Here are quick descriptions of each of the previous editions of Comic Book Legends Revealed. Check out Urban Legends Revealed for more legends about the worlds of Sports and Entertainment!

Also, here is my book, Was Superman a Spy?: And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed...



Feel free to order it here.

The book has SIXTY-FIVE new legends that are not featured on this list!

To see if the legends below are true or false, you have to click on the link!

#1 - Jim Shooter wrote comic books when he was 14 years old.

Mark Gruenwald's ashes were mixed in with the printing of a comic book.

DC must publish at least four issues of Wonder Woman a year or else lose the rights to the property.

#2 - Youngblood was a reworking of a pitch Rob Liefeld made to DC for Team Titans.

Jim Steranko was the inspiration for the escape artist character in Michael Chabon's Kavalier and Klay as well as Jack Kirby's Mister Miracle.

Fawcett Comics had to stop publishing Captain Marvel because it lost a copyright lawsuit brought by DC Comics.

#3 - Al Milgrom was fired by Marvel after sneaking an insult to Bob Harras into a comic book.

Wonder Girl was added to the Teen Titans by mistake.

Swamp Thing is a rip-off of Man-Thing/Man-Thing is a rip-off of Swamp Thing.

#4 - Artist Joe Jusko dressed up as Captain America for the cover of a comic book.

DC changed the outcome of a comic book because the original ending had been leaked to the public.

Nicolas Cage took his last name from Luke Cage, Hero For Hire.

#5 - All-Star Comics #3 was an inter-company crossover.

Marvel changed the names of X-Force, Deadpool and Cable to avoid paying Rob Liefeld royalties.

Woody Allen was once featured in an issue of DC's Showcase.

#6 - After the Captain Marvel decision, DC bought Fawcett's characters.

DC had a Superman storyline set during the Holocaust that did not mention the word "Jew" or "Jewish."

Mark Bagley got his start by winning the original Marvel Try-Out Contest.

#7 - DC had an ongoing comic that simply repackaged old TV tie-in comics.

The woman on the cover of House of Secrets #92 (Swamp Thing's first appearance) is Louise Simonson.

Superman once got into trouble for spilling American nuclear secrets.

#8 - Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, the Daily Planet and Kryptonite all appeared on the Superman radio show before they ever appeared in the comic book.

C.C. Beck based Captain Marvel's appearance on a movie where Fred MacMurray daydreams about being a superhero.

A DC comic character invented in 1964 did not make his debut until 1992.

#9 - Marvel and DC own the trademark of the word "Super Hero."

DG Chichester left Daredevil with #332.

Christopher Priest killed off a character in a comic because of ownership rights.

#10 - DC dictated the format of Marvel comics for more than a decade.

Thunderstrike was outselling Thor and Avengers combined when it was cancelled.

Charlton printed its comics using a cereal box press.

#11 - Marvel killed off a Thunderbolts character because of a rights problem.

John Byrne left Jack Kirby off of the 20th anniversary cover of Fantastic Four.

Roger Stern left Avengers over Captain Marvel's leadership of the team.

#12 - Marvel HAS to publish a Captain Marvel comic book.

Lisa Marie Presley made Nicolas Cage sell his comic collection.

Aquaman's first cover appearance was with the Justice League, nineteen years after he first appeared!

#13 - Justice Society of America was cancelled for a reason other than sales.

The Protector was created to co-star with the Titans in the pages of their Anti-Drug comic book.

In 1975, Marvel came up with four new titles in one lunch.

#14 - Destiny and Mystique were intended to be Nightcrawler's parents.

Marvel Comics licenses the use of the name "Hulk" to Hulk Hogan.

For almost a decade, there were born again Christian comics produced starring the Archie characters.

#15 - Walt Simonson based the concept of the Time Variance Authority in his Fantastic Four run on the Time Lords from Doctor Who.

Kevin Smith killed off Mysterio without permission from the Spider-Man office.

Mickey Spillane wrote comic books.

#16 - Steve Skeates reworked an unused issue of Aquaman as an issue of another comic for ANOTHER company - TWICE!

The Human Torch was replaced by H.E.R.B.I.E. in the Fantastic Four cartoon because the network was afraid that kids would, inspired by the Torch, set themselves on fire.

Steve Englehart brought a character with him from Marvel to not one, but TWO other comic companies!

#17 - Steve Ditko does not use the original art that Marvel has returned to him, except sometimes as CUTTING BOARDS!

Robert Loren Fleming is dead.

The first Marvel/DC crossover was The Wizard of Oz.

#18 - The recent Norman Osborn/Gwen Stacy relationship in Amazing Spider-Man was never intended to occur!

The Golden Age Green Lantern's name was originally Alan Ladd.

Elliot S! Maggin's big break came from a story he got from Jeph Loeb!

#19 - Dave Cockrum once sold the same character to both DC and Marvel...at the same time!!!

Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston invented the polygraph test!

John Byrne wrote TWO separate first issues of Blood of the Demon!

#20 - The characters in Watchmen were originally meant to be based on a defunct line of superheroes.

When Len Wein created the "All New, All Different" X-Men, he created Thunderbird with the intention of killing him off two issues later, which is what he did.

A character once escaped from X-Men custody in 1977 and did not have the plot resolved into another comic book...thirteen years later!!

#21 - At one point Wolverine was intended to be a genetically mutated wolverine.

Superman's secret identity was made up by combining the first names of two popular pulp heroes.

Dazzler's life was saved by Marc Silvestri.

#22 - Joker was originally killed off in his SECOND appearance!

Marv Wolfman created Black Cat as a foil for the Amazing Spider-Man

Renee Montoya was invented for the cartoon show before she appeared in the comic books.

#23 - Bruce Banner got a new first name due to Stan Lee's forgetfulness

The recently killed off Phantom Lady, Human Bomb and Black Condor are in the public domain and are not actually owned by DC, therefore with their deaths, anyone can now come along and publish stories about them

Speedball was invented for the New Universe.

#24 - Marvel UK turned Killraven into "Apeslayer."

James Robinson decided to kill off a group of superheroes to show how deadly Jack Knight's ememy, The Mist, was.

Joe Orlando illustrated the famous depictions of Sea Monkeys.

#25 - DC was forced to change La Renard Rouge ("The Red Fox")'s name to "Crimson Fox

Grant Morrison's script for BULLETEER didn't actually request that level of cheesecake, and certainly didn't ask for the lead character to spend most of the issue in her underwear.

The film Hardware just took the movie's story from a 2000 AD comic.

#26 - US Postal Laws made for some interesting comic title transitions.

Hank Pym appeared in comics BEFORE the Fantastic Four!

The DC character Triumph was gay.

#27 - Firebreather was originally the son of Fin Fang Foom

Devin Grayson named herself after Dick Grayson.

John Byrne's 2112 was initially designed as a launch of Marvel 2099.

#28 - Spider-Woman was created by Marvel to secure a trademark.

Akira Yoshida is a pseudonym.

Spider-Woman ended up getting Wolverine's original origin.

#29 - Kurt Busiek came up with the idea for Jean Grey's return.

Triathlon was gay.

Kurt Busiek was NOT the first choice for Untold Tales of Spider-Man

#30 - Frank Brunner and Steve Englehart faked a fan letter to themselves.

Mike Deodato used to draw four books a month during the mid-90s.

Ferro Lad was originally meant to be black.

#31 - Frank Miller's lack of interest in Batman continuity ended up with Barbara Gordon being adopted.

Jack Kirby drew the very first cover featuring Spider-Man.

Steve Englehart protested an editorial decison by Marvel by using the pseudonym John Harkness.

#32 - The GI Joe series was partially based on a previous Marvel pitch Larry Hama made to Marvel.

The famous "Silent Issue" of GI Joe was originally meant to have dialogue in it, but it was left out due to some sort of error.

One of the G.I. Joes was based upon Larry Hama himself.

#33 - Marvel is sitting on an unpublished Peter Bagge Hulk comic book.

Stan Lee created the Black Marvel

Aquaman was not from Atlantis for his first eighteen years of existence.

#34 - Jimmy Carter's diplomatic policies led to the Contest of Champions.

Kieron Dwyer is John Byrne's son.

DC produced a completely different version of Emerald Twilight before it was scrapped.

#35 - Elliot S! Maggin's first comic book work was originally written for a college class.

Wolverine's costume was patterned in part on the uniforms of the Michigan Wolverines football team.

Ernie Chan had to be credited under a different name for years due to a typographical error.

#36 - Rob Liefeld once drew a book in landscape style without being asked, leading to the book having to be cut and paste to look like a normal comic book.

Simon Bisley once drew a penis on Lobo's arm on a comic cover.

Batman and Superman began to team-up because of inflation

#37 - Elvis Presley based his famous hairstyle upon Captain Marvel, Jr.

The character Nightveil had to take her name because of violating a DC Comics trademark.

Steve Ditko once had a story censored for using the devil in a comic.

#38 - Electronic ankle bracelet monitors were created based on a Spider-Man comic strip.

Frank Miller coined the term "The Dark Knight"

Green Lantern lost the cover of his own comic book to his dog.

#39 - An artist who wrote and drew a comic book adventure of fighter pilots became an actual flying ace himself during World War II.

A change in postal laws led to the elimination of letters pages in DC comic books.

The Comics Code Authority once banned not the content of a comic, but the art style of the artist.

#40 - The Hulk is green because of poor color separations.

Chuck Austen was J.D. Finn

William Gaines pretty-much single-handedly destroyed 3-D comic books.

#41 - Jack Kirby sued Marvel Comics.

Marvel changed the name of the Black Panther because of the political group by the same name.

Blue Beetle was originally going to star in a weekly comic anthology BEFORE DC came up with Action Comics Weekly.

#42 - Gerry Conway did not intend to include the "snap" in the death of Gwen Stacy

The woman who was the titular basis for Kitty Pryde has since changed her name due to unwanted comic book fan attention.

Apocalypse was originally going to be the Owl.

#43 - Julie Schwartz once had to write a comic story in a day because of an mistaken cover instruction

When Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Steve McNiven began work on their Fantastic Four run, it was intended to appear in the pages of the regular Fantastic Four

Dr. Strange has a daughter named Sofia.

#44 - The original ending of Marvel vs. DC involved the two companies swapping two characters, but this ending was changed due to external pressure.

Almost all the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club were based on famous actors, both visually and titularly

Fred Hembeck Destroys the Marvel Universe was held back for five years because of Justice League of America vs. The Avengers.

#45 - She-Hulk was created based upon a rumor.

Mad became a magazine because of the Comics Code.

Alan Scott intentionally created a garish costume.

#46 - Dave Cockrum's resignation letter from Marvel was placed into an issue of Iron Man as a prank.

Orson Welles once teamed up with Superman.

Michael Fleisher's Spectre issues had so many problems with script continuity that they needed a separate writer to keep the continuity straight.

#47 - Marty Nodell created the Pillsbury Doughboy.

New editions of Grant Morrison's Zenith tradepaperbacks were printed but are currently stuck in a London warehouse due to rights issues.

Marty Pasko wrote a short prose story for Marvel Comics under the name "Kyle Christopher."

#48 - Dazzler was created as a cross-promotion between Marvel and Casablanca Records.

DC stopped letting writers edit their own titles in an attempt at squeezing Jack Kirby from the company.

John Byrne's first Fantastic Four work as writer/artist originally was meant for a Coca-Cola giveaway."

#49 - In the comic books, Superman was declared 4-F because he accidentally read the eye chart in another room with his X-Ray vision.

The Spectre had a comic relief sidekick.

Wildcat was inspired to become a superhero by the comic book character Green Lantern."

#50 - John Romita broke into comics pretending to ink for a penciller, while the penciller was actually inking Romita's pencils!

The Super-books were not going to marry Clark and Lois until the TV show got involved.

Venom was originally going to be a woman.

#51 - John Byrne had a much longer storyline in store for Scarlet Witch before being taken off Avengers West Coast.

Terror, Inc. was a continuation of a previous comic from another line of comics.

Colossus was originally intended to be Ferro Lad's brother.

#52 - Will Pfeifer was briefly married to actress Michelle Pfeiffer (joke)

Matt Fraction once took a restraining order out against Ed Brubaker (joke)

A Batman story Jeff Parker drew was pulled by DC just before it went to press because Batman was having a great time with the ladies (not a joke).

#53 - Mike W. Barr was initially inspired to write Batman: Year Two upon reading Frank Miller's seminal Batman storyline, Batman: Year One.

Wendy Pini used to attend comic conventions dressed as Red Sonja.

Gyro Gearloose was cut off from the rest of the Uncle Scrooge gang due to postal rules.

#54 - Warlord was cancelled after its third issue.

Black Canary was raped in Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters.

Mike Grell got his start working as an assistant to Dale Messick on Brenda Starr.

#55 - James Kochalka performed the theme song for the FOX show, "The Loop."

Paul Simon named some of the rhymes in "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" after the old Marvel bullpen.

The co-creator of Tank Girl co-created The Gorillaz

#56 - The creator of Crime Does Not Pay went to jail for killing a woman

Jim Shooter and Dave Cockrum once shared an apartment.

Jack Kirby wrote comics under the pseudonym of Martin Burtsein during the 40s.

#57 - Plastic Man was originally named India Rubber Man.

John Byrne got the idea for Darkseid vs. Galactus from a fan.

Doomsday made his first appearance during the end of the "Panic in the Sky" storyline.

#58 - Jonathan Frakes used to dress up as Captain America for conventions.

The shape of Captain America's shield was the result of another comic book company.

Martin Goodman was paid money for a Captain America movie that he never shared with Joe Simon or Jack Kirby.

#59 - The second volume of Ghost Rider never had an ending.

The Scarlet Witch accidentally appeared in an issue of X-Men in place of Storm when John Byrne was drawing both books.

Nancy Collins' Dhampire series was scrapped due to behind-the-scenes tragedy.

#60 - Right before becoming an X-Men, Nightcrawler was going to be a member of the Legion of Superheroes.

Keith Giffen originally meant for the adult Legion and the Legionnaires to battle, with casualties being chosen randomly out of a hat.

Keith Giffen managed to destroy the Earth in Legion of Superheroes due to nobody watching the book.

#61 - Alias was originally going to star Jessica Drew, but writer Brian Michael Bendis had to change Jessica Drew to Jessica Jones.

Igor Kordey once drew an issue of New X-Men in a week.

Archie Goodwin's passing led to how the last Manhunter story appeared.

#62 - Marvel had a special insert in an issue of Fantastic Four because they irked the Nixon Administration.

Kenneth Johnson wanted the Hulk to be red on the TV show.

Bruce Banner's name was changed in the Incredible Hulk TV series because the show's creator thought that the name sounded "too homosexual".

#63 - Yellowjacket II was originally going to be a member of the Thunderbolts.

J.M. DeMatteis had to toss out a plot involving Dr. Strange's father due to the title's imminent cancellation.

The first appearances of the Squadron Supreme in the Avengers were "crossovers" with the Justice League of America.

#64 - Neal Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys used to be an editor for Marvel Comics.

DC had an unpublished Green Lantern Annual that they sat on for almost forty years before publishing.

Earth X was originally going to be called Earth [Swastika].

#65 - Nazi Germany once took it upon itself to rebut a Superman comic story.

Neal Adams redrew a significant portion of Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man.

Kurt Busiek was going to call Carol Danvers Nemesis during his Avengers run, but the X-Men office would not let him.

#66 - Scott Lobdell was fired from Alpha Flight over controversy regarding Northstar "coming out."

In the 1970s, Marvel had a designated "first page" letterer.

Grant Morrison took an old French character out of the public domain and made him an X-Men character.

#67 - Grant Morrison and Mark Millar had a pitch for a revamp of Marvel's 2099 line of comics.

Ed Brubaker came up with the idea behind there being a secret team of X-Men before the All-New, All-Different Team.

Chris Claremont was going to bring Kitty Pryde into the cast of the Fantastic Four.

#68 - M.I.T. once cribbed design work for a multi-million dollar grant from a comic book!

Mario Puzo once wrote comic books.

Fantastic Four was snuck on to the schedule against the terms of Marvel's distribution deal.

#69 - Daredevil Comics #2 was created over a weekend.

