Comic Book Legends Revealed #555

Welcome to the five hundred and fifty-fifth 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, was Cable originally intended to be a member of Alpha Flight? Did DC Comics sue a newspaper named the Daily Planet? Did Marvel create an issue of Star Wars out of Al Williamson comic strips?

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: Cable almost debuted as a member of Alpha Flight.

STATUS: I'm Going With True

Some time ago, I did an elaborate Comic Book Legends Revealed delving into the origins of Cable. The basic gist of it is that Cable was born of some Rob Liefeld sketches from 1989.

However, much in the way that Nightcrawler was designed as one type of character before he was retrofitted by Dave Cockrum into the X-Men...

So, too, did the character known as Cable sort of exist out there as a sort of limbo status before he actually became a formalized character in New Mutants, in response to editor Bob Harras' request for the team to add a new militaristic leader (Liefeld had a bunch of these semi-formalized characters that he mostly ended up using in New Mutants, but some he held on to until Youngblood).

However, as Liefeld told Rich Johnston almost ten years ago right here at Comic Book Resources, Cable almost had another home, but it was lost for the want of a number...a number one.

Cable was in fact first introduced as a character in an Alpha Flight proposal that I gave to Danny Fingeroth that was green lit and moving forward until an Alpha Flight re-launch was ultimately ruled out, a condition necessary for me to jump over from the X-office. Cable walked in the doors with me when I arrived at Marvel, he eventually turned up in New Mutants

After Johnston pressed him for more, he elaborated:

Well, before I was committed to New Mutants, I was looking for a vehicle that I could have more plot input on and it turns out that they were looking for a new team on 'Alpha Flight.' I was a huge fan and sent in a two year proposal that pre-dates my start on 'New Mutants' by about seven months. Cable was introduced as a soldier from Wolverine's past, who would have worked with the existing Alpha Flight roster. Danny Fingeroth was eager to get me on the series, but when it wasn't going to be re-launched I opted for 'New Mutants' and was able to do a dramatic housecleaning with editorial's blessing. My second issue of 'New Mutants,' there were several new characters of my design and creation that debuted, including but not limited to Cable. The entire MLF roster was created by me, Thumbleina, Tempo, Fourarm, Wildside, Reaper were among the new villians including Stryfe to appear.

Liefeld's first issue of New Mutants was a few months before James D. Hudnall's last issue of Alpha Flight, so the timing checks out (heck, you could argue that Hudnall's run would have ended earlier had Liefeld agreed to it).

Obviously, Liefeld eventually got to stay in the X-Office AND get a relaunch when New Mutants became X-Force a little over a year after Liefeld took over the book.

Imagine how different things would have been had Cable been an Alpha Flight member!

Thanks to Rob Liefeld and Rich Johnston for the information!

Check out some Christmas-related entertainment and sports legends from Legends Revealed:

Did Montgomery Ward Give the Rights to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” Back to the Story’s Author for Free?

Did Vera-Ellen’s Neck Have to be Covered During the Filming of White Christmas Because it was Ravaged by the Effects of Anorexia?

Did 20th Century Fox Try to Hide the Fact That Miracle on 34th Street Was a Christmas Film?

Was Stephen Sondheim’s “Marry Me a Little” First Recorded Only as a Christmas Present?

COMIC LEGEND: Warner Bros. sued a newspaper named the Daily Planet saying that they couldn't use the name.

STATUS: True

As you might imagine, a big corporation like Warner Bros. has to protect its intellectual property with particular zeal, but one of the most interesting examples of a conflict over a trademark that the company didn't actually trademark!

The Daily Planet has been part of the Superman mythos since almost the beginning, but interestingly enough, DC Comics and their later owner, Warner Bros., never trademarked the name. That's reasonable, of course, as the name was never actually used in commerce, which is what you need for trademarks. DC never published a Daily Planet comic book, ya know?

However, it is fair to say that the name is very much associated with the world of Superman.

This became an issue in 1978 when a newspaper named The Daily Planet was getting ready to come out again right around the same time that the first Superman film was set to be released.

