Welcome to the five hundred and forty-fourth 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 Kevin Smith keep Brian Michael Bendis from using Bullseye in one of Bendis' first Daredevil arcs? What is the secret origin of the Invisible Woman's mullet? And did a 13-year-old really create Mr. Peanut?

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: Kevin Smith kept Brian Michael Bendis from using Bullseye during the "Out" storyline.

STATUS: True

In 1998, Kevin Smith relaunched Daredevil alongside artist Joe Quesada in 1998. This new line of Marvel Comics, Marvel Knights, was sort of modeled after the Heroes Reborn approach (give an outside studio control of some Marvel titles to give their own particular spin on things), with Quesada's Event Comics being the backbone of "Marvel Knights."



This endeavor proved so successful that Quesada was soon just flat out put in charge of Marvel Comics entirely as its new Editor-in-Chief. So Smith's run on Daredevil was a very significant point in Marvel history.

Anyhow, during this first storyline, Smith had Daredevil's rival, Bullseye, kill off Daredevil's girlfriend, Karen Page...







Once the storyline was over, Smith left the book, but before he left, he made an arrangement, of sorts, with Quesada. Quesada felt that Smith should write the next encounter between Daredevil and Bullseye following Bullseye killing Daredevil's girlfriend. Smith didn't have a strong opinion either way, but he accepted it.

But then a number of years passed, and Daredevil was getting a new movie set to come out in 2003. Brian Michael Bendis had been named the new writer on the Daredevil series, and in one of his first major stories on the title, Bendis had Daredevil's secret identity revealed to the world. In Daredevil #36 (by Bendis and artist Alex Maleev), Daredevil is confronted by a blast from the past...











However, originally this was going to be Bullseye (Elektra might still have been involved, as well). The problem was that Smith found out that Bendis was going to use Bullseye and he reminded Quesada of their arrangement. Quesada told him that he couldn't hold the character for Smith indefinitely, but if Smith were willing to write a sequel to his Daredevil run right then and there, then Quesada would tell Bendis not to use Bullseye. Smith agreed, so Bullseye was pulled from Daredevil and a couple of months after that issue of Daredevil came out, Marvel released the first issue of a new Kevin Smith penned mini-series, Daredevil Bullseye: The Target (with art by Glenn Fabry, as Quesada was too busy to draw it himself).



The mini-series was also to introduce the new look for Bullseye, based on the Colin Farrell version of the character from the then-upcoming Daredevil movie...



The second issue never came out (more on that tomorrow in a special edition of Left Unresolved!). Smith later regretted doing the series, as it was almost entirely because he felt that Quesada had broken his "word" and less that he actually wanted to write a Bullseye sequel.

Now that it was clear that The Target wasn't ending any time soon, Bendis was allowed to use Bullseye in Daredevil #49, but even there, he was forced to work in references to Bullseye's origin, which was going to be revealed during The Target.









Bendis' Daredevil run worked out fine without the use of Bullseye in that one story, but it's still interesting to see how it all went down.

Check out some entertainment and sports legends from this week at Legends Revealed:

Was Judy Garland Paid Less for the Wizard of Oz Than the Dog Who Played Toto?

Was One of the Canine Mascots for Georgetown’s Football Team a War Hero?

Discover the Odd Tale of the New York Yankees' Short-Lived Costumed Mascot, Dandy!

Learn the Strange Story of How Bonanza Added a Cast Member to the Show and Then Fired Him from The Show...All in One Episode!

Go to the next page for the secret origin of the Invisible Woman's mullet!

COMIC LEGEND: John Byrne came up with the idea to give Invisible Woman a mullet.

STATUS: Basically False

Last week, I did a feature on the top five superhero mullets.

The Invisible Woman was prominently featured with her glorious mullet...









At the time, I wrote "One thing John Byrne made a point of on his Fantastic Four run was to give the characters modern hairstyles. He was actually well ahead of the game with Sue Richards' mullet."

However, my buddy JohnByrneDraws rightly corrected me that the Sue Richards mullet was NOT John Byrne's idea, but rather was the result of a curious comic coiffure contest.

From Fantastic Four #258...



Five issues later, they gave us a head's up on the progress of the contest, along with John Byrne drawings of two of the more popular suggestions thus far...



Finally, in Fantastic Four #271, the winning haircut made its debut...



But here's the problem, as Fantastic Four #269 pointed out, the winner was never actually found...



What a fun contest to run for the fans, even if the end result was, well, you know, a mullet.

Check out my latest Movie Legends Revealed at Spinoff Online: Which Two 1980s Teen Film Icons Had to Turn Down the Role of Walter White on Breaking Bad Before Bryan Cranston Was Even Given a Chance for the Role?

On the next page, learn about the remarkable thirteen-year old who created Mr. Peanut!

COMIC LEGEND: A thirteen year old designed Mr. Peanut.

STATUS: True

One of THE most iconic advertising mascots is Planters Peanuts' Mr. Peanut...



Planters was founded in Pennsylvania in 1906 by an Italian immigrant named Amedeo Obici. In 1913, the company opened their first mass production center in Suffolk, Virginia. There weren't exactly a ton of Italian-Americans in that area of Virginia at the time, so they all tended to stick together, even if they were coming from vastly different stations in life. That was the case with Obici and the Gentile family, who had moved to the area a few years earlier from Philadelphia for the father to pursue a career in tailoring. Obici and his wife would often host the Gentile family on their farm and he had a strong relationship with Antonio Gentile, one of the boys in the family.

In 1916, at the age of 13, Gentile gave a series of drawings to Obici for which Obici paid him $5. It is possible that these were Gentile's entry in some sort of contest (the official history of Planters says that it was for a contest) but I don't know for sure that there ever WAS a contest, all I know is that Gentile drew an anthropomorphic peanut and Obici gave him $5 for it.



Staff artist Frank P. Krize added the top hat and the monocle and thus, Mr. Peanut was born!

The character made its commercial debut in the April 20, 1918 issue of the Saturday Evening Post and was an instant success...





Obici paid Gentile's way through medical school, and Gentile became a surgeon. Tragically, Gentile died when he was just 36 years old.

Well, besides the tragic early death for Gentile, that's a very nice story, don't you think?

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!