Scott Lobdell didn't want Storm to be a killer, so he brought Marrow back to life.

Freedom Fighters and The Invaders had an unofficial crossover.

#70 - Due to Don Perlin, a profanity accidentally snuck into an issue of Defenders.

Wolverine originally was going to kill Sabretooth - 25 years ago!

Namor and the Human Torch had the first team-up in comic history!

#71 - DC licensed characters for use in alcoholic drink mixes.

Marvel has never intended to publish the final chapter to "The Last Galactus Story" serial that ran in Epic Illustrated magazine.

Marvel published a game tie-in years after the company that made the game was defunct.

#72 - Denny O'Neil named Optimus Prime.

Ethan Van Sciver took over from Alan Davis on Green Lantern: Rebirth.

Scott Lobdell became the writer of Uncanny X-Men by happening to be walking in the right place at the right time.

#73 - An inventor was denied a Dutch patent due to a Carl Barks' Donald Duck story.

An extortionist calling himself Uncle Scrooge baffled German police for years.

There was a fourth nephew named Phooey.

#74 - Seaworld once had a DC Superhero water skiing feature.

DC produced comics for the CIA.

Steve Skeates once had to change The Question's dialogue by a rather odd decision by Steve Ditko.

#75 - Masters of the Universe was a reworked Fourth World movie.

Storm was the result of combining two characters, one of whom could transform into a cat!

Grant Morrison and Mark Millar pitched an "evil Professor X attacks superheroes" story a year before Onslaught!

#76 - Marvel had another cross-promotion superhero/singer in the 90s.

Jerry Siegel had Superman reveal his secret identity to Lois Lane in 1940!

The Superman radio show first came up with the idea behind kryptonite.

#77 - Warren Kremer created Richie Rich.

Buzzy the Crow had his voice changed in recent re-airings of his old cartoon because it was considered racially offensive.

Tommy Tortoise and Moe Hare never made a comic appearance until the late 90s!

#78 - Mr. Sinister was originally envisioned as the product of the mutant mind of a child.

Gambit was originally intended to be a villain.

Jack Kirby co-created Thundarr the Barbarian.

#79 - DC got the idea behind Brainiac from a "make your own computer" kit.

Lex Luthor went bald due to an artist's mistake.

Joe Kelly did not originally intend for his Zod to be Russian.

#80 - Milton Caniff produced a comic book for the US Army titled "How to Spot a Jap."

Comic books were used by both sides of the issue to sway public opinion surrounding the United States Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade.

Uncle Ben tells Peter "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility."

#81 - Batman had a brother!

Blue Beetle gained weight as an homage to Nite-Owl from Watchmen.

Archie cancelled a series after two issues because of a threat of a DC Comics lawsuit.

#82 - Both the writer and creator of the first African-American comic book character to have his own book are unknown.

Jim Steinman is attempting to make a Batman musical.

Kurt Busiek adapted his idea for Marvels II into Astro City: The Dark Age, years after the fact.

#83 - The Superman story in Action Comics #1 was made up of a cut up comic strip.

Jim Shooter was the moving force behind Jack Kirby being removed from the cover of Fantastic Four #236.

Geraldo Rivera made an appearance in an issue of Count Duckula.

#84 - DC produced in-continuity Superman comics specifically for Germany.

Chris Claremont intended to return Colossue from the dead, but was halted by editorial.

Ghost Rider was originally intended to have no ties to the supernatural.

#85 - Superman battled the real life Ku Klux Klan on his radio show.

John Romita Sr. helped design the Transformers for the American cartoon show and comic book.

Roy Thomas used a pseudonym to retcon a 90s Conan storyline before it even finished!!

#86 - Mark Waid took his name off an issue of Captain America because editorial changed his story after approving Waid's script.

Marv Wolfman used a rejected Lex Luthor revamp on Vandal Savage, instead.

Rob Liefeld drew the Chaos dimension sideways for no reason in an issue of Hawk and Dove.

#87 - Donald Duck discovered methylene.

Basil Wolverton's visualization of Lena the Hyena was such a big deal, it even made the cover of Life magazine!

Smallville was established in a Superboy comic as being located on the East Coast.

#88 - DC made Bart Allen the Flash because he was the Flash on Smallville.

A writer was killed by the Argentinian government over his comic book work.

Jim Starlin once had Pip the Troll drink a particularly offensive drink.

#89 - The Hopi tribe tried to force Marvel to pull an issue of SuperPro from the stands.

A man wanted DC's permission to get plastic surgery to look like Superboy

Matt Murdock appeared in the first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

#90 - False rumors about a new comic book resulted in the creation of that very comic book.

The original Secret Wars had only two sentences of dialogue end in a period.

A superhero once ceased appearing in his own comic book!

#91 - DC gave Superman new powers to aid them in a legal struggle.

Marvel put intentionally misleading covers on the first two issues of Fantastic Four.

The Kingdom was originally meant to be an ongoing series.

#92 - Namor the Sub Mariner was created as a movie tie-in.

John Byrne almost followed Walt Simonson on Fantastic Four!

T.M. Maple's real name was never revealed.

#93 - Fiorello LaGuardia personally promised protection to Jack Kirby and Joe Simon from death threats.

Captain America #249 was not approved by the Comics Code Authority because it featured a suicide.

Captain America once had a metal-laced skeleton.

#94 - J. M. DeMatteis planned to kill Captain America during his run on the title.

Musician brothers sued DC over the use of their likeness in a Jonah Hex comic book.

The last issue of Marvel Comics' Star Wars sold so poorly that it was not even released on newsstands.

#95 - Marvel's president once canceled a movie tie-in comic mid-series once he realized what the movie was about.

DC had no idea that the Death of Superman would be such a big deal.

Alan Grant wrote most of his first year on Batman crediting a writing partner who wasn't working with him.

#96 - DC pushed back Superman's return once they saw the big deal his death caused.

Defiant Comics lost a court case forcing them to change the name of their comic from Plasm to Warriors of Plasm.

The idea for Magneto ripping Wolverine's adamantium out of his body came from a joke suggestion made by Peter David at a X-Writers conference.

#97 - Superman and Batman appeared on Sesame Street.

Marvel re-wrote the ending of the X-Cutioner's Song because they decided not to reveal Cable's origin at the end of it as the originally planned.

John Jakes wrote comics for Marvel.

#98 - DC once asked Marvel Comics for a page of Jack Kirby's New Gods artwork when they needed a copy for reference work.

Daimon Hellstrom was a riff on Damien from The Omen.

Tom Fontana is working on a Batman graphic novel.

#99 - Dealing with the integration of Captain Marvel into the DCUniverse caused the creation of a new superhero in the pages of Superman.

DC almost had a black Captain Marvel.

John Byrne was originally going to write/draw a Captain Marvel mini-series integrating Captain Marvel into the DC Universe.

#100 - The Scorpion was originally going to be the child of Viper and Silver Samurai

Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four #12 was an intentional knock-off of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Chris Elopoulos draws the Mini-Marvels series.

Jay Faerber's run on Titans featured some prominent supporting characters that were not in Jay's intended plan for the series.

Walter Simonson compiled a list of all the appearances of Doctor Doom in comics and determined which ones were actually Doom and which ones were Doom-bots.

#101 - Jim Shooter got the idea for Spider-Man's black costume from a piece of fan fiction.

The dentist of the Superman movie's producer's wife auditioned for the role of Superman.

The clone of the Guardian was originally going to be a member of the New Warriors.

#102 - Marvel came out with a Broadway musical starring Captain America.

One of the members of Youngblood was originally announced as a cast member of the New Mutants.

Justice League Unlimited had to create the Justice Guild at the last minute for their Legends episode, because DC would not let them use the Justice Society.

#103 - Orson Welles was planning on doing a Batman film in the 1940s.

DC had a completed Xena/Wonder Woman crossover comic book but decided not to publish it..

Marvel and DC taking turns making crossover comics resulted in George Perez missing out on X-Men/Teen Titans

#104 - DC Comics almost bought Diamond Comics Distrubutors.

A character who was appropriate enough for a DC cartoon was found not appropriate for a DC toy.

There was purple Kryptonite.

#105 - Jack Kirby was okay with DC redrawing his Superman faces.

DC redrew Superman's face on a comic drawn by the same person who designed Superman on the popular Super Friends TV series.

Marvel had Dave Cockrum redraw the X-Men in an X-Men guest appearance in a John Byrne-drawn issue of Iron Fist.

#106 - Jesus Christ was a supporting character in Ghost Rider.

The second volume of Ghost Rider was not supposed to be an ongoing series.

Howard Mackie took an issue to trash anything that had happened in Ghost Rider since he left the book.

#107 - The Fantastic Four were going to wear masks originally.

Steve Englehart came up with an interesting plot to protest his exit from the Fantastic Four.

Steve Englehart's Silver Surfer book was designed as the Surfer exploring outer space.

#108 - J.M. DeMatteis finished the story from a canceled Marvel comic series in a DC comic series.

Steve Epting broke into comics by entering a non-existent contest!

Chuck Dixon was the original writer on Heroes Reborn Captain America

#109 - Marvel had an agreement with Frank Miller that they would not bring Elektra back unless Miller wanted to do so

Harvey created Little Aubrey to avoid having to license Little Lulu.

The sequel to Batman: The Cult became a Punisher mini-series.

#110 - A comic character was made an actual citizen in Japan!

The Astro Boy name came about because NBC was afraid DC would sue them over the name "The Mighty Atom."

In Japan, the re-runs of Astro Boy they use are sub-titled American versions.

#111 - Marvel Comics once had a line of female superhero comic books.

Thor appeared in a Marvel Comic BEFORE the Silver Age!

A doppleganger of Superman created in a special Superman comic was originally intended to be the way for Superman to return from the dead after his death against Doomsday.

#112 - Marv Wolfman got his job working on the Superman animated series not because of his comic work, but because of his Garbage Pail Kids work.

Marvel published a toy tie-in comic book without an actually toy to tie-into!

Casper the Friendly Ghost was not known as Casper until the first issue of his comic book, four years after he first debuted!

#113 - Jack Kirby left DC because he thought they lied to him about the sales of his New Gods titles in order to pay him less money

The Superman radio show had a drastically different origin for Superman

JM DeMatteis changed a storyline in Justice League of America because he didn't know how the story was supposed to go.

#114 - Disney once had a series of Mickey Mouse comic strips depicting Mickey trying various ways of killing himself.

DC had to change the name of their Helix line of comic books because of the Shadowrun role playing game.

Bernie Wrightson once thought he had some sort of disease due to the paint brush he was using.

#115 - Marvel had a line of female heroine comic books in the 1970s.

Disney once kept a company from publishing comic strips that, at the time, were most likely in the public domain.

Al Milgrom was blacklisted from Marvel Comics after he snuck an insult of Bob Harras into a comic book.

#116 - Marvel got rid of the X-Ternals because of threats of litigation by the Highlander folks.

Scott Lobdell introduced Onslaught without knowing who or what Onslaught was.

Larry Hama's origin for M and Penance was not what Scott Lobdell originally intended for the characters.

#117 - Kitty Pryde was in the original treatment for Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars, but was removed before the comic was released.

Marvel and DC only trademarked "superhero" because Mego trademarked it first.

Marvel took a British comic book character and basically just put her into Alpha Flight wholesale.

#118 - James Cameron got the idea for The Terminator from "Days of Future Past."

Top Cow Studios was going to be called Ballistic Studios

Terra was created as a sort of parody of Kitty Pryde.

#119 - Marv Wolfman could not be credited as a writer when he began at DC Comics because the Comics Code did not allow "wolfman" to appear in comic books.

Crystar the Warrior was a toy based on a comic book, not a comic book based on a toy.

Danzig's logo came courtesy of an issue of Crystar the Warrior

#120 - The Ravers in Superboy and the Ravers were intended as analogues for the Legion of Superheroes.

Ghost Rider's origin was changed so, at least in part, to not offend religious readers.

Dazzler came into being because of Bo Derek

#121 - Walt Disney forced Marvel to change Howard the Duck's appearance.

Walt Disney refused to allow a comic called "Donald Duck's Atom Bomb" to be reprinted.

Disney sued comic book artist Wally Wood for doing a pornographic poster featuring Disney characters.

#122 - The mid-80s Hex revamp of Jonah Hex was not the original plan for the character.

DC pulled an issue of Batman: Gotham Knights after it was solicited because it was too graphic.

Al Columbia finished issue #4 of Big Numbers, but destroyed it.

#123 - Marvel launched Secret Wars in an attempt to beat DC to the punch with a company-wide crossover.

The original Justice Society of America team-up was made up of collected solo stories.

The Silver Surfer was going to be retitled as the Savage Silver Surfer in the 1970s.

#124 - Peter Cannon...Thunderbolt was originally going to be Daredevil.

DC obscured Peter Cannon...Thunderbolt during Crisis on Infinite Earths because of uncertainty whether they owned his rights.

Rob Liefeld once used a double entendre to advertise a toy.

#125 - Fabian Nicieza intended for Shatterstar to be homosexual.

Shatterstar and Rictor were going to be involved in a relationship in X-Force.

Captain Marvel created and popularized the phrase, "Holy moley!"

#126 - DC chose Supergirl to be one of the deaths in Crisis because of the commercial failure of the Supergirl film.

Jerry Ordway was going to do a sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Marv Wolfman originally was going to replace Barry Allen with a brand new Flash character

#127 - The University of Oregon has a special agreement with Walt Disney to use Donald Duck as their mascot.

Bob Kane did not draw a Batman comic by himself after the very first issue.

30 Days of Night was a movie pitch BEFORE it was a comic book series.

#128 - Marvel was planning a Ghost Rider/Casper the Friendly Ghost crossover

Peter David was planning on turning Supergirl into a team book.

Marvel lost the Godzilla license because they were not drawing the character the way Toho wanted.

#129 - Ladrõnn quit Marvel for a time because a Silver Surfer story he was doing was done by a different writer in a Spider-Man title.

The title character of a comic strip was asked by the Syndicate to be removed from the comic strip.

Gil Kane once drew an Aliens cover without knowing what the Aliens look like.

#130 - Ramona Flowers' second ex-boyfriend was going to be Jason Lee.

Marvel was once sued TWICE over the name of ONE comic book!

Greg Rucka requested that Trevor Barnes be killed before he took over Wonder Woman.

#131 - Marvel was going to publish Star Wars: Dark Empire

Batman initially wore purple gloves, but DC has colored them blue in their reprints of the material.

Paul Levitz used note cards to keep the cast of the Legion of Superheroes straight.

#132 - Marvel once had a trademark on the word Zombie.

The Eternals was called Return of the Gods before changing to the name..

Rogue was raped in an issue of Uncanny X-Men.

#133 - The rolling boulder scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark was an homage to a Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge comic.

Brian Michael Bendis was going to write a comic starring Jessica Drew.

Marvel was going to guest-star a Power Ranger in an issue of Exiles

#134 - Louise Simonson killed off Cypher in New Mutants because she disliked the character.

Originally, Superman's powers came from the fact that Kryptonians were just super-powered, period.

The Champions was originally supposed to be an Iceman/Angel buddy book.

#135 - Phil Jimenez was going to do a major relaunch of the Global Guardians.

Brian Bendis was fired from Sam & Twitch because he turned down the job writing Hellspawn.

Sal Buscema was the original artist on Secret Wars II.

#136 - Superboy was designed to look like Rob Liefeld.

X-Force #5 was credited to Rob Liefeld, but was actually drawn by two other artists.

Karl Kesel drew missing feet and hands for Rob Liefeld on Hawk and Dove.

#137 - Joe Staton once snuck a pedophile joke into an issue of Brave and the Bold.

Mike Wieringo's next assignment before his death was going to be a run on the Punisher.

Marvel cobbled together a one-page story to keep a character from belonging to Hasbro.

#138 - Dwayne McDuffie once pitched a series called Teenage Negro Ninja Thrashers.

Jerry Siegel publically threatened to kill himself to protest the shabby treatment he and Joe Shuster received from DC Comics.

Emma Frost's secondary mutation was a result of Grant Morrison not being allowed to use Colossus in New X-Men.

#139 - John Byrne and Roger Stern planned on bringing back Bucky during their run on Captain America.

