Welcome to the five hundred and eighty-second 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, learn the secret origin of Deadpool's fascination with chimichangas, discover whether Grant Morrison forgot the ending of Son of Demon or not and learn if there was a Superman comic made just in Europe!

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: Deadpool's fascination with chimichangas went back to a Marvel in-joke a decade old at the time.

STATUS: True

The other day, I answered a reader question about Deadpool's fascination with chimichangas, a relationship that has only gotten bigger and bigger now that chimichangas were featured extensively in the Deadpool film and in the marketing for the Deadpool film.

Like a Deadpool toy...



Chimichangas were used as part of Deadpool's IMAX trailer...

Here's the cover of a Deadpool Kills Deadpool comic with chimichangas worked in....



So it became this big ol' thing.

I noted at the time that it was funny to see Deadpool SO associated with chimichangas since when Fabian Nicieza first introduced the chimichanga shtick in Cable and Deadpool #13 (art by Patrick Zircher and a bunch of inkers), the joke was that Deadpool only really liked the NAME (not that he DISliked the food, of course, just that it wasn't his big favorite or anything like that)...



Even that, though, had a secret origin. Fabian Nicieza explained to Germain Lussier of io9 that the whole "Chimichanga, chimichanga, chimichanga" bit:

was based completely on an in-joke between myself and the late Mark Gruenwald. Years earlier we’d seen a Saturday Night Live skit where Jimmy Smits was over-pronouncing Spanish words, one of those, I think, was ‘chimichanga.’ Mark and I spent most of that Monday in the office over-pronouncing words with a bad Spanish accent, and cracking each other up.

Here's the skit, from a 1990 episode of Saturday Night Live...

That's awesome. I love the idea of an in-joke lasting over a decade before it becoming such a major part of the characterization of such a major character.

Thanks to Fabian Nicieza and Germain Lussier for the information!

Check out some entertainment and sports legends from Legends Revealed:

Was Hanna-Barbera’s Fonz and the Happy Days Gang Originally a Doctor Who Cartoon Series?

Was the Game of Soccer Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize?

How Did Katharine Hepburn’s Temperance Nearly Kill Her While Filming the African Queen?

Was the Mister Mister Song “Kyrie” Written About a Brutal Attack?

COMIC LEGEND: Grant Morrison was fully aware of Son of Demon when he created Damian Wayne.

STATUS: False

One of the interesting things for me is when I address a concept in a column that could have been used here first. It's sort of a "D'oh!" moment for me. For instance, when I wrote an article a couple of weeks ago about how Grant Morrison's introduction of Damian Wayne conflicted with Mike W. Barr's Son of the Demon, I really thought that I had covered part of that topic in Comic Book Legends Revealed in the past. So when I discovered that I hadn't (after I had already sent in the new article), I thought, "Oh well, I guess I missed out."

However, amusingly enough, a legend STILL arose from that article. It all evens out!

Okay, so the basic idea was that in Son of the Demon (by Barr and Jerry Bingham), Batman works with Talia Al Ghul and Ra's Al Ghul, and even ends up sort of married to Talia...







She gets pregnant, but tells Batman she miscarried. At the end, though, we see that she was lying...



So I wrote the following:

Morrison did not remember exactly how the story went in Son of Demon, but even if he had, the simple fact remained that a kid born at the time of Son of the Demon wouldn't be old enough to be of much use in a Batman and Son storyline, so Morrison changed it so that now this was a matter of cloning and artificial aging....







And that gave us Damian Wayne.

That whole "Morrison did not remember how the story went" would have been the legend. And it was too bad that I missed out on using it as such. However, commenters wouldn't believe me and thus, a legend is re-born!

