piece (thanks to commenter Peter for finding the comment!).
So I asked Gillis about it, and he explained to me that it was pretty much the exact opposite!
My plan was always to go in the science fiction direction: Marc DeMatteis' revelation to me when he turned the strip over to me was that Cloud was not a young woman who could turn into a cloud but an alien cloud-form who thought she was a human. He had created her, and I saw no reason to change that. (Just mess around with it some.) I had to fight like hell (and Carl Potts fought on my behalf) to even have the APPEARANCE of a trans character, assuring them up and down that there was a good old sf reason for the shenanigans.
Thanks, Peter!
And thanks to you and Carl Potts for fighting to try something very groundbreaking for the time.
Check out my latest Movie Legends Revealed at Spinoff Online: A longtime Star Wars legend has been that Harrison Ford first met George Lucas while Ford was installing cabinets in Lucas' home back when Ford was still working as a carpenter. Is that story true?
COMIC LEGEND: Brian Michael Bendis was going to be the original artist on David Mack's Kabuki.
STATUS: True
David Mack's Kabuki is one of the most breathtaking visual books around, with Mack's stunning mixed media artwork taking a novel approach to art every issue of the series. It's simply astonishing work...
However, amazingly enough, originally he wasn't even going to be the artist on the series!!
Dark Horse next month is releasing the first volume of an oversized library edition of Kabuki. It looks amazing.
Part of the volume, though, is the revelation that Brian Michael Bendis was going to be the original artist on the series, with Mack just writing the book.
Mack shared a sample page from the volume featuring Bendis Kabuki art...
It looks fine, really, but Mack's Kabuki was a career-defining performance, so it is amazing to consider that he almost didn't draw it!
Thanks to Travis Pelkie for the suggestion for this one!
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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Was Superman a Spy?: And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed
See you all next week!