Robert Morales was going to bring Bucky back less than a year before Ed Brubaker ultimately brought Bucky back.

Mark Gruenwald had to change the name of his 1980s Bucky character because of racial reasons.

#140 - The Fatal Five were based on the Masters of Evil.

Superman once had an evil twin.

Grant Morrison got the idea to use Emma Frost in his New X-Men run from an online fan.

#141 - Joe Kelly and Steven Seagle originally planned on killing off Storm.

DC attempted to avoid controversy with a title by adding a "k" to the title.

Jerry Ordway threatened to quit DC Comics over a Christmas story featuring Supergirl.

#142 - Kevin Maguire changed the ending of JLA Classified #9 as a sort of protest to the ending of Countdown to Infinite Crisis.

One of the reasons Judd Winick decided to bring Jason Todd back to life was because Winick voted for Jason to survive in 1988.

British copyright law resulted in the Adversary's identity being changed in Fables.

#143 - Marvel brought Wonder Man back to life because of the introduction of Power Girl.

Grant Morrison is angry at Ken Kneisel over the Flex Mentallo incident.

The Human Fly in the Marvel comic book was an actual real guy.

#144 - Marvel got into trouble for using the likeness of Amy Grant on a Doctor Strange cover.

Steve Lightle died in a car accident last August.

DC's Mature Readers line was formed due to a storyline involving incest.

#145 - There is no masturbation in the DC Universe.

John Byrne snuck a drawing of a penis into an issue of Fantastic Four.

An issue of New X-Men snuck the word "sex" into the issue on practically every page of the comic.

#146 - Ray Bradbury had a rather interesting response to finding out his stories were being adapted into comic form without his permission.

Avengers Forever was originally intended to be a different crossover called Avengers: World in Chains.

DC planned on killing Batman off during Knightsend, and having Nightwing become Batman.

#147 - Daredevil almost had a cartoon series in the 80s with a canine sidekick.

DC made Azrael Batman to avoid paying Bob Kane royalties.

Robert Kanigher created Sgt. Rock

#148 - Siegel and Shuster based Superman on a colorful bodybuilder named Mayo Kaan.

The Guardians of the Universe were modeled after David Ben-Gurion.

Chris Claremont named a group of supporting characters after the original owners of Forbidden Planet.

#149 - Gil Kane had a book refused to be printed because his work was considered pornography.

Barry Windsor-Smith snuck an amusing note into an early issue of Conan.

Marvel forced Malibu to change the name of one of their characters from Masked Marvel.

#150 - Green Arrow was never called Green Arrow in any of Mike Grell's Green Arrow stories.

Matt Wagner refused to reprint his early Grendel stories for years because he was ashamed of their quality.

Nextwave had a name change because of trademark issues.

#151 - Stuart Immonen based the cast of Nextwave on the cast of Scrubs.

Jan Duursema has a Jedi Knight based on her.

Jill Thompson has had at least THREE comic book characters modeled after her!

#152 - Marvel asked a court to rule that the X-Men were not human.

Patricia Highsmith was a comic book writer.

Marvel was FORCED not to do a Wizard of Oz follow-up, Ozma of Oz.

#153 - Rob Liefeld bought the rights to Fighting American under legal pressure from Marvel.

Bug of the Micronauts got a name change so Marvel could own him

DC created a black version of Zatanna for a project called Conjura.

#154 - Fans traveled to Jim Shooter's home to convince him to return to writing the Legion

A comic creator was killed returning home from signing a million dollar contract

Dick Giordano brought Steve Ditko to DC Comics

#155 - Google's name is not derived at all from the comic strip Barney Google.

Savage Dragon appeared in an issue of Marvel Comics Presents before he appeared in Savage Dragon #1

Erik Larsen wanted to reveal Elektra to be a Skrull years ago

#156 - Actor Bill Hader got his breakout film role due to his interest in Sandman comics.

Alice the Goon was the inspiration for the word "goon"

Marvel put out a somewhat racy comic magazine in the 1960s.

#157 - Johnny Carson apologized to Jack Kirby on the air of the Tonight Show after insulting Kirby on the show

The Blackhawks were inspired by the Flying Tigers

The inker "Crusty Bunkers" was really a group of artists.

#158 - Neil Gaiman reworked his Phantom Stranger proposal into Sandman.

Chris Claremont modeled an X-Men character after a translator he once had.

John Byrne drew She-Hulk's nipples in a Marvel Graphic Novel.

Stan Lee owns a trademark on the word "Excelsior," keeping Marvel from using the name for a comic book.

Jack Kirby was involved in faking a movie for the CIA.

Frank Miller was not originally going to leave Daredevil after Born Again.

Alan Moore created John Constantine BECAUSE he looked like Sting

#159 - Ronin was going to be revealed fairly early in the New Avengers #5 or #6, but the reveal was pushed back because everyone guessed it was Daredevil, so they had to find a replacement.

Paramount canceled DC's first Star Trek series and relaunched without Peter David because his new creations were more popular than the Paramount characters.

Crossgen colorist Justin Thyme did not actually exist.

#160 - Comic book artist Jim Sherman designed the logo for Major League Baseball.

Marvel produced three issues of a comic without obtaining all the rights to the characters in the comic.

Jerry Siegel came up with Superman's secret identity based on the elements directly above Krypton in the periodic table

#161 - Jim Shooter wrote a Dazzler film treatment working in roles for Cher, Rodney Dangerfield, KISS, Robin Williams, Donna Summer, the Village People and both Michael McKean and David Lander!.

Chris Claremont and John Byrne had some involvement in the creation/design of Dazzler

Dazzler was originally going to be the fifth member of X-Factor.

#162 - Mr. America beat the Shield to the rights of being the first patriotic hero.

DC bought a summer crossover series proposal from Alan Moore and then chose not to use it!

Steve Englehart reworked Madame Xanadu for a comic at Eclipse.

#163 - At one point, Crime Does Not Pay was selling five times as many copies as the highest sales Superman ever had

Sting in Harbinger was originally intended to be gay.

Grant Morrison ghost-wrote an issue of Mark Millar's The Authority.

#164 - A female character's genitalia was exposed in an issue of Action Comics.

Longshot was going to have a follow-up mini-series by Ann Nocenti and Art Adams.

To make a point, Peter David once wrote a Star Trek comic under the pseudonym "David Banner."

#165 - Strikeforce: Morituri was originally intended to be a New Universe title.

Geoff Johns once had an Avengers script sent back because it had "too much story."

Legion of Superheroes character M'rissey is named after Legion fan Rich Morrissey.

#166 - Jim Starlin accidentally killed off the wrong character in the first Shang-Chi story.

Steve Gerber was going to write a new Howard the Duck ongoing series in the 80s, but it was denied due to how he wanted to explain away Howard's other comic book appearances.

Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza created Shatterstar and Domino because they were denied the use of Longshot and Black Widow, respectively.

#167 - An Uncle Sam comic book featuring Pearl Harbor being bombed was released...in November of 1941!!

Mike Grell's wife ghost-wrote a number of issues of Warlord for him.

A Marvel artist tried to sneak a sexuality reference into an Excalibur cover.

#168 - Writer/Artist John Byrne has been involved in an inordinate amount of eerie coincidences.

Billy Dee Williams was paid to NOT be Two-Face in Batman Forever.

Grant Morrison intended for the Beast to be gay during his New X-Men run.

#169 - Marvel sold all the copyrights to their characters to a separate company, Marvel Characters, Inc.

Peter David was planning on killing off Aquaman during his run on the title.

Chuck Dixon and Jackson Guice were in the middle of a Wild Wild West movie adaptation before learning that they didn't have all the rights needed for the book.

#170 - Peter David's Aquaman run was delayed due to a religious misunderstanding.

Multiple artists ghost-penciled some of Marvel Superheroes: Secret Wars.

A fairly offensive joke was snuck into the background of a Marvel comic.

#171 - An artist stopped working on his comics without informing anyone, including the editors on the books he was drawing.

The DC Multiverse had an Earth-B.

Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy were going to do an Elric comic book for Marvel.

#172 - Joe Madureira snuck a complaint about Roger Cruz into an issue of Uncanny X-Men.

Michael Golden disappeared from comics for a time while he was on the lam.

Snapper Carr was named after George Lucas.

#173 - Howard Mackie and John Byrne had also planned on erasing the marriage between Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson.

Most of the famous early Batman drawings by Bob Kane consisted of swipes of other artists.

Watchmen was originally going to be a six-issue mini-series before its success led to an extension to a twelve-issue series.

#174 - Bob Kane was still a teenager when Batman was invented.

For a time, Mephisto was going to be behind the Clone Saga, as well!

Rick Leonardi and Chris Claremont began work on a Phoenix mini-series that never saw the light of day.

#175 - The design for Spider-Man's black costume was based on an earlier design for Spider-Woman II's costume.

A Star Wars comic book writer came up with a character name as a joke but then saw the joke name make it into print.

Jan and Dean released a Batman-themed album.

#176 - The writers of New Mutants had to re-write a finished comic book at the last moment because Marvel decided not to publish the original story, which involved a gay student killing himself.

There was a popular song in the 60s of a guy whistling a song about Batman.

Jor-El was not named in the comic books until 1945, and it was not even in the pages of Superman or Action Comics!

#177 - Siegel and Shuster had a character named Jor-L in comic books...in 1936!!

DC took Marv Wolfman's character, The Monitor, and moved him from his original purpose into being a major character in Crisis.

The 1938 Academy Award for Best Actor was awarded to Dick Tracy.

#178 - Steve Vai did the theme song for the X-Men animated series

The X-Men appeared on a 60s cartoon series.

The first two episodes of the X-Men animated series aired before they were ready.

#179 - Marlon Wayans was paid to not be Robin in Batman Returns and Batman Forever

A Batman-like character named the Black Bat debuted practically simultaneously with Batman

Steve Englehart had to change the Shroud's origins to make him less like Batman

#180 - An apparent murder in Belgium involved the popular manga series Death Note.

Neil Gaiman based Sandman: Dream Hunters on some specific older folk stories.

Chuck Dixon had a proposal for a series using Marvel's "horror" characters together prior to Midnight Sons basically doing the same thing.

#181 - John Byrne based aspects of a Fantastic Four antagonist on Neal Adams.

Marvel once "adapted" a Tom Wolfe story in an issue of the Incredible Hulk.

Gambit was originally meant to be Longshot

#182 - Marvel once did a special G.I. Joe comic made up of a comic by Todd McFarlane that was deemed unacceptable by Marvel only a few years earlier!

The Madelyne Pryor in Avengers Annual #10 was the first appearance of the Madelyne Pryor who married Cyclops.

Various other Madelyne Pryor legends.

#183 - Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's Black Panther pre-dated the Black Panther Party.

The Fantastic Four fought against "Triton" because of a rights problem with Sub-Mariner

The SW6 Legionnaires were named as such after the mailing address of a Legion of Superheroes fan.

#184 - Neil Gaiman was inspired by the Bob Dylan song "Mr. Tambourine Man" to create the main character in Sandman.

The Fantastic Four's mailman was featured in comics over a year before the Fantastic Four were!

The Transformers character Circuit Breaker was introduced in the pages of Secret Wars II so Marvel could gain the rights to the character.

#185 - Mark Waid and Alex Ross were forced to use Alan Scott instead of Hal Jordan in Kingdom Come.

The Kang who appeared in Waid's second run on Captain America was originally meant to be the actual Kang.

Waid's original origin for Onslaught was that he was simply the evil side of Professor X.

#186 - Jughead got his name from his hat!

John Byrne drew the cover for Joe Satriani’s Surfing with the Alien album.

Marvel had pseudonymous inkers in the Crusty Bunker tradition called D. Hands and M. Hands.

#187 - Batman and TinTin had a team-up!

Timely Comics came up with a character's name to justify the title of a comic book.

The Post-Zero Hour R.J. Brande was intended to be J'onn J'onzz.

#188 - D.G. Chichester was going to make Matt Murdock the Mayor of New York City.

There is no explanation for the S that Jughead wears on his shirt.

Roger Stern left a book that he created for Marvel before the first issue!

#189 - Jack Kirby based the face of Etrigan the Demon on a mask from an old Prince Valiant story by Hal Foster.

Outside of guest appearances in comics, Silver Surfer was once reserved for only Stan Lee to write.

There was never an explanation in the comics as to why Jughead had an "S" on his sweater.

#190 - J. Michael Straczynski did not intend to have Doctor Doom cry in Amazing Spider-Man #36.

The story behind the name on the Bristol board that Marvel artists use.

Paul Tobin went by the pseudonym Root Nibot.

#191 - Due to the unwritten rule that only Stan Lee could write Silver Surfer solo stories, there were no solo Surfer stories until Steve Englehart's series in 1987.

Dick Grayson was originally going to be killed in Infinite Crisis.

Namor was not revealed to be from Atlantis (and perhaps was NOT actually from Atlantis) until AFTER Aquaman was!

#192 - Archie Comics forced a satirical play about the Archie Characters to cease using the actual names of the characters.

Mike Zeck and Rick Leonardi co-designed Spider-Man's black costume.

DC Comics filed suit against a band using the name "Riddle Me This."

#193 - Art Spiegelman started his career doing Garbage Pail Kids.

Mark Gruenwald planned for a time on killing off the Falcon.

A Bob Dylan joke made on Comics Should Be Good led to a scene in a DC comic book.

#194 - Robert Heinlein threatened to sue Marvel for ripping his stories off for Star-Lord.

A misunderstanding of an artist's note made for an amusing mis-identification in an issue of Captain America.

Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Mark Waid, and Tom Peyer had a failed proposal for Superman

#195 - Herb Trimpe was "forced" during the 1990s by Marvel Comics to use an art style reminiscent of Rob Liefeld.

Nightwing and Starfire were originally intended to become happily married in New Titans #100.

There was no intent by John Byrne to sneak a drawing of a penis into an issue of the Fantastic Four.

#196 - The original Punisher mini-series was expanded from four issues to five based on the high pre-orders of the first issue of the series, which explains why there is additional artwork in the final issue from different artists.

Vince Colletta once accidentally omitted the head of a character in a panel.

Marvel had Jack Kirby add a couple of figures to the cover of the first issue of the Fantastic Four.

#197 - You can tell which early Stan Lee Marvel books were ghost-written by his brother Larry, because the heroes didn’t have alliterative names.

Larry Lieber came up with a name for Thor's hammer when it already had a name!

Art Thibert "created" two new characters called Starwing and Nightfire.

When Strikeback! changed companies, Savage Dragon was re-named Savage Finster!

#198 - A popular comic strip character was co-opted by a peanut butter company.

Bluto was changed to Brutus in the 1960s Popeye animated series because Bluto was owned by the company that did the previous Popeye animated series.

An early comic book pioneer was the cover artist for Gone With the Wind!

#199 - Rube Goldberg was the first person to have his name listed as a definition in the dictionary while he was still alive.

The Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League run was originally envisioned to be a "Big Seven" series like Grant Morrison's JLA.

The FBI recently suggested that a comic book character may have been the inspiration for D.B. Cooper.

#200 - The Marx Brothers' names were inspired by a comic strip.

Bringing Up Father had a character based on the creator of Dinty Moore beef stew.

A comic strip indirectly led to the creation of Amos and Andy.

Siegel and Shuster produced a full Superman comic book in 1933 in the hopes of being published by a completely different comic book company!

The color scheme for Captain Marvel's costume was a mystery to Fawcett when it debuted.

In an attempt to save money, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby re-used some earlier romance comics that they had made.

A very young John Romita, Jr. created the Prowler.

Steve Skeates wrote an issue of World's Finest Comics designed to protest his removal from Teen Titans for the book's older writer.

The unreleased Marv Wolfman and George Perez' Teen Titans graphic novel from the 1980s was ultimately released as the "Who Is Wonder Girl?" storyline.

DC almost released a cartoon series and toy line starring Wonder Woman and some other DC heroines riding flying horses.

If you magnify it, Mary Jane whispers "If it means he'll be happy I want to remember everything" to Mephisto right before he erases her marriage with Peter Parker.

#201 - Louise Simonson co-created Cable.

Cable was originally intended to be Ahab.