The newspaper known as the Daily Planet debuted in 1969 and actually was distributed at the famous Woodstock music festival of the same year. The company formed Daily Planet Inc. and even registered their name as a trademark. The newspaper had spotty distribution over the next four years and then folded in 1973, ultimately losing their trademark protection.

With the Superman movie about to come out, it was set to come out with the Daily Planet newspaper again. But Warner Bros. had other ideas, and sued them on common law trademark grounds (they then counter-sued Warners to get an injunction to keep Warners from using the Daily Planet name in conjunction with the Superman movie).

It is hard to imagine nowadays just HOW big of a deal the Superman movie was in the late 1970s. No real big budget superhero movie had ever been done, so the anticipation was MASSIVE. As we have seen in history, the publicity was what allowed Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster to get a deal with Warner Bros. over their creation, because the publicity was SO massive for the film. So obviously, this was the time to put out your newspaper called the Daily Planet if you had one.

Ultimately, though, the courts ruled in favor of Warner Bros., agreeing that if you're putting out a newspaper called the Daily Planet, you clearly ARE trying to cash in on the Superman mythos.

In this specific instance, it was even more obvious than that, as here are a few sample articles and stuff from the original run of the Daily Planet, as cited into evidence during the case...

(i) A lead article entitled "Superman smokes super dope";

(ii) A promotional campaign to encourage new subscriptions employing the phrase "Join the Planet Army in Metropolis"[7];

(iii) Use of the phrase "Watchdog of Metropolis" as its slogan;

(iv) Numerous drawings of the Superman character;

(v) Use of a masthead which was an exact replica of the Daily Planet insignia appearing in numerous Superman comic books.

So the courts agreed that Warners had a common law trademark on the name Daily Planet in conjunction with newspapers. A couple of years later, they successfully threatened the school newspaper of the Richard J. Daley college to change their name from the Daley Planet.

However, it is worth noting that there are a number of newspapers out there called the Daily Planet, just differentiated with the name of the town that they are in. Here are a few of them...

Check out my latest Movie Legends Revealed at Spinoff Online: Did a nudity clause cause the lead actresses in Star Wars and Carrie to swap roles?

COMIC LEGEND: Marvel put together an issue of Star Wars drawn by Al Williamson by combining comic strips by Williamson with other artists filling in the gaps.

STATUS: False

Matt Bird wrote in with this one nearly three years ago, asking about Marvel's Star Wars #50...

The pencilling credited to Al Williamson and Walter Simonson, but it’s pretty clear that Simonson is just adding a few panels here and there to Williamson’s story, which implies that Simonson is turning a story from Williamson’s comic strip into a comic book story (as Williamson himself would do with the other strips many years later for Dark Horse), but I can’t find any evidence of such a comic strip story existing.

Amazingly, even with all the internet ink spilled over comics and Star Wars, I can’t find any information on this topic! Was this a rejected comic strip story? Or one that was left over when the strip was cancelled? Or am I wrong and it was a true collaboration between Williamson and Simonson? Either way, it’s a pretty great issue. Thanks!

You're right, Matt, that it was a great issue. Archie Goodwin returned to do a great job on the issue. As it turns out, the answer really is as simple as deadline issues. It is the same reason why Williamson was unable to draw all of Marvel's Return of the Jedi adaptation. Glenn Greenberg had the details in his excellent overview of Marvel's Star Wars run in Back Issue #9...

The issue featured some of Willimason's best Star Wars art ever. However, deadline complications prevented him from doing the full job, so several artists - including Simonson and [Tom] Palmer - were called in to help out. The transitions from Williamson to these other artists were fairly seamless, and in no way detracted from one's enjoyment of the story, which ranks as one of Goodwin's best.

Here are some early Williamson pages (I don't know if other artists are helping him here)...

And here is the final page of the book, which was fully penciled by Simonson...

So it turned out to be a pretty boring answer, Matt, I'm sorry! Thanks for the suggestion!

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)...