This is the eighty-third in a series of examinations of comic book urban legends and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of the previous eighty-two. Click here for a similar archive, only arranged by subject.

Let's begin!

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: The Superman story in Action Comics #1 was made up of a cut up comic strip.

STATUS: True

Jerome Siegel and Joseph Shuster worked together on a pitch, Superman, that was continually turned down by publishers. They continued to try to pitch the feature as a comic strip, but it would not fly.

Eventually, they effectively gave up on pitching the comic as a strip and agreed to sell it as a comic book. The only problem was that when they agreed to sell it to National Comics and their new series, Action Comics, they were on such a time crunch, deadline-wise, that rather than creating a new comic book story, they just took their unsold Superman comic strip pages and cut them up and re-worked them so that they would work as a single comic book story (this is partially why the story in Action Comics #1 and #2 are seemingly interconnected - they're really X amount of comic strip storylines cut in the middle).

The result sure did work out, though, didn't it?

Sheldon Mayer recalled doing the cutting himself, but he is likely thinking about work he did on the second issue of Superman #2, which reprinted parts of Action Comics #1 and #2. Shuster almost certainly did the cutting and pasting himself.

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

STATUS: False

Over a year ago, I did an installment of Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed that featured the story of the cover of Fantastic Four #236, which featured Stan Lee, but not Jack Kirby.

As it turned out, John Byrne turned in the cover with Jack Kirby featured on the cover, but, according to Byrne, Marvel Editor in Chief Jim Shooter had the cover removed.

However, what was unclear at the time was WHY Shooter made the move. Most fans presumed that it was some pissiness on the part of Shooter that led to the removal of Kirby's image.

The real reason, though, was in writer Ronin Ro's "Tales to Astonish," his book about Jack Kirby.

As it turned out, at the time period, Kirby was having problems with Marvel, and one of the issues he had was the use of Marvel of his name and likeness to promote their products. Which makes sense...after all, it is kinda messed up to see a company you're having problems with using your likeness to sell their stuff without giving you anything in return.

Therefore, when Kirby was alerted to his image appearing on the cover to Fantastic Four #236, he (or a lawyer of his) requested that it be removed, which Marvel acquiesced.

So there ya go. Feel free to dislike Jim Shooter, if you will, but not for that, at least.

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: Geraldo Rivera made an appearance in an issue of Count Duckula.

STATUS: True

Marvel's licensing comics heydey was during the 80s, with the Star Comics boom, but they continued on until the very early 1990s, and one of their later comics was the comic book adaptation of the cartoon series Count Duckula.

In 1989, they had one of the strangest guest appearances that you are ever going to see in a comic book, when talk show host Geraldo Rivera guest-starred in issue #8 of Count Duckula.

In the issue, Geraldo is looking for his next "Al Capone's Tomb" bit, when he accidentally finds Duckula's crypt.

The world's first vampire duck is too much of a story for Geraldo to turn down, so he features Count Duckula on his television show, but Duckula's nemesis, Doctor Von Goosewing, shows up to cause