Cable was originally intended to be Nathan Summers. (Plus some other Cable-related legends)

#202 - art spiegelman was denied a passport to Poland because of his depictions of Polish people in Maus.

Mini-Marvels is being discontinued due to Super Hero Squad.

A written and lettered issue of Adventure Comics was re-scripted and re-lettered before publication!

#203 - Marvel put out a comic book recently to secure the trademark on a character before the character debuts on a cartoon show.

Magog was created based on Cable.

Batman got his name from two historical patriots.

#204 - Bob Layton and Jackson Guice re-wrote and re-drew X-Factor #1 from scratch in two weeks...in the midst of a Hurricane!!

A deal for Fangoria to purchase Vampirella from Harris Comics fell apart after a general agreement had been made.

Spider-Man and Captain America starred in a 1970s Turkish film.

#205 - The Hall of Justice is based on a train station in Cincinnati.

Alfred was made thin because of the 1960s Batman TV Show.

Stan Lee made Roy Thomas take the "Big Three" out of the Avengers.

#206 - A character on Deadwood is named after an old DC Comics editor.

A proposed Human Torch TV series turned into something entirely different.

Wonder Woman got her powers back during the early 1970s because of a proposed Wonder Woman television series.

#207 - Generic Comic Book #1 was written by Chris Claremont or John Byrne.

Gary Larson was sued in Australia for listing people's telephone numbers as being the Devil's phone number, even though Larson intended to put a fake number in the cartoon.

Wonder Woman made her first animated appearance on an episode of the Brady Kids!

#208 - If Chris Claremont had stayed on the X-Titles in 1991, he was going to kill off Wolverine and bring him back as a bad guy.

If Chris Claremont had stayed on the X-Titles in 1991, he was going to kill off Professor Xavier.

Mark Millar took the idea for Enemy of the State from Chris Claremont's original Wolverine plans.

#209 - The Yellow Kid's famous yellow shirt came from an experiment in yellow ink.

When Outcault left The World with the Yellow Kid, a lawsuit ensued with the result being that The World got to produce their own Yellow Kid cartoons while Outcault did his own for the Journal.

The Yellow Kid led to the term "Yellow Journalism."

#210 - Jerry Siegel's father was shot and killed in a robbery of his store.

A toy released to tie-in with the Batman: The Mask of the Phantasm movie revealed the ending of the film.

Gary Larson has a type of louse named after him.

#211 - Uncanny X-Men #401 had a scene where a government official shown being with a prostitute was changed from Rudy Giuliani to Bill Clinton.

Marvel was planning to turn Starfox into a villain during the late 1990s.

Fabian Nicieza and Erik Larsen had a proposal in to be the creative team on X-Factor before Peter David got the nod.

#212 - Mike Grell tried to introduce a black character into the pages of Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes, but saw his efforts literally whitewashed away.

Due to concerns about the violence, Batman Beyond: The Return of the Joker completely re-did the Joker's demise in the movie.

In a tie-in with Mayfair Games' DC Universe role-playing game, DC mistakenly believed that the city Wild Dog worked in was a fictional city, while it was not.

#213 - DC Comics had a customer survey in 1970 that inquired how interested its readers were in reading about black people.

Marvel has a policy where any comics starring gay characters has to be "adults only."

Keith Giffen and Tom and Mary Bierbaum had a character switch genders in the Legion of Super-Heroes to have a character they felt was gay be with a man.

#214 - John Severin was tricked into drawing the Rawhide Kid MAX mini-series not knowing what the content was.

EC Comics was told to change a black character to a white character or else violate the Comics Code.

The address of Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum is of a building Roy Thomas lived in during the 1960s.

#215 - A Captain America animated series set during World War II that was set to debut in the mid-90s did not happen because Marvel refused to eliminate any references to Nazis in the cartoon.

Elfquest came about because of the Silver Surfer.

Angelo Torres' "first" comic book work waited fifteen years to be published!

#216 - The Comics Code Authority's attitude towards vampires is not as cut and dry as the Code itself might suggest.

The success of Morbius helped to get the Comics Code Authority to relax the restrictions on vampires.

In the late 1970s/very early 1980s, Toei Animation did a Tomb of Dracula series in Japan!

#217 - The Comics Code Authority's Comics Code banned the word "flick" from usage.

The third Summers Brother was originally going to be Adam X The X-Treme!

Robert Weinberg was going to reveal that Apocalypse was actually the third Summers Brother!

#218 - Thomas Nast came up with the idea of having the Democratic Party symbolized by a donkey.

Kraven's Last Hunt was originally intended as a Batman story with the Joker.

Jay Z named his comeback album Kingdom Come in honor of Superman's "comeback" in the Elseworlds mini-series, Kingdom Come.

#219 - Jim Steranko's run on Nick Fury was repeatedly (and fairly oddly) censored by Marvel.

John Byrne had a promo in DC's History of the DC Universe Portfolio for what would be known as Next Men.

The word "milquetoast" comes from a comic character.

#220 - John Rozum was credited for an issue of X-Man that he did not script.

Stan Lee intended for Professor X and Magneto to represent Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, respectively.

A 1950s issue of Haunt of Fear bears an uncanny resemblance to the Sam Raimi film Drag Me to Hell.

#221 - Irving Forbush's face was never shown!

The phrase "back to the drawing board" was invented by a New Yorker cartoon.

A large portion of John Byrne's Next Men came from his proposal for Ravage 2099 with Stan Lee.

#222 - There were FIVE different Two-Faces in Batman comics of the 1940s and 1950s!

A synopsis for Fantastic Four #1 written by Stan Lee shows that Lee was the one who created the Fantastic Four's names, powers and basic personalities.

On the Fox Kids Spider-Man show of the 1990s, the Sinister Six was re-named the Insidious Six because of executive interference.

#223 - DC once sued a porn film for, among other things (including trademark infringement), the usage of flying sequences!

The term gerrymander comes from a political cartoon.

Warner Bros. bought DC Comics.

#224 - Josie and the Pussycats had the first African-American regular cartoon character on a Saturday Morning cartoon.

Marvel Comics did a Cheap Trick comic book in 1990!

Walt Kelly forced a band that named itself in honor of Pogo to change their name.

#225 - The first issue of EC Comics' Panic was banned in the state of Massachusetts for making fun of Santa Claus.

Walt Kelly picketed Walt Disney during the 1941 Disney Animators Strike.

Vince Colletta once erased Mr. Fantastic from a Jack Kirby penciled panel in an issue of Fantastic Four.

#226 - Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85 was the first Comics Code approved story involving drugs.

An artist's error lead to a storyline in Jack Kirby's Forever People.

Deadman appears as a DJ in a couple of videos for the music group Cassius.

#227 - Carmine Infantino tried to fire Nick Cardy because Cardy ignored a cover instruction from Infantino.

The cover for the first Superman/Flash race has an error on it.

Mike Ploog had a rather embarrassing introduction to Carmine Infantino.

#228 - When told to draw in the style of George Tuska, Pete Morisi asked Tuska for permission to do so.

The first alternate world in DC Comics was Flash #123.

Desire to maintain continuity with a second reprint title caused a British comic company to alter the covers of classic Marvel comics.

#229 - The District Attorney of New York arrested the business manager of EC Comics over the release of Panic #1.

Dick Giordano had a page of Teen Titans colored blue to help sort of "sneak" the first interracial embrace in mainstream comics through.

Kurt Busiek followed Marvels up with Astro City.

#230 - Don McGregor intentionally created the first interracial kiss in mainstream comics.

Mojo Jojo was partially inspired by the Super Dictionary!

Spider-Man is called Super-Man in an early issue of Amazing Spider-Man.

#231 - Pressures to release Secret Wars in Brazil led to some interesting editing in the Brazilian edition of Secret Wars.

SpongeBob SquarePants indirectly got his name from Bob Burden.

Lee Falk was a world traveler when he created Mandrake the Magician and the Phantom.

#232 - Irving Berlin sued Mad Magazine for copyright infringement.

Ben Orr of the Cars was related to famed letterer Tom Orzechowski

A musician had to change his stage name and his album cover because of DC Comics.

#233 - Rocky Balboa appeared in a comic as a member of G.I. Joe.

Doug Moench named one of Moon Knight's secret identities after fellow comic book writer Steven Grant.

Al Feldstein based the look of a character on the actress who played the character on the radio!

#234 - By reprinting an issue of X-Men in their Essentials format, Marvel inadvertently showed nudity where none was intended.

Judge Anderson of the Psi Division was modeled after Debby Harry.

Zodac in the Masters of the Universe was meant to be connected to Metron of the Fourth World.

#235 - Frederic Wertham supported the Comics Code.

EC and other comic companies stopped making horror comics before the Comics Code banned them.

The Comics Code was not only not the first Comics Code to be created, but earlier concern over the content of comic books helped lead to the creation of Wonder Woman (in a round about way)!

#236 - Timothy Truman wrote the theme song to Melrose Place.

Marvel's history of pseudonyms led to a little-credited writer being considered not real.

A significant change occurred between the plotting of Days of Future Past and the publication of Days of Future Past.

#237 - All American comics were banned in Fascist Italy...except Mickey Mouse!

Walt Simonson and Chris Claremont re-worked an unpublished Carmine Infantino issue of John Carter of Mars into an issue of Star Wars.

Joe Devlin created Millie the Model!

#238 - Marvel changed their initial plans for X-Factor #150 when they decided to instead send Havok to the alternate universe for Mutant X.

Walt Simonson had to re-work an unused issue of Tarzan into an issue of Battlestar Galactica!

A tourist family in a classic Manhunter story showed up in two other books, including one from another comic book company!

#239 - Marv Wolfman and Steve Ditko re-did a fill-in issue for Godzilla as a brand-new Dragon-related character.

P. Craig Russell's Robin 3000 series was originally created as a Tom Swift revamp.

The illustrated novella Cycle of the Werewolf was originally going to be an original graphic novel by Stephen King and Bernie Wrightson.

#240 - Lynn Varley is a pseudonym of Frank Miller.

Frank Quitely is a pseudonym of Grant Morrison.

AJ Lieberman is a pseudonym of John Byrne.

#241 - The World War II slogan "Keep 'em flying!" was originated in a Wonder Woman comic.

John Byrne essentially "took" the character of Mariko from James Clavell's novel, Shogun.

There was almost a TV series starring Night Thrasher!

#242 - The boyfriend in Lynda Barry's popular story "Head Lice and My Worst Boyfriend" is now a famous radio personality.

The Red Tornado was the first female superhero.

The Red Tornado was the first cross-dressing superhero

#243 - A Marvel executive insisted that a Marvel Western comic cover (and the REPRINT story within) be re-drawn with the bad guys given animals masks for no reason related to the comic's story.

Walt Simonson based the look of Beta Ray Bill on Jack Kirby's design for the High Evolutionary's Super-Beast

J.T. Krul used to work on Seinfeld!

#244 - The musical "It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman" was inspired by the success of the Batman TV series.

A Japanese television show about Marvel superheroes eventually led to the Power Rangers!

Two episodes of the 1960s' Spider-Man animated series were made up of re-used footage from the cartoon series "Rocket Robin Hood."

#245 - Stan Lee once tried to ban exclamation points from Marvel Comics, with bizarre results.

Marvel could not do a new Champions book because Marvel discovered that someone else now owned the trademark to the name "The Champions."

The Order, was canceled by Marvel

#246 - Barry Windsor-Smith completed a third LifeDeath book starring Storm, which he published himself when Marvel rejected it.

Marvel assigned John Byrne The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones as a way to make up for displeasing Lucasfilms with their Raiders of the Lost Ark adaptation.

Gabe Jones of Nick Fury's Howling Commandos was accidentally colored white in the first issue of the title.

#247 - Wally Wood did a particularly racy prank while working on an issue of Weird Science-Fantasy.

Sauron was created as a way to get around the Comics Code ban of werewolves.

Marvel once did a movie adaptation for a movie that ended up not being released in the United States!

#248 - An unpublished script starring the Seven Soldiers of Victory was published within five issues of Adventure Comics...THIRTY YEARS after the Seven Soldiers of Victory feature was canceled!

Jack Kirby's Kamandi began as a DC pitch to do a licensed adaptation of Planet of the Apes.

J.M. DeMatteis' first three issues of Captain America were adapted from an unpublished tie-in comic to the 1970s Captain America TV movie!

#249 - Bruce Banner as a victim of child abuse was originally going to be a Barry Windsor-Smith one-off issue of Incredible Hulk in 1984.

There's a clever visual gag in a Watchmen panel intending to show two of the retired Golden Age superheroes from the Watchmen universe in a relationship with each other.

Mike Sekowsky sneaked a bit of profanity into the first issue of Atlas Comics' The Brute as a bit of a protest.

#250 - A comic book creative team had to actually sue to get a credit when their comic was adapted for a TV series.

Rick Veitch developed Paul Jenkins' Sentry concept with Jenkins all the way until Marvel decided to buy it.

Venom made an early appearance during an Amazing Spider-Man tie-in with Avengers: Under Siege.

#251 - X-Men vs. Avengers had to be re-written because they changed the ending at the last moment!

Roger Stern stopped writing Captain America because Jim Shooter came up with a "no more three-part stories" rule.

DC did an Earth Day comic in conjunction with the U.S. Government.

#252 - Frank Frazetta turned down the opportunity to play professional baseball to draw comic books.

A black and white EC Comics reprint uncovered a decades-old X-rated prank.

Dreadknight was originally going to be the mysterious Masters of Evil member in Amazing Spider-Man #283.

#253 - The Phantom ended up becoming purple because Lee Falk was out of the country when it came time to decide what color to make the Phantom, so without his input they made him purple.

Sappho was among the initial group of beings who lent Mary Marvel her powers!

Jack Kirby drew the Thing's hide to be like a "dinosaur hide."

#254 - DC Comics Presents #97 was an unused proposal to revamp the Superman line of comics.

A Steve Gerber comic indirectly led to the establishment of DC's current Submission Guidelines (or lack thereof).

Steve Gerber was going to be the writer of DC's 1980s Spectre re-launch, but was fired before the first issue was even finished.

Marvel forced Frank Brunner to redraw a panel from Howard the Duck #2 because of it being a bit too salacious.

#255 - The teddy bear was inspired by a famous CK Berryman cartoon that appeared in the Washington Post on November 16, 1902.

A bad translation in a Danish adaptation of an issue of Marvel's Star Wars led to a rather risque (and bizarre) piece of dialogue...

Modesy Blaise's Willie Garvin was based on Michael Caine - BEFORE Caine was a star!

#256 - Jack Kirby originally drew the Black Panther as wearing a mask that did not cover his entire face, even after the Panther's first appearance!

The Marvel production staff made a change to the end of one of Jack Kirby's horror story to remove an appearance of Jack himself!

Marvel changed Spider-Man's costume as a preventative matter in case Jack Kirby sued Marvel over his characters.

#257 - Arnold Drake based Robotman of the Doom Patrol on the Golden Age Robotman.

Arnold Drake was given a weekend to come up with the concept that became Deadman.

Arnold Drake was edited out of the last issue of Doom Patrol.

#258 - An Alabama printer refused to print Alias #1 because of "offensive material."

Two Golden Age characters named Captain Wonder managed to be take offs of other, more popular characters without actually being influenced by each other!

The tagline for the film Barb Wire originated as a shot against another Dark Horse Comic.

#259 - Penciler Sid Greene worked depictions of Julie Schwartz into a large amount of his Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures comics.

Sergio Aragones got his "margin drawing" gig by doodling in the margins of some issues before they were sent to the printers.

Whitney Ellsworth re-named a brand new Simon/Kirby character so that it was an extension of a previous character.

#260 - Marvel had a proto-superhero who gained powers when he was turned Asian - the character was later revamped by dropping the Asian aspect of the story completely.

Marvel originally intended Magneto to be Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver's father.

Gen 13 was originally called GenX before Marvel "made" Image change it.

#261 - Joe Rubinstein ghost-penciled Wolverine #3 for Frank Miller.

For almost the first FIVE years of the Garfield comic, Odie was not Jon's dog.

Mort Weisinger had a rather...adult response to a fan letter regarding marriages that Superman and Lois Lane had both had in early '60s Superman comics.

#262 - A comment by Stan Lee led to Iron Man getting a nose on his armor for over a year.

Alan Moore created the term "Sith Lord."

Elliot S! Maggin quit working for DC Comics for awhile over Julie Schwartz changing the ending of a Maggin story to the point where Maggin blotched his credit out of the issue.

#263 - A Marvel (well, Atlas) comic had the first (or if not first, extremely close to first) example of flesh-eating zombies!

Roy Thomas created "zuvembies" to get around the Comic Code ban of zombies.

An issue of 'Mazing Man was released without Comic Code approval because of the appearance of zombies in the comic.

#264 - DC Comics was originally going to kill off Jason Todd by him having AIDS.

A Marvel comic character managed to not appear in a Comics Code-approved comic for FORTY years!

The first Smurfs album was basically about zombie Smurfs!

#265 - Warren Publishing dedicated an entire one-shot to photos of a 14-year-old model.

Thanos was created as part of a school project.

A "Sith-Lord" appeared in the Star-Lord feature in Marvel Preview before the term was used by Star Wars

#266 - Thanos was not originally based on Darkseid!

Mesmero's first appearance was a re-working of a previously announced villain Metoxo.

Roger Stern's first issue of Amazing Spider-Man came about due to an editorial slip-up.

#267 - DC changed the logo on Wonder Woman's chest because they could not trademark the old logo of an eagle.

Wonder Girl came about due to a typo.

Wonder Woman is the mother of A-Ko from Project A-Ko.

#268 - There is a Superman reference of some kind (either a picture or a statue of Superman visible in the episode or some spoken reference) in every episode of Seinfeld.

Steve Skeates worked in a bunch of obscure drug references into his Aquaman run.

John Ostrander was a Supergirl supporting character before he was a comic book writer even!

#269 - A 1950's children's comic book changed its name over fears of getting caught in the middle of the anti-Communist fever in the United States at the time.

Marv Wolfman and Mike W. Barr created Terra and Geo-Force at the same time - independent of each other!

A small in-joke from the first issue of G.I. Joe #1 was put into "continuity"...twenty-four years later!!!

#270 - The first superhuman comic book character to fly was...the Sub-Mariner?!

James Warren did not have the Comics Code in mind when he created his black and white line of comic magazines.

Wanted was based on a pitch by Mark Millar to DC for a Secret Society of Supervillains series.

#271 - J.M. DeMatteis was originally going to be the writer on Books of Magic.

Frank Quitely homaged the famous "Joker laughing scene" from Batman: The Killing Joke on the cover of Batman and Robin #3.

Marvel UK made some rather interesting changes in their adaptation of Secret Wars and Secret Wars II into British comics.

#272 - Geoff Johns had been pursuing Lex Luthor as being the donor of half of Superboy's DNA for years (starting before he ever worked in comics!) until he finally got it into the comics.

Every character who ever starred in their own series was featured in Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Through lyrical osmosis, David Bowie worked in a comic strip reference into one of his most famous songs!

#273 - Darryl Banks came up with the idea of turning Hal Jordan into Parallax

Len Wein came up with an amusing tribute to Snoopy's Great American Novel in a Batman short story he did with Walt Simonson.

The second Two-Face's origin was bowdlerized in the Silver Age.

#274 - The band Devo was partially inspired by an early issue of Wonder Woman!

DC turned down an inexpensive option to make James Bond comic books.

Howard Chaykin designed Guy Gardner's famous costume that debuted during the Green Lantern tie-ins with Crisis on Infinite Earths.

#275 - Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin's Deadshot revamp occurred because of a scheduling problem.

Tony Stark was originally going to be the creator of the Sentinels.

Joe Shuster's Canadian roots were evidenced in the city where Superman lived and the newspaper where he worked as Clark Kent.

#276 - An installment of Thimble Theatre was rejected by Elzie Crisler Segar's syndicate because it was too gruesomely depicted a cow being slaughtered.

Shadow Lass was created by a pair of Legion of Super-Heroes fans.

The famous Superman phrase "truth, justice and the American way" did not originally contain the part about "the American Way."

#277 - When he left Amazing Spider-Man, Roger Stern did not tell incoming writer Tom DeFalco who the Hobgoblin really was, so DeFalco had to come up with his own answer.

Superboy and Supergirl were going to depart the Legion of Super-Heroes years before they eventually did, but DC backed out mid-story.

Nearly a week's worth of Get Fuzzy was censored by a number of newspapers across the country because of jokes about marijuana.

#278 - The Huron Road Building in Cleveland was the inspiration for the Daily Planet building.

A rejected Disney cartoon formed the basis for the first Carl Barks duck tale!

DC's first Graphic Novel consisted of unused comic book inserts that were meant to go with a video game.

#279 - The Batcave was created due to budget constraints on the first Batman film serial.

A writer took his name off of an issue of Star Wars because Lucasfilm changed the message of his issue because they felt that, more or less, pacifism was wrong in the Star Wars Universe.

Guy Gardner was originally going to be in the John Stewart role as the guy whose actions led to the destruction of Xanshi in Cosmic Odyssey.

#280 - Steve Englehart, Len Wein and Gerry Conway had an unauthorized inter-company crossover well before the first official Marvel/DC crossover.

Postal restrictions led to some strange characters appearing in a couple of Carl Barks' Gyro Gearloose tales.

The Squadron Sinister were modeled after the Crime Syndicate

#281 - One of the reasons the Marvel G.I. Joe comic book was made was to get around advertising restrictions involving animation.

The Archies were created for Filmation's The Archie Show.

The Doom Patrol character Mister Nobody was based on an old Betty Boop cartoon.

#282 - Marvel produced two full issues of a Fallen Angels sequel mini-series before canceling the project.

A translated version of the Dan Dare radio show led to a "brand new" Spanish comic book hero!

DC considered using Steve Rude to re-draw the Superman faces in the style of Jack Kirby when they reprinted Jack Kirby's Jimmy Olsen stories.

#283 - Chuck Dixon planned on having Tim Drake become Blue Beetle for a few months while Stephanie Brown became Robin.

Squirrel Girl was created by Steve Ditko decades before her first appearance in 1991.

A centuries-old woodcut drawing intended for the first issue of Matt Wagner's The Demon mini-series was accidentally omitted, leaving a drawing oddly blank.

#284 - A recent issue of New Mutants had some profane dialogue "hidden" in translated demon dialogue.

DC Comics cannot reprint Flex Mentallo.

In a way, Dick Sprang got credit from Marvel before he ever got credit from DC!

#285 - A British comic strip celebrated D-Day by showing full front nudity of its female lead for the first time.

Steve Englehart had an interesting farewell to Marvel in the original pages of Avengers #149.

A comic book writer sued over comments another writer made over what his comic book work said about his mental state.

#286 - A short-lived 1960s Captain Marvel series caused all sorts of trademark issues with names.

Disney censored a large chunk out of Carl Barks' classic original story, "Back to the Klondike."

Robin was forced upon Bob Kane.

#287 - An ethnic slur accidentally made its way into an issue of Wolverine.

Otto Binder and C.C. Beck teamed up to create a new hero called Captain Shazam for a new comic book company in the late 1960s.

After losing their distributor and being forced to cut their line of comics dramatically to stay in business, Atlas/Marvel Comics worked almost entirely off of inventory for about a year.

#288 - A Neil Gaiman Superman/Green Lantern project was halted at the script stage because of a conflict with recent Superman continuity.

An ad parody for Mad Magazine featuring Ringo Starr changed Frank Frazetta's career dramatically.

Julie Schwartz came up with the idea for Wonder Woman changing her costume via twirling her lasso.

#289 - Todd McFarlane worked Felix the Cat into issues of his comics as a treat for a friend of his.

The Wonder Woman TV series adapted their costume change from the comics.

John Buscema drew the entire Wizard of Oz story for Marvel and DC's MGM's The Marvelous Wizard of Oz just by memory of seeing the film decades earlier and got the story almost exactly correct.

#290 - Devo took the lyrics for one of their songs from the pages of a Silver Age DC Comic.

Editor Mark Waid insisted that Keith Giffen kill off Blok in Giffen's "Five Years Later" Legion of Super-Heroes run because Waid hated the character.

Frank Frazetta quit comic books because of a Buster Crabbe film.

#291 - Two comic book experts discovered a multi-million dollar string of forgeries.

Buck Jones died in an accident the same month his comic book ceased publication.

Superman and Asterix had an official team-up.

#292 - Marvel and George Romero spent two years developing a comic/film project that never got off of the ground.

The writer of Secret Agent X-9 wrote a hit song based on a character in the strip and then promoted the song in the comic strip!

The song "Linda" was written about a different character in the Secret Agent X-9 strip.

#293 - O.M.A.C. was originally a "Captain America in the future" concept.

Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio had a specific X-Traitor in mind when they introduced the concept.

Chronos was not canceled by DC!

#294 - Mickey Mouse fought the Nazis in a series of comic strips during the 1940s

Revell never actually gave away the full-sized replica of the Gemini spacecraft.

A quote from an odd little comic about heroin abuse in 1966 ended up in in the Principia Discordia!

#295 - The Green part of the Green Hornet's name came about because they could not trademark the name "The Hornet."

Dan Reid debuted on the Green Hornet radio series before there ever was a Reid on the Lone Ranger radio series.

J. Edgar Hoover compelled the Green Hornet show to change their opening because it was disrespectful to the FBI.

#296 - Planned Parenthood once put out an official Spider-Man comic book where Spidey fights a villain who has a villainous plot involving teen pregnancy.

Marvel had to change their ratings system after a complaint from the Entertainment Software Rating Board

The boom in Sheena knock-off comics led to one comic book publisher putting out a second knock-off title by just re-drawing a story from their FIRST Sheena knock-off comic!

#297 - The phrase "grim and gritty" first appeared in connection with Batman...on the 1960s Batman TV series!!

In a recent DC animated short, Greg Weisman picked up a plot point that he was going to explore 25 years earlier in a mini-series that was scrapped when Mike Grell took over the Green Arrow mythos.

"John Warner" was a pseudonym used by Steve Englehart during the 1970s.

#298 - The Green Lantern villain Black Hand was based on Batman co-creator Bill Finger.

An issue of Sgt. Fury was furiously re-drawn and re-written to get it away from being too close to the film Casablanca.

The comic book writer Joe Kelly also writes for the television sitcom How I Met Your Mother.

#299 - Bob Kane wrote a pop song that was released on a record.

An interesting artistic complaint was worked into the background of a panel of the last issue of the Marvel series Weapon X.

Judd Winick's Pedro and Me won a Pulitzer Prize.

#300 - Stan Lee never finished the screenplay he was working on with famed French New Wave director Alain Resnais.

Neal Adams was the original artist for God Loves, Man Kills.

Warren Ellis adapted his rejected 1999 Marvel maxi-series, End Times, into Ultimate Extinction.

George Perez drew a non-Avenger into his Avengers 30th Anniversary Poster then removed him 11 years later.

Neil Gaiman reneogiated his contract with DC so that his permission would be needed if anyone ever wanted to use Death because he was angered over the usage of Death in an issue of Captain Atom.

Alan Moore warned J.H. Williams III before Williams was about to draw an issue of Promethea that the issue might bring bad luck with it, and Williams ended up going to the emergency room while drawing it!

Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers was originally going to be a Justice League mini-series based on the Avengers!

Frank Quitely was censored on his very first issue of The Authority!

Jack Kirby was the first comic book artist to draw splash pages.

Alan Moore's concerns over the copyrights to his Marvel UK work dramatically changed Chris Claremont's plans for the Uncanny X-Men post-#200.

#301 - The creation of World's Fair Comics eventually led to dramatic change in both the Superman and Batman mythos.

Black Hand was originally intended to appear in Grant Morrison's JLA: Classified storyline.

Charles Addams' Addams Family cartoon was used to diagnose lunacy.

#302 - Alan Moore took over the Captain Britain strip because of a disagreement Alan Davis had with the previous writer over a story involving Northern Ireland.

Warren Ellis' Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis is a re-worked Excalibur script.

Alan Moore wrote and drew a BJ and the Bear story.

#303 - Before Malibu had a bullet hole cut through an issue of the Protectors, a small comic book company decided to put an ACTUAL bullet hole in an issue of their comic!

Wolverine's classic costume got its distinct cowl because of a Gil Kane mistake on a comic book cover that Dave Cockrum liked so much that he adopted it - even after Cockrum had drawn the costume differently throughout the actual comic!

Charles Addams was driven insane by one of his own cartoons.

#304 - Before becoming a hit for The Archies, Don Kirshner offered "Sugar, Sugar" to the Monkees who turned it down because it was "too bubblegum pop."

Before he hit it big as a comic book artist, Frank Miller drew Hostess fruit cake advertisements.

Howard Chaykin and Rich Buckler effectively just took the characters they were doing for Atlas Comics to Marvel when they each left Atlas.

#305 - An artist amusingly misunderstood a script direction by Peter David regarding the term "helicopter shot."

The depiction of Aquaman's telepathic powers as concentric circles emanating from his forehead came from the Filmation Aquaman cartoon from 1967.

A Charles Addams cartoon was used to test the intelligence level of mentally challenged adults.

#306 - Stan Lee invented the idea of Captain America throwing his shield.

Wonder Woman was the first female member of the Justice Society of America.

Paul Levitz' first superhero comic book assignment came about directly because of Bill Finger's death.

#307 - Batman: The Brave and the Bold changed the name of a character so as to not interfere with the release of a new DC comic book series.

A script miscommunication eventually led to an Aquaman storyline.

A Charles Addams cartoon was used to test the sense of humor of different nationalities, with Germans in particular not "getting" the joke.

#308 - A Ripley's Believe It Or Not! cartoon led to "The Star Spangled Banner" becoming the national anthem of the United States of America.

A Ripley's Believe It Or Not! was one of the first places to establish the myth that the Great Wall of China could be seen by the moon, and it made the claim decades before space travel existed!

Charles Schulz's first published drawing was in a 1937 Ripley's Believe It Or Not!

#309 - Jim Shooter did not intend for Hank Pym to punch Janet Van Dyne in Avengers #213.

Otto Binder wrote a "scholarly" article about nuclear radiation creating "Homo Superior" in 1953, ten years before X-Men #1!

Jack Kirby drew the first double-page spread in a comic book story.

#310 - DC forced Siegel and Shuster to "prettify" Lois Lane in the early 1940s.

The Avengers came about because of a delay in getting Daredevil #1 ready for publication.

Howard the Duck got enough write-in votes in the 1976 Presidential Election to appear on the national charts.

#311 - DC felt that Joe Shuster was making Superman look "too gay" in the comic strips.

John Byrne came up with the idea of making James Rhodes black.

During World War II, some comics had just one staple in them due to war rationing!

#312 - Marvel changed a Spider-Man story because of terrorist threats, including a bomb threat that emptied the building where Marvel had its offices.

Kaminski replaced Tony Stark with James Rhodes in part because he couldn't see a "capitalist" as a hero.

Kaminski produced hundreds of "bootleg" tape cassettes for the Scare Tactics fan club that DC wouldn't let him use.

#313 - Making the "S" symbol on your chest is the sign for "super" in International Sign Language.

Safari Animal Cards led to at least three new characters in Amazing Spider-Man during the 1980s.

At an early disabled athletic competition, Charles Addams' "The Skier" was re-created by competitors.

#314 - Jack Kirby pitched a comic strip based on the Frank Zappa song "Valley Girl."

Erik Larsen works the image of a friend of his into pretty much every comic that he draws.

DC won a copyright infringement case against The Wild World of Batwoman and got them to change the film's name to She Was a Hippy Vampire

#315 - Grant Morrison was going to do Zoids for Star Comics until Marvel scrapped it because his plotline was too adult-oriented.

Jim Woodring designed Rubik the Amazing Cube.

A rejected storyline for Heroes Reborn Captain America became a Green Lantern/Green Arrow crossover.

#316 - Jack Kirby had a special meeting with Paul McCartney in 1975.

Will Eisner testified that he was hired by Victor Fox to do a Superman knock-off called Wonderman.

DC had an editorial mandate in the late 90s/early 00s that Green Arrow had superpowers.

#317 - In a number of 1970s Star Trek tie-in comics, Sulu was black and Uhura was white!

