Welcome to the five hundred and twenty-ninth 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 screenplay for never-produced Superman V become Superman: The Earth Stealers? Did Kurt Busiek almost have a series at DC Comics that ended up being hurt by Busiek getting TOO good of an artist for the series? And finally, did Steve Englehart take a West Coast Avengers story and make it a Fantastic Four story instead?
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: Superman: The Earth Stealers began as a screenplay for Superman V.
STATUS: False
An interesting thing happened to me the other day. I give my e-mail every week for people to make suggestions for future legends. I give my cronb01@aol.com address. Most people send in their suggestions to that account. Sometimes, though, people mail my bcronin@comicbookresources.com account. That's fine, I just forward it from that account to my other one. At least that's what I do NOW. Seven-eight years ago, I left those e-mails in a folder on my comicbookresources.com account. And you know what? I just plum forgot that they were there for the past five years or so. So I happened upon the folder the other day and I began sorting through them (I only just began, so plenty more to sort through). Most of the ones I've read so far I've addressed one way or the other over the years, but I came across one from reader Billy H. who asked:
The 1988 Earth Stealers Prestige Format book by John Byrne was intended to be Superman V
As many fans now by now, Superman IV was such a bomb that it pretty much ruined the Superman film franchise for nearly two decades.
Surprisingly enough, though, Ilya and Alexander Salkind still planned on doing a fifth Superman film, although it was likely that even back then that they were thinking of a reboot (they didn't rule out using Christopher Reeve again, though).
Superman: The Earth Stealers was a prestige format graphic novel by John Byrne, Curt Swan and Jerry Ordway.
It was about aliens who, well, you know, stole the Earth.
Superman tries to stop them...
After he foils their plan, he and Lois get a great moment...
It is jarring to see Ordway do corrections on Swan's faces, but otherwise, it is an awesome comic book.
But no, it was never intended as a screenplay for a Superman movie. Byrne described it as simply his attempt to get Curt Swan some work, as once the Superman books rebooted, Swan was more or less out of a job, and that was specifically something Byrne was trying to avoid when he took the series over.
Check out some entertainment and sports legends from this week at Legends Revealed:
Did Joss Whedon Cast a Lead in a Film Based Just on One Scene in the Avengers Where She Was an Extra?
Was Bill Russell Traded for the Ice Capades?
Did Cartman on South Park Originally Have a Father AND a Sister?
Was Wilt Chamberlain Drafted While he Was Still in High School?
COMIC LEGEND: Kurt Busiek lost a series in part due to the artist he got for the project becoming too popular.
STATUS: I'm Going With True
Kevin Maguire was just breaking into the comic industry around 1986, with inker Joe Rubinstein getting him a nice intro at Marvel Comics doing character work on the Official Guide to the Marvel Universe. Kurt Busiek, though, gave him what seemed to be his really big break, as Busiek was launching a new series for DC called Wildcard, about a teenager gaining superpowers. He was having trouble finding an artist. When he saw Maguire's art, he brought him to editor Andy Helfer and the pair began work on the series.
Here are some sample pages, courtesy of TwoMorrows' Modern Masters: Kevin Maguire...
The problem was that now that Maguire was in the door, people wanted him for OTHER, more high profile projects. Marvel offered Maguire the Silver Surfer ongoing series launching at the time, but Helfer also offered the Justice League relaunch.
Maguire eventually agreed to do Justice League...
The problem was that Maguire was not a guy who could do two monthly books. So Wildcard went from being an ongoing series to a mini-series. It was announced as such in the DC letter columns.
However, DC then downgraded it to a one-shot and at that point, Kurt Busiek decided it was better to just call it off than downgrade it from a regular series to a one-shot. I don't blame him.
I think Maguire was a good enough artist that he was likely eventually going to be discovered, but yes, it sure does seem like a case of Busiek being hurt by getting a great artist for his comic book. It's a real shame, as I would have loved to have seen a book by the pair.
Thanks to reader Todd for the suggestion and thanks to Kevin Maguire and Kurt Busiek for their respective answers to the question in different places (Kurt responded to Todd on Facebook and Kevin talked about it in Modern Masters).
Check out my latest TV Legends Revealed at Spinoff Online: What celebrity was South Park not allowed to kill during Season 1?
COMIC LEGEND: Steve Englehart had to turn a West Coast Avengers story into a Fantastic Four one.
STATUS: True
The end of Steve Englehart's tenure at Marvel in the 1980s was a fascinating period. I've done a few legends on it over the years and I'm sure I'll do a few more in the future.
Around that same time, Englehart was taken off of West Coast Avengers (a book he had written for almost forty issues) in the middle of a story involving Mantis, Englehart's famous creation from his original run on Avengers in the 1970s...
Englehart, though, is a pro at this. He just took his West Coast Avengers scripts and turned them into...
Fantastic Four scripts!
He was soon taken off of that title, as well, but at least he finished his Mantis storyline! This reminds me of how Englehart brought Mantis to DC when he left Marvel during the 1970s. And how he reworked a Madame Xanadu story into an "original" comic.
That's ingenuity for ya!
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!