Here are some comments...

w/r/t original collumnist, Grant Morrison wasn’t confused or forgetful– he brought back multiple bits of old stories in weird/fun ways and tied them together. That was his schtick throughout the entire run.

and

Saying that Grant Morrison forgot or didn’t understand a comic is ridiculous; the whole point of his Batman run was that he was retconning and combining every past Batman story into one lifetime. Son of the Demon was out of continuity; the continuity version is now that Talia drugged him and he impregnated her. Yes, that makes her a rapist, but that’s in character with her character in Morrison’s run.

Yes, people have tried to un-ring that bell since then, but that’s the story of most Morrison in-continuity stories; people either don’t read them or don’t care about the implications, then just try to un-do anything he actually did.

And the New 52 thing didn’t make any sense, with the 5-year timeline, until they just in Rebirth revealed that there are 10 missing years in the New 52 timeline. So now it (kind of) makes sense.

and I think some others, but maybe not.

ANYhow, here is Grant Morrison talking to Wizard about how he brought Damian into DC continuity...

“For a long time, [DC] said [Son of the Demon] was out of continuity. Now it’s just kind of out of continuity. I didn’t actually read it before I started writing this. I messed up a lot of details, like Batman wasn’t drugged when he was having sex with Talia and it didn’t take place in the desert. I was relying on shaky memories.”

So there ya go!

Thanks to Grant Morrison for the information!

Check out my latest Movie Legends Revealed at Spinoff Online: What was the truth behind Han Solo's famous "I know" line in Empire Strikes Back? Did Harrison Ford really improvise the line?

COMIC LEGEND: There was a special Superman comic made for Sweden.

STATUS: True

Years ago, I noted that DC kept producing Pre-Crisis Superman comic book stories for a time for the German marketplace (with Curt Swan continuing as the artist).

However, they also did a unique Danish graphic novel starring Superman that has never been printed in the United States!

It was called Superman Og Fredsbomben (Superman and the Peace Bomb) and it was actually drawn by an artist who later had a notable career for DC Comics proper, Teddy Kristiansen!



In an interview with Norwegian.com, Kristiansen and the book's writer, Niels Søndergaard, explained how the the book came about:

“It was Superman’s 50th anniversary in 1988, and for the first time DC allowed overseas publishers to do their own interpretation of the character,” recalls Kristiansen. “A Swedish publisher [Interpresse] asked me if I was interested. I panicked because I was this amateur artist in Copenhagen working with this famous character.”

The book’s writer, Niels Søndergaard, was also concerned about his lack of experience, but he had an idea for a plot. “I came up with an activist called Theodore who travels to Scandinavia and Holland to promote a new invention called the Peace Monger, which turns radioactive material into lead,” he says. “Lois Lane and Clark Kent are covering the tour and it turns out Theodore is actually a robot controlled by Lex Luthor.”

While Kristiansen was given a free rein as long as he drew the S on Superman’s chest precisely – “Now I can draw it in my sleep” – Søndergaard clashed with DC over Clark Kent’s choice of changing room. “DC was annoyed I used toilets instead of phone booths,” he recalls. “I thought it would be a logical choice because phone booths are open. At the end they allowed me to use toilets, but they did complain.”

Another sticking point was the destruction caused by Superman during his Scandinavian sojourn. “A lot of things get smashed during his fights, including Frogner Park in Oslo and the Sibelius Monument in Helsinki,” says Søndergaard. “DC said, ‘Superman has to rebuild this. Why does he smash everything?’ I told » them it is because kids think it’s funny, but in the end you have Lois Lane saying, ‘Superman is not here because he is rebuilding everything that was smashed.’”

Awesome.

Kristiansen later drew the excellent Superman graphic novel, It's a Bird...



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!

Here's my newest book, Why Does Batman Carry Shark Repellent? The cover is by Kevin Hopgood (the fellow who designed War Machine's armor).

If you want to order a copy, ordering it here

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Follow Comics Should Be Good on Twitter and on Facebook (also, feel free to share Comic Book Legends Revealed on our Facebook page!). Not only will you get updates when new blog posts show up on both Twitter and Facebook, but you'll get original content from me, as well!

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)...



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 all next week!