Paramount had a rather odd reason for not wanting to have a Superman/Star Trek crossover.

Dreadstar and Star Trek had a surreptitious crossover via Peter David, who was writing both titles.

#318 - Four years after the Batman TV series finished, Yvonne Craig played Batgirl one more time in a public service announcement about equal rights for women!

The first original Star Wars story after the film appeared in the pages of Pizazz!

The "thwip" sound effect was not used in Spider-Man comics until John Romita took over the art duties.

#319 - Steve Englehart was going to have Daredevil join the West Coast Avengers.

Englehart knew what the bargain between Patsy Walker and Beast in Amazing Adventures #15 was from the beginning.

Star*Reach nearly featured a brand-new Englehart/Rogers Batman story!

#320 - Sadie Hawkins Day was invented by Al Capp in his Li'l Abner comic strip.

A worker for the Colorado Department of Revenue stole over $100,000 to spend on comic books.

During the Silver Age, there was a rule against duplicate powers in the Legion of Super-Heroes.

#321 - Disney nearly had a Vertigo line before DC even had a Vertigo line!

The most recent Superman balloon for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is and will always be the largest balloon in the history of the parade.

DC gave us a sneak peek of future Green Lantern Kyle Rayner in the Hawkworld Annual tie-in to Armageddon 2001.

#322 - A decimal error in the 1870s led to an erroneously believed fact in the 20th Century that inspired Popeye's strength-inducing spinach.

Donkey Kong was originally a Popeye video game with Popeye, Olive Oyl and Bluto in place of Mario, Pauline and Donkey Kong.

Terry Austin is a huge Popeye fan and as such, often hides Popeye in comics that he works on as a penciler or inker.

#323 - SlimKid3, of the rap group The Pharcyde, produced a rap song that the Human Torch performed in an episode of the 1990s Fantastic Four cartoon.

Marvel had an almost imperceptible crossover between one of their "main" comic books and an issue of What If...?

The first fictional private detective to be a Vietnam veteran was the comic book hero, Sarge Steel.

#324 - Clark Kent has very rarely changed into Superman in a phone booth, including not once on the 1950s Superman TV series!

Peter David was given permission to use Death in Incredible Hulk #418, with one interesting qualification.

Stan Lee was so impressed with Werner Roth's sample "good girl" artwork that he not only hired Roth, but created a comic book just for Roth to draw!

#325 - The Brave and the Bold for a time had hints hidden in their issues revealing who the team-up would be in the following issue.

Rob Liefeld and Jim Valentino pitched a Young Avengers series before New Warriors debuted.

Grant Morrison did not originally intend for Xorn to be Magneto.

#326 - The writer/artist of the Popeye daily comic strip was fired for a series of strips involving jokes about abortion.

The band Killing Joke was named after Batman: The Killing Joke.

Del Close wrote a comic book.

#327 - All but one of the X-Men were scrapped from a planned appearance in the Marvel animated adaptation of Secret Wars because producers did not want to fly the voice actors to California.

Human League is named after Judge Dredd comic books.

Justice Leaguer Manitou Raven was meant to be Apache Chief.

#328 - Aunt May and Uncle Ben appeared in an issue of Strange Tales two months before Peter Parker debuted in Amazing Fantasy #15.

The 1990 Flash TV series was originally part of a much larger superhero TV series proposal.

A comic book writer killed off Grant Morrison’s character from Animal Man.

#329 - E. Nelson Bridwell coined the famous Lone Ranger/Tonto joke "what you mean...we"?

Disney had another artist change the ending of a Carl Barks story because the story ended with Donald as an arsonist.

Had the 1990s Spider-Man Animated Series continued, Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson would have gotten married.

#330 - Larry Niven wanted to reveal Guy Gardner was an alien in 1989/1990.

Universal Press Syndicate banned a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon featuring a joke about Calvin playing in a washing machine.

Famed Clash drummer Topper Headon gained his nickname from a comic strip.

#331 - Harold Gray originally pitched the strip as starring an orphan named Otto.

Gray used his strip to specifically harass the clerk who turned him down for an increase in his gas rations during World War II.

Gray had Daddy Warbucks kill himself rather than to live through another Presidential term of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

#332 - Elzie Segar's use of spinach in the Popeye comic strip led to a 33% increase in spinach in the United States.

The Comics Code made a bizarre change to a 1950s Superman story involving a tiger biting Superman.

Geoff Johns had a letter in a 1991 issue of Flash that foreshadowed the usage of a particular character in both Mark Waid AND Johns' later run on Flash.

#333 - The number one women's tennis player in the world retired from amateur competition and then became a writer and editor on Wonder Woman's comic book.

Joe Kelly's last issue of Deadpool was originally the last issue of the series period.

Jimmy Cheung did collages of old artwork for the backgrounds of his Young Avengers Presents covers.

#334 - Chester Gould did a story based on the Lindbergh kidnapping while the Lindbergh kidnapping was an ongoing matter..with morbid results.

A comic book character beat Dick Tracy tot the 2-way wrist radio by four years!

Chester Gould, via Dick Tracy, coined the term "Crime Does Not Pay."

#335 - George McManus was involved in a stock trading scheme where he would alert the others through hints in the dialogue of his comic strip, Bringing Up Father.

DC once canceled a comic book because Mort Weisinger hated it.

Now's Green Hornet comic had to make an abrupt change with who their Kato was because of the licensors.

#336 - A comment by Stan Lee in a Bullpen Bulletins led to a response in a Legion of Super-Heroes story that then led to a response in an issue of Amazing Spider-Man!

The plot of Fantastic Four #176 was changed after the editor of the comic received Jack Kirby's cover for the issue.

Alan Davis requested that Marvel run only filler issues on Excalibur until he could take over the title.

#337 - Gerard Christopher was cast as Superman in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman until producers discovered that he had played Superboy on the Superboy TV series of the late 1980s.

A Sunday Terry and the Pirates comic strip was read into the Congressional Record the next day.

James Robinson planned to do a Silver Age follow-up to his Elseworlds mini-series The Golden Age.

#338 - Michelle Pfeiffer was close to portraying Vicki Vale in the first Tim Burton Batman film.

Storm's mohawk haircut was originally a joke by Paul Smith.

Lobo was removed from R.E.B.E.L.S. '95 due to reader complaints over his inclusion in the title.

#339 - When he was first created, Mister Mind was not yet a worm.

Superman was the inspiration for the Vulcan nerve pinch.

Quantum and Woody and Black Panther had a unique type of crossover.

#340 - "The Trial of Reed Richards" came about in response to a two-page bit in an issue of Uncanny X-Men.

Peter Milligan originated the idea for Knightfall.

The Katzenjammer Kids got a name change during World War I.

#341 - Alan Moore's decision to let Marvel reprint his Captain Britain stories came about due to an interesting meeting at a British pub.

Over two decades after making a one-off joke in an issue of Howard the Duck, Steve Gerber made good on the joke.

What If...? #4 was decided after the fact that it was not an alternate reality.

#342 - Will Eisner was tricked into starting a "feud" with Al Capp.

Will Eisner recycled a rejected comic strip into Spirit stories.

Midnight was created to replace the Spirit during World War II.

#343 - There was nearly a Superboy TV series in the 1960s!

Robert E. Howard created Shuma-Gorath.

There was going to be a sequel to the 1986 Neal Pozner/Craig Hamilton Aquaman mini-series.

#344 - "Mickey Mouse" was the code word for the Allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day.

Jerry Robinson helped secure the release of a Uruguayan political prisoner through a bogus art award.

Mad Magazine has had to change their front cover a number of times in their history due to tragic coincidences.

#345 - Red Sonja was too close to Robert E. Howard's Red Sonya character for Marvel to have gained an independent copyright on the character.

Red Sonja's famous bikini was designed in a non-commissioned sketch (which also got said artist the gig drawing Red Sonja's first solo comic book story).

Ed Brubaker used a "dead" character as a major supporting character in his Catwoman series because he did not know the character had been killed off.

#346 - Snake-Eyes was based on Larry Hama's design for a Nick Fury outfit.

Greg Evans backed away from having a gay character in Luann because of his worries over possible backlash.

Unused Superboy TV scripts ended up as Superboy comic book stories.

#347 - Alfred E. Neuman existed well before Mad Magazine ever came about.

Mad Magazine used to sell actual straight jackets!

Every Mad cover has an easter egg of the letters "ind" to form Mad Mind.

#348 - Rorschach's speech patterns were based on Herbie, the Fat Fury.

The Human Torch was based on Carl Burgos' earlier android hero, the Iron Skull.

DC nearly did an adaptation of Hamlet...starring Batman!

#349 - DC produced a pilot for a series starring little people dressed as dogs as "The Adventures of Superpup."

The X-Men villain S'ym was based on Dave Sim.

Wild Child was originally intended to be the son of Sabretooth.

#350 - Marvel sued Dave Sim over his use of the character Wolveroach.

The makers of the Spider-Man film were sued over their use of a billboard within the film.

When Flash Gordon appeared in Australia, his name was changed to Speed Gordon.

#351 - DC initially gave Robin just a one-issue try-out before sales dictated that he stick around.

Steve Gerber based a super-villain on a newspaper writer who gave his work a bad review.

One of DC's Dial H for Hero superhero suggestions came courtesy of Harlan Ellison.

#352 - The creation of Spider-Ham was inspired by Dave Sim's Marvel parody characters in Cerebus.

A baseball team made up of comic book creators was one of the teams in the Ken Griffey Jr.'s Winning Run video game.

Gravity initially was going to become the new Captain Marvel.

#353 - Huntress was originally going to die at the end of No Man's Land.

DC had a violation of Marvel's trademark on the covers of their Shazam comics for more than a year.

Bud Fisher sneaked a copyright notice into one of his strips to gain ownership of the strip.

#354 - The Greatest American Hero began life as a Superboy TV series.

Warren Ellis used the WildC.A.T.s/Aliens one-shot at a loophole to kill the Stormwatch characters.

A Mutt and Jeff comic strip showed the pair committing suicide.

#355 - The creator of the Crow, James O'Barr, tried to do a Batman story for DC Comics for years.

Black Adam died in his first appearance and then never made another appearance in a Fawcett comic book.

Starhawk of the Guardians of the Galaxy originally was going to appear in the pages of Marvel Super-Heroes.

#356 - DC refused to publish the cover of an issue of Static because it showed sex.

The sport of Chess Boxing was inspired by a comic book.

The first daily comic strip was canceled because William Randolph Hearst found it too obscene and/or too vulgar.

SPECIAL EDITION - Batman never actually carried shark repellent in his utility belt.

#357 - Flash Gordon owes its existence to John Carter of Mars.

Spider-Ham's visual design was based on Cerebus.

DC began redrawing Superman's face on Justice League of America covers after years of Mike Sekowsky drawing them himself.

#358 - Dave Sim and Chris Claremont once planned a Cerebus/X-Men crossover.

A new member of the New Titans was introduced in, of all places, a Marvel vs. DC trading card insert set.

Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams snuck Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew into an issue of Green Lantern/Green Arrow as villains...with Nixon as a little GIRL!

#359 - Alan Moore was hired by DC to bring Charlton's characters to DC Comics.

A popular Australian comic book series saw some difficulties after its creator was convicted of some fairly heinous crimes.

John Rozum broke into comics through a surreptitious use of a post-it note.

#360 - Academy Award-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman did an X-Men parody comic in the early 1980s.

Jerry Siegel wrote Thor comics under the name R. Berns.

A Teen Titan went through two new superhero identities...in two concurrent issues!

#361 - Steve Seagle was going to have Jean Grey become Phoenix during his Uncanny X-Men run.

Jackson Guice used a photograph from an adult magazine as the basis for a panel during his New Mutants run.

The actress who was the voice of Meowth in Pokemon used to write comics for Marvel and Milestone.

#362 - Wonder Woman's special bracelets were based on the bracelets worn by William Moulton Marston's lover.

The Mexican affiliate of Mego produced a Green Lantern figure.

One of the Gibborim was based on Milhouse from the Simpsons.

#363 - Psylocke was originally intended to die in the Psi-War.

Marvel editorial nixed Fabian Nicieza's plans for Cyclops and Psylocke to have an affair (psychic or otherwise)

Fabian Nicieza missed an issue of Uncanny X-Men, which led to a continuity mistake with Psylocke that he had to fix ten issues later.

#364 - Larry Hama invented Rage as a substitute when he was denied the use of Luke Cage in the Avengers.

Jemm, Son of Saturn was originally supposed to be from Mars.

Milton Caniff wrote a real life war hero into Terry and the Pirates as a regular character while World War II was ongoing.

#365 - An issue of Avengers West Coast was edited at the last moment because of a scene that could be interpreted as one character performing oral sex on another.

Stan Lee wrote the lyrics to the 1966 Marvel Super Heroes TV series, including most famously "When Captain America throws his mighty shield"...

Captain America's origin was changed because of the Comics Code.

#366 - Larry Hama's band, The K-Otics, performed in the G.I. Joe episode "Cold Slither."

Hasbro named a new member of the G.I. Joe team Ghost Rider, leading to an interesting usage of the character in the comic books.

A 1993 issue of G.I. Joe was mostly written and drawn in 1982.

#367 - Jack Kirby designed the costumes for a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

An issue of Spider-Man: Reign was recalled because of a drawing of what appears to be Spider-Man's genitals.

Hasbro had Larry Hama make a point of naming all of the characters each issue.

#368 - A 1977 arrest of Evel Knievel led to the creation of Team America.

The first issue of Team America was re-written and re-drawn over one night.

Jack Kirby based the Thing on a character from an issue of Strange Tales.

#369 - Donald Duck debuted in a 1931 illustrated Mickey Mouse book three years before debuting in a cartoon.

Larry Hama developed Bucky O'Hare for DC Comics.

Dave Sim pitched Marvel on a Spider-Ham series.

#370 - Marv Wolfman was going to have J. Jonah Jameson kill off Black Cat during his Amazing Spider-Man run.

Uderzo drew Captain Marvel Jr. for a Belgium comic book company during the 1950s.

Dave Sim was going to contribute to the Fables graphic novel 1001 Nights of Snowfall, but the project fell apart in the contract stages.

#371 - Marvel had a ban on characters using the words "hell" and "damn" in the early 1990s.

The classic EC Comic tale "Judgment Day" was adapted from a Ray Bradbury short story.

Larry Hama used to write a postcard response to every fan letter he received back when he was writing G.I. Joe for Marvel Comics (not counting hate mail or no-prize requests).

#372 - Dave Gibbons dressed up as a sort of costumed superhero mascot for a spin-off comic to 2000 A.D.

William Moulton Marston began having Wonder Woman exclaim "Suffering Sappho!" as a form of protest to Fredric Wertham

Jim Starlin nearly did a Shazam! series a few years ago.

#373 - Superman first flew in the Fleischer animated films.

Jonathan Frakes inadvertently inspired a classic Spider-Man story.

Pantha was not originally going to be the Titan killed by Superboy Prime.

#374 - Rorschach was originally going to be part of Countdown: Arena.

In an early issue of his Superman run, John Byrne had a panel that featured a word balloon from over a dozen other titles released that month!

Herbert "Herblock" Block coined the term "McCarthyism."

#375 - A government agency paid DC to do an anti-drug comic storyline in Batman: Shadow of the Bat.

Marvel canceled Satana at the last minute because their new line of horror comics now had to be Comics Code approved.

The New 52 Supergirl #1 had a page featuring dialogue from at least three other New 52 books that month.

#376 - When William Marston invented Wonder Woman’s lasso, it made people tell the truth.

Ivan Velez Jr. had to remove parodies of Archie from a Blood Syndicate crossover with DC Comics.

Warren Ellis re-worked his Satana scripts into the series Strange Kiss.

#377 - DC Comics canceled Detective Comics in the late 1970s.

Batman and Jon Sable nearly had a crossover during the 1980s.

Bill Finger does not have a living heir.

#378 - Bill Finger nearly received credit on the Tim Burton Batman film.

Warren Ellis' City of Silence was originally intended for Marvel Comics.

Douglock was a continuation from Fabian Nicieza's Cyberlock character.

#379 - Stan Lee and Steve Ditko excised the whole "failed to stop the thief who then killed his uncle" aspect of Spider-Man's origin in Amazing Spider-Man #1!

Mort Walker frequently would create racy versions of his Beetle Bailey comic strip as a gag.

Alan Moore came up with Earth-616

#380 - The Spider-Man villain the Shocker was originally named the Vibrator.

A 2006 Beetle Bailey comic strip was censored by the syndicate because it made one of the characters a car thief.

Alex Ross drew a character nude in Marvels to see if anyone would notice.

#381 - During 1904, there were dueling Wizard of Oz-based comic strips.

Chris Claremont planned to explain Kitty Pryde's absence during his second X-Men run.

Paul Grist's Jack Staff was based on a rejected Union Jack series proposal for Marvel Comics.

#382 - Wendy from Super Friends was originally going to be Batman's niece.

There was an unaired live action Archie pilot in 1964.

David Caruso appeared as Archie in a 1976 failed pilot.

#383 - David Michelinie did not know what the deal was with Peter Parker's parents when they "returned from the dead."

Robert Kanigher had a subtle protest/response to Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent in the pages of Wonder Woman.

There was a super strong comic book characters more than thirty years before Superman!

#384 - A lawyer recently submitted a comic as a brief in a case.

Jim Valentino left Marvel for Image Comics after being told that he was less valuable on Guardians of the Galaxy than anyone else on the book?

The classic Nintendo video game Hogan's Alley is based on the Yellow Kid, in a roundabout way.

#385 - John Wagner named Judge Dredd after the reggae artist Judge Dread.

Early Judge Dredd artists drew Dredd with different ethnicities.

A classic Judge Dredd story has been banned from being reprinted because of its usage of trademarked characters.

#386 - Talon was a replacement for Wolverine.

Talon was intended to be gay.

Valentino and Keith Giffen planned on doing a series that would have continued their stories from Guardians of the Galaxy and Legion of Superheroes, respectively.

#387 - At one point, Cable was going to be an older version of Cannonball.

There was a Winnie the Pooh comic strip where the characters acted a lot more aggressively than most Winnie the Pooh fans are used to.

Manhunter was originally intended as an updated version of the Jack Kirby Manhunter

#388 - The Metal Men were created over a weekend.

Buster Brown was named independently of Buster Keaton.

Jackson Guice paid tribute to his fellow DC creators in the first issue of the post-Crisis Flash series.

#389 - Eric "Thunderstrike" Masterson was always destined to die.

Jack Kirby never drew blood in a comic.

The Chicago Sunday Tribune had a comic crossover over a hundred years ago!

#390 - Jamie Delano originally wanted to call Hellblazer "Hellraiser."

Grant Morrison had to invent Willoughby Kipling because they were denied usage of John Constantine in Doom Patrol and then Phil Foglio had to invent Ambrose Bierce in Stanley and his Monster because he was denied usage of John Constantine AND Willoughby Kipling.

John Constantine was American in the Constantine film because of actor Keanu Reeves.

#391 - George Lucas personally took issue with the character Jaxxon.

Walter Simonson and David Michelinie accidentally came up with a major plot point for Return of the Jedi before the film came out.

There are six issues of Marvel's Star Wars that have never been released in the United States.

#392 - DC was originally going to call Hellblazer "Hellraiser."

Bucky O'Hare was based on Jaxxon

The idea of Alfred raising Bruce Wayne after Bruce's parents were killed was introduced in an episode of Super Powers.

#393 - DC changed Doomsday's origins after protests from mental health organizations.

Hasbro changed Zartan's profile after complaints from mental health organizations.

A special Blondie comic book was produced for a New York mental health group.

#394 - The Death of Superman was based on a Neil Gaiman and Matt Wagner pitch.

Nearly thirty years after the fact, Lucasfilm allowed a Hungarian bootleg adaptation of Star Wars to be officially finished.

Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo's Luthor mini-series was originally part of an interconnected group of titles.

#395 - The comic book series Trouble WAS originally intended as the origin of Peter Parker's birth (and therefore, Aunt May was going to be Peter Parker's birth mother)

Batman's grappling hook debuted in the comics before the film

Walt Kelly did a Pogo comic as a Primer for Parents.

#396 - Nintendo's Mario made his first comic book appearance during Valiant's early days.

Ryan Dunlavey and ToyFare magazine invented a fake 1980s cartoon series and a toy line that went with it.

Walter Simonson wrote/drew himself into an issue of Star Wars.

#397 - Chris Claremont killed off Psylocke in X-Treme X-Men with the intent to return her to life very soon after

Jim Starlin did an issue of Warlock that was approved by the "Cosmic Code Authority."

Reed Richards was based visually on the Professor from Gilligan's Island

#398 - A reporter was exiled from Yugoslavia for reporting on the censorship of a Mickey Mouse comic strip.

Gardner Fox just added the Three Stooges to the pages of the Flash.

John Romita Sr. did not consider himself to be a co-plotter on Amazing Spider-Man with Stan Lee.

#399 - There was a notable Peanuts comic strip about Snoopy asking to be removed from the IRS' mailing list.

The FBI examined Pogo comic strips searching for hidden messages.

DC tried to block the Australian comic strip Swamp from getting a trademark on the name Swamp because of their Swamp Thing.

#400 (Part 1) - Steve Ditko did not want the Green Goblin to be revealed as Norman Osborn.

New York City detectives went to DC Comics for help during the Son of Sam investigation.

Archie Comics did a superhero version of the Shadow during the 1960s.

#400 (Part 2) - Alan Moore was going to write a Superman ongoing title after Crisis.

The Governor of Pennsylvania once banned editorial cartoons!

Kurt Busiek and George Perez created an Avengers supporting character to honor a devoted Avengers fan who had recently died.

#400 (Part 3) - Jackie Kennedy Onassis was a comic book editor.

Complaints about a minor continuity error in an early issue of Justice League of America led to a highly acclaimed Adam Strange story.

Alan Moore's Top 10: The Forty-Niners was originally planned as a mini-series but was changed to a graphic novel over fears regarding the gay relationship at the heart of the story.

#401 - Al Plastino created a few month's worth of Peanuts strips in case Charles Schulz ever became ill and needed back-up.

An issue of Cable from 2008 predicted a "super storm" in New Jersey in 2012.

A seven-year old got a co-plotting credit on an issue of Power Rangers.

#402 - Joe Shuster based Lois Lane's appearance on the future wife of Jerry Siegel.

The original bad guy behind Countdown to Infinite Crisis was Mr. Jupiter from the Teen Titans.

Peter Milligan wanted to end Shade the Changing Man with #50.

#403 - Federico Fellini wrote a Flash Gordon bootleg comic strip in Italy during the late 1930s.

Charlton Comics was formed in prison!

Mike Allred's characters The Horn and Carla were originally invented as X-Force/X-Statix characters.

#404 - The Playboy Club played a major role in Batman getting his own TV series.

ABC originally considered a Dick Tracy TV series and even did a pilot for a Dick Tracy show once Batman became a hit.

Airing two Batman episodes a week in the style of an old-time serial was part of the original plan for the Batman series.

#405 - Chris Claremont secretly wrote three issues of X-Men before his official return to the titles in 2000.

Marvel tried to do a comic book adaptation of Atlas Shrugged in the early 1990s with Steve Ditko doing the adaptation!

There is a notable Peanuts strip where Charlie Brown shoots arrows and then draws targets around wherever they land, making it look like he was dead on each time.

#406 - Frank Miller was inspired by the character of Molly from the first Batman episode in creating Carrie Kelley.

Before becoming a cast member of Batman for Season 3, Yvonne Craig nearly had her own series as Batgirl.

An episode of Batman worked in references to all of the series' sponsors.

#407 - William Marston was specifically told in a memo to cut down on Wonder Woman being chained up by 50-75%.

A British firm was denied a trademark of the word "Batsman" in relation with cricket gear because of DC Comics' Batman trademark.

There was a little-known early Peanuts character who walked around with a cloud following him (not a dust cloud like Pigpen)

#408 - According to Bob Kane, the Batman TV series saved the Batman comic book from cancellation in the 1960s.

When Julie Schwartz and Carmine Infantino took over the Bat-titles, the book was near cancellation.

Gardner Fox retconned an issue of Detective Comics to make it work with Batman's sales popularity to star in an issue of JLA.

#409 - Actor Scott Leva was cast as Spider-Man in the ill-fated 1989 Cannon film adaptaton of Spider-Man.

Jerry Siegel nearly wrote "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow"

An issue of What If...? indirectly led to the whole "Ms. Marvel gives birth to her boyfriend who mind controls her until she leaves this dimension with him" plotline.

#410 - Batman was first deputized in the 1960s TV Series.

The Goblin in Spider-Man 2099 was revealed to be someone other than who Peter David intended it to be.

In early 2000s reprints of Cheryl Blossom appearances, Archie Comics edited Cheryl into the new character Ginger Lopez.

#411 - Lady Mastermind was invented because two X-Men writers were using the first female Mastermind at the same time

Victor Fox was working as DC Comics' accountant when he saw the sales of Action Comics #1 and immediately formed his own comic book company.

Marvel used to have a "rule" that Wolverine did not have arm hair while in costume.

#412 - Cyclops and Jean Grey were originally going to get married in the pages of X-Factor.

Steve Englehart revealed that before he was changed by the Red Skull into being a hero, the Falcon worked as a pimp/Steve Englehart was going to reveal that the Red Skull's revelations about the Falcon were a lie.

A worker was fired for posting a Dilbert comic strip at work.

#413 - Marvel was going to do a backwards issue of Amazing Spider-Man that you would need a mirror to read.

Chris Claremont wrote a year's worth of X-Treme X-Men stories before learning he couldn't use Beast on his team.

Hepzibah of the Starjammers was effectively a Pogo character in an X-Men comic.

#414 - Kryptonite was first introduced on the Superman radio show as a way for the actor playing Superman to take time off the show.

Grant Morrison added Beast to his New X-Men run after his original choice for the role of "scientist" in the group was killed off before he took over the title.

Adam Strange was created due to an odd proclamation by DC's editorial director.

#415 - A rich man paid DC to make a special Superman comic book for his son's Bar Mitzvah.

Was "For the Man Who Has Everything?" the first time Superman used his heat vision offensively?

The classic Superman story "Under the Red Sun" has a major plot hole that DC actually FIXED when they reprinted it in a 1979 comic!

#416 - A "create a character" contest entrant was nearly a member of the X-Men but instead did not appear for nearly THIRTY years!

The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis began as a failed Archie TV series.

DC corrected a major plot hole in the classic Superman tale "The Last Days of Superman" when it was reprinted in a 1977 Treasury Edition.

#417 - There was once a Batman/Pokemon crossover.

The demon-possessed Presidential candidate in Elektra Assassin was modeled after Dan Quayle.

DC edited a Superman story when it was reprinted because it incorrectly described the attributes of Red Kryptonite.

#418 - Marvel had permission from Samuel L. Jackson before using his likeness for Ultimate Nick Fury.

A typo in an issue of Amazing Spider-Man gave a hint as to a future Superior Spider-Man story.

Marvel "fixed" a plot hole in a classic Lee/Ditko Spider-Man story when they reprinted it, and also added a Dukes of Hazzard reference to the story!

#419 - Bob Layton wrote an unpublished Spider-Man graphic novel with Spidey romancing a mob wife.

Brian K. Vaughan offered to reveal the secret identity of a character to the first person who discovered a crude joke in a Batman story he wrote.

Marvel updated the looks of the Steve Ditko Spider-Man supporting cast when they reprinted the comics in the 1980s.

#420 - Larry Hama based a G.I. Joe arc on an old screenplay that may have also influenced the film Armageddon.

Mary Jane Watson's first name was a sly reference by Stan Lee to marijuana.

Neal Adams had a drawing "defending" Batman from a Bill Sienkiewicz cover

#421 - DC Comics published a comic story mocking Bill Finger a couple of years after his death.

The DC villain Firefly was accidentally confused with the DC villain Firebug and became a fire-based villain.

After approving the use of Star Trek: The Animated Series characters for the second volume of DC's Star Trek, the characters were denied approval...AFTER being drawn!

#422 - Marvel decided not to make Ultimate Captain America black after seeing the response to their series Truth: Red, White and Black.

Stan Lee canceled Conan the Barbarian after just seven issues.

In response to Neal Adams drawing a monster with a mouth that looked like female genitalia, Roy Thomas had John Buscema draw a monster that had, in effect, testicles.

#423 - Superman's S was not a Kryptonian symbol until Mario Puzo came up with the idea for Superman the Movie.

Jerry Siegel reviewed Philip Wylie's novel, Gladiator, in the pages of his fanzine.

DC had a series of odd edits based on Superman's super-vision not being able to see through time.

#424 - Did the U.S. Government tell the Superman radio show to quit using kryptonite on the show during World War II?

Bob Kane swiped Todd McFarlane for a Batman drawing.

The term "What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar" was actually coined by a cartoonist, not Vice President Thomas R. Marshall.

#425 - Mark Gruenwald's ashes were also mixed in with a Marvel Comics poster.

Venture Brothers was originally intended as a comic book.

John Romita based his Black Widow re-design on Emma Peel from the Avengers TV series.

#426 - Superman comic books about the dangers of landmines inadvertently led to children in Bosnia going into minefields because they wanted to meet Superman.

The Dreadnoks were originally going to be fuzzy creatures like Ewoks.

A Lady Satan story was reprinted twice in ten years, with a different character starring in the comic each time!

#427 - Marvel edited a photo of Stan Lee posing nude out of a comic book.

There was nearly a Thor spin-off in the mid-1970s.

Charlie Brown's baseball team never won a game.

#428 - The Comics Code made Stan Lee and Jack Kirby edit a panel where the Thing threatens to spank the Invisible Girl.

Argentinian author Julio Cortázar wrote a comic book featuring Fantomas.

Another Golden Age comic book character had the same story edited into three separate comic stories featuring three different characters.

#429 - Hugh Jackman got the role of Wolverine due to Dougray Scott being unable to do the role due to an injury.

Apocalypse was intended to be the brains behind Weapon X in Barry Windsor-Smith's Weapon X storyline.

A rejected facial design for Wolverine ended up becoming Sabreooth!

#430 - Christopher Priest (then Jim Owsley) was ordered to have Iron Fist killed due to his editor's anger over the cancelation of the title.

Before he was fired from the title, Roger Stern was planning on Power Man joining the Avengers and Iron Fist brought back to life.

Tyrone King was originally meant to be a vampire.

#431 - Wonder Woman and Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) were going to date in the late 1970s.

Marvel staffers intentionally included extra negative letters in the letter columns of Jack Kirby's titles in the mid-1970s.

Herb Trimpe snuck an amusing "salute" into an issue of G.I. Joe.

#432 - Chris Claremont intended nearly every Sabretooth appearance for the first fifteen years or so of the character to be a clone.

Did John Byrne quit Sensational She-Hulk because of a dispute over the She-Hulk shaving her legs?

Julio Cortázar wrote a comic book.

#433 - Jack Kirby originally intended Doctor Doom to have only a small scar on his face.

DC wouldn't let John Byrne draw Superman into a Powerpuff Girls pin-up for an issue of PowerpuffGirls...by DC Comics.

X-Files and Animaniacs had a team-up!

#434 - John Byrne wanted to reveal that every Doctor Doom since Jack Kirby and Stan Lee was a Doom-Bot.

DC made Kevin Smith edit out a reference to the Powerpuff Girls in Green Arrow.

Adam Strange was originally going to join L.E.G.I.O.N. instead of Captain Comet.

#435 - Magneto was originally going to be the main villain of BloodTies.

John Byrne pitched an Asian Batgirl a year before Cassandra Cain was introduced.

Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo put in a proposal for Aquaman.

#436 - Kitty Pryde was originally going to be part of a brand-new team of X-Men

DC was going to reboot the Huntress character before Chuck Dixon decided to use her in the pages of Detective Comics.

Charlie Brown's first home run came about in the reverse order than you'd expect.

#437 - Marvel was originally going to kill off Venom in Amazing Spider-Man #400.

Mr. Monster and Swamp Thing nearly had a crossover.

Marvel comic characters appeared in the Beatlemania film.

#438 - Superheroes from DC and Marvel teamed-up in a comic written by Kurt Busiek in 1978 for...the Boston Symphony Orchestra?!

Dave Cockrum created a new member of the X-Men to be introduced in Uncanny X-Men #150 but pulled her back from use.

Cyclops' eye beams come from another dimension.

#439 - At one point, Stan Lee was going to have Magneto and Professor X be brothers.

A Rugrats character was banned from the Rugrats comic strip because of complaints by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League.

Doctor Doom's mask appeared in a Marvel comic before Doctor Doom did!

#440 - George R.R. Martin was the very first comic convention attendee.

Angela Bowie lost out on the lead role on the Wonder Woman TV series to Lynda Carter.

Angela Bowie once owned the TV rights to Daredevil and Black Widow.

#441 - Alan Moore split from DC Comics over his dissatisfaction over how DC was handling Watchmen.

Chris Claremont had to get legal permission from DC Comics before he used Neal Conan in Sovereign Seven.

The U.S. Military used to not allow servicemen and women to have Mjolnir appear on their tombstones.

#442 - Stan Lee invented Thor on his own.

The font Comic Sans was based on Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns

John Byrne nearly returned to Marvel a few years ago to continue his Fantastic Four run.

#443 - Marvel and DC Comics both passed on Marvelman in the 1980s.

There was a DC Comics supervillain in the 1980s who was powered by cocaine.

John Byrne's X-Men: The Hidden Years was a finite series designed to replace the issues of X-Men that were reprints during the early 1970s (before the All-New, All-Different X-Men took over)

#444 - Jack Kirby's New Gods characters were originally intended as Thor characters.

Walter Simonson had a Thor storyline planned called “Saga of the Vengeance of Thor”

Tom DeFalco and Paul Ryan pitched a Superman/Thor crossover

#445 - Scarlet Witch was originally going to be killed off during Siege before Marvel decided to kill off the Sentry instead.

John Cale and Lou Reed used to dress up as Batman and Robin for kid's birthday parties before the Velvet Underground hit it big(ger).

The Death of Superman had an unusual way of counting down to the final issue.

#446 - Mort Weisinger alluded to the alleged John F. Kennedy/Marilyn Monroe affair in a Superboy comic book story.

John Byrne and Roger Stern were nearly the first creators to establish that Wolverine was old enough to fight in World War II.

Jack Kirby's Fourth World was originally intended as an ongoing series.

#447 - Did Curt Swan illustrate an X-Rated "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex"?

Jeph Loeb was originally going to do All-Star Batman and Robin with Jim Lee and Art Adams.

Chris Claremont introduced the idea that Black Widow was a child during World War II.

#448 - DC had to make Man of Steel to fulfill a legal obligation.

Conan was not known as Conan the Barbarian before the Marvel series.

Barry Windsor-Smith's Freebooters series was an adaptation of his Archer and Armstrong series.

#449 - Knightfall was inspired by the success of The Death of Superman

The point of Knightfall was to point out why Azrael should NOT be Batman.

A health scare by Denny O'Neil led to a change in how Azrael was written off.

#450 - Before he wrote Marvelman for Dez Skinn, Alan Moore's first job for Skinn was a Santa Claus two-pager!

Marvel Team-Up was originally intended to be strictly a Spider-Man/Human Torch team-up comic.

Carl Barks was censored by Disney on his classic Christmas story "The Golden Christmas Tree."

#451 - The Spider-Man villain The Answer was a parody of Steve Ditko's creation The Question.

A dispute over the rights to Red Sonja led to Chris Claremont ending up as the owner of the rights to the character Marada the She-Wolf.

Valiant brewed a special beer to promote Archer and Armstrong in the early 1990s.

#452 - Stan Lee debated Fredric Wertham and/or Gershon Legman on their views about comic books.

Conan appeared in a comic book years before Marvel's Conan the Barbarian.

An issue of Doctor Strange was accidentally lettered using a different script than the published comic book.

#453 - Peter David nearly wrote the first Star Wars: Infinities series and it would have featured Luke as Leia's consort!

Chris Claremont and John Byrne almost did an issue of What If...? in the late 1970s featuring what would happen if Magneto formed the X-Men.

Vin Sullivan came across Superman for Action Comics #1 by writing his friend Sheldon Mayer looking for discarded strips that could work for the title.

#454 - Jack Kirby intended to finish his Fourth World epic with both Darkseid and Orion killed.

DC came up with a clever way of paying Jack Kirby royalties for his Fourth World characters.

Jack Kirby's Fourth World stories influenced the musician Jon Hassell.

#455 - DC has a trademark on the telescopic style of letters in Superman's logo.

Denny O'Neil had an amusing reaction to the Batman credit card scene in Joel Schumacher's Batman and Robin.

Logan's Run the comic book was canceled due to low sales.

#456 - Marvel took the idea for Wolverine from a fan submission to a contest.

Al Milgrom going freelance led to Art Adams' big break.

Unused Logan's Run comics became a Bizarre Adventures story.

#457 - Marvel nearly had a Northstar ongoing series from John Byrne over 20 years ago.

Marvel owns a trademark on the use of the word "Marvel" in comic book titles.

Peter David "celebrated" the firing of a nemesis of his in the Paramount licensing department with a special Star Trek comic book story.

#458 - DC changed Supergirl's costume to match the Supergirl movie, which then didn't use the new costume themselves.

Jack Kirby changed his ending to his Fourth World Saga after seeing Return of the Jedi.

Since working on American comics, Alan Moore has followed a strict rule for how many words he would use on each page.

#459 - Allied spies would use the secret code from Superman comics.

After Hasbro bought the company that made the equivalent of G.I. Joe toys in England, the comic adaptation had to transform the Action Force main villain into Cobra Commander!

Marvel had to pulp the original printing of their Battlestar Galactica adaptation because they didn't have approval from their licensor.

#460 - Marvel banned the color green from covers during the 1970s.

Jack Larson almost starred in a Jimmy Olsen spin-off from The Adventures of Superman

John Byrne poked a little fun at Rob Liefeld's art style and his swipes in an issue of She-Hulk

#461 - Marvel had to pull a series of house ads bragging about winning DC vs. Marvel.

Al Capp invented the Li'l Abner prototype Big Leviticus while working for Ham Fisher.

John Byrne's parody swipe of Rob Liefeld in Sensational She-Hulk was a swipe of a swipe OF Byrne!

#462 - Bruce Lee refused to film a scene where Kato lost a fight to Robin.

Dave Cockrum had a rather racy protest to Ms. Marvel's original costume.

A Donald Duck cartoon was once nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary.

#463 - Stan Lee coined the phrase "Nuff' Said!"

John Byrne quit drawing Uncanny X-Men based on the opening page of Uncanny X-Men #140.

Larry Hama was forced to add words to a silent issue of Wolverine.

#464 - Kellogg's squelched plans for a Superboy TV series in the 1960s.

The Comics Code wouldn't allow Batman to go without pants on the cover of Batman #244

Hulkling was originally created as a girl.

#465 - Jack Kirby created two new possible costumes for Captain America in case Marvel lost a lawsuit filed against them by Joe Simon over the rights to Cap.

Bud Sagendorf befriended E.C. Segar when he was just a newspaper boy!

Jim Davis did a series of Garfield strips where the cast is killed.

#466 - At one point, DC Comics planned on having Jimmy Olsen die of AIDS

The terrorist organization Hydra existed in Marvel Comics before either S.H.I.E.L.D. or Nick Fury debuted!

Veterans complained about a seemingly offensive Garfield comic strip during Veteran's Day.

#467 - Fawcett Comics created a code of ethics to eliminate the racial stereotype character, Steamboat.

A group of schoolchildren successfully appealed to Fawcett to get rid of Steamboat.

Kieron Gillen took the job of writing Loki's series in Journey Into Mystery thinking Loki was still an adult.

Al Hirschfeld's hidden mentions of his daughter in his drawings were used by the military to train pilots

#468 - Marvel's 2002 Captain America series was launched in response to 9/11.

Marvel originally intended to address the "death" of Captain America in the series preceding the Marvel Knights series.

There was a pilot made for a Metamorpho cartoon series during the 1960s.

Fawcett Comics created a hero as a piece of propaganda for the government.

#469 - Aunt May was the original victim of the Green Goblin's rampage.

Gwen Stacy was killed off without Stan Lee's knowledge.

Stan Lee made the mistake of mixing up the George Washington Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge in Amazing Spider-Man #121.

#470 - Grant Morrison almost did a Spider-Man version of Batman: Arkham Asylum

The first black doll was produced by a comic strip artist.

Originally Barry Allen was going to be found guilty in his trial and become a fugitive hero!

#471 - A fan gave DC the idea for doing the Justice League of America.

Marvel kept using Godzilla after their license to the character ran out.

Walter Simonson and Chris Claremont invented the Source Wall during their Uncanny X-Men/New Teen Titans crossover.

#472 - Dave Cockrum had a hand in the creation of Wolverine.

The X-Men Animated Series led to Cyclops and Jean Grey getting married in the comics.

Marvel completed a Thunderbird series but never published it.

#473 - Nightcrawler has two penises

The British Ministry of Information kept Ham Fisher abreast of General Montgomery's progress during the Battle of Tunisia so Fisher could keep up in his Joe Palooka comic.

EC Comics made an exception to their standard strict script rules for the classic story "Master Race."

#474 - Age of Ultron was originally going to end with Marvelman entering the Marvel Universe.

Nightcrawler's original father was going to be the Dr. Strange villain, Nightmare.

Pat Boone actually drew a comic in his official comic book.

#475 - Todd McFarlane used to hide spiders on the covers of Amazing Spider-Man

Charles Schulz originally intended to end Peanuts with Charlie Brown finally kicking the football.

Professor X was originally a cast member of Age of Ultron.

#476 - Len Wein originally wanted Madrox the Multiple Man to be called Zerox the Multiple Man!

Jim Balent drew a cat on every cover of Catwoman.

Rube Goldberg sued the makers of the board game Mousetrap.

#477 - Len Wein originally intended to make Madrox a member of the All-New, All-Different X-Men.

The All-New, All-Different X-Men originally were going to continue to star in Giant-Size X-Men.

Don Rosa would hide mocking portrayals of Mickey Mouse in his comics.

#478 - The original ending of the first attempt at a Watchmen movie was going to be that they were turned into comic book characters!

Chris Claremont planned on Jean Grey's SISTER being part of X-Factor

The Superman writers after John Byrne went in a drastically different direction to distance themselves from Byrne having Superman kill.

#479 - Superman's adopted father gave him the "With Great Power..." speech fifteen years before Spider-Man got it from Uncle Ben!

There was a Hagar the Horrible brand soda.

The Ventriloquist was originally intended to be a Judge Dredd villain.

#480 - Barry Allen's long murder trial inspired DC to kill him off in Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Damian Wayne was originally going to die in his first storyline.

A French newspaper paid tribute to Herge upon his death by having every photo in the paper be a Tintin drawing.

#481 - The Joker was originally going to dress like Madonna in Arkham Asylum.

Azrael's tenure as Batman was shortened due to fan reaction.

Harley Quinn made her comic book debut in Mad Love.

#482 - Todd McFarlane quit Spider-Man over a panel of the Juggernaut getting stabbed in the eye.

Blondie was launched with a strange stunt involving her lingerie.

War Games featured the revelation that Leslie Thompkins killed Stephanie Brown.

#483 - A creamery made a sexually suggestive Mickey Mouse ad back in 1934.

Casper the Friendly Ghost helped give us the Silver Age return of The Spectre.

Marv Wolfman had a plan to keep the Flash alive after Crisis on Infinite Earths.

#484 - The first Batman story was a re-working of a then-recent Shadow story.

Bob Kane actually drew the introduction of Joe Chill.

Joel Schumacher fired Robin Williams from Batman Forever and replaced him with Jim Carrey

#485 - The late 1970s Spider-Man live action TV series was canceled in spite of its good ratings.

Firestar originally was going to be Mary Jane on the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends cartoon series

Paul Jenkins re-wrote Howard Mackie's Amazing Spider-Man #25, which crossed over with Jenkins' Peter Parker: Spider-Man #25.

#486 - The Human Torch wasn't on Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends over fears that kids would set themselves on fire.

The Beyonder was not originally going to appear in the Fantastic Four story "Hero."

A Brazil comic book teamed up Captain Marvel with the original Human Torch in 1964.

#487 - Anarky was created with the intent of him becoming the new Robin.

Jack Kirby didn't know what color the Thing was going to be when he designed him.

Iron Man made a rather lewd proposition to Captain America in a 1974 issue of Captain America.

#488 - Gardner Fox wrote Batman's origin

Frank Miller got his start on Daredevil due to Frank Robbins retiring one issue into a run on the title.

Kingpin had a different name in the French version of the Spider-Man comic strip.

#489 - The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) paid Marvel to do an anti-marijuana comic starring Spider-Man.

Frank Miller taking over Daredevil led to him dropping a potential run as the artist on Doctor Strange.

Mark Gruenwald regretted creating Scourge.

#490 - Paul Dini was inspired to create Harley Quinn based on an old episode of Days of Our Lives.

Joe Simon helped with the development of Superman.

NBC insisted that Firestar's ass be altered on Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends.

#491 - Harley Quinn came about because Paul Dini and Bruce Timm needed someone to jump out of a cake.

Frank Quitely drew a complete issue of Lobo that was never published.

Frank Miller named James Gordon's wife Barbara as a tribute to Barbara "Batgirl" Gordon, who Miller had made so that she was no longer Gordon's daughter.

#492 - Andrea accidentally took on the facial features of her dead sister.

Robert Kirkman accidentally spoiled the death of a major character a dozen issues before the character actually died.

Rick and Lori were originally going to break up in Walking Dead #18.

#493 - Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum originally had healing as one of Wolverine's mutant powers.

An added in "snikt" turned Wolverine into a killer for the first time.

Wolverine was going to keep the costume he took from the Imperial Guard member Fang.

#494 - Twin Peaks almost continued as a graphic novel series.

Marvel has a trademark on the words "Snikt" and "Thwip."

Bobbi "Mockingbird" Morse's first appearance was published six issues after her debut?

#495 - Robin was originally going to be in the classic (and very dark) Batman graphic novel, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth

Peanuts coined the term "security blanket."

Mockingbird was originally going to be black.

#496 - Neil Gaiman originally pitched his idea for Sandman as a story in the Wildcards anthology.

Larry Hama was a cast member in Stephen Sondheim's Tony Award-winning Pacific Overtures.

Jim McCann came up with the idea for bringing Mockingbird back to life during Secret Invasion.

#497 - Peter David killed off Betty Banner because someone close to him passed away.

The Teen Titans had a secret crossover with the DNAgents.

Marvel nearly spoiled the Thunderbolts reveal in the solicitations for the issue of Hulk they first appeared in.

#498 - Alan Davis quit Detective Comics over the size of Batman's gun on the cover to Detective Comics #575.

Elliot S! Maggin was fired by DC for allowing Superman to appear in Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Challengers of the Unknown.

Adi Granov and Jon Favreau came together to work on the first Iron Man film through MySpace.

#499 - The letterer on Amazing Spider-Man hid an insult of departing artist Todd McFarlane into an issue of Amazing Spider-Man.

In the failed 1990 She-Hulk TV series, She-Hulk was going to be gold!

Mafalda was invented as an advertising gimmick.

#500 (Part 1) - A misreading of the script for Pryde of the X-Men resulted in Wolverine being turned Australian in the episode.

Wolverine was forced to become Australian because of the popularity of Austalian cinema.

Wolverine's mutated wolverine origin was squelched because of Spider-Woman taking the origin.

#500 (Part 2) - Frank Miller's first issue of Daredevil was pushed up an issue due to the Comics Code.

Jack Kirby secretly laid out the first issue of Daredevil.

An issue of Born Again was released without the Comics Code.

#500 (Part 3) - Frank Miller wrote a script for a Batman Year One film where Bruce Wayne is a cab driver.

A company sued Warners because The Dark Knight Rises used the name of their property as a fictional item.

Neil Gaiman was Dave McKean's model for Batman in Batman: Arkham Asylum

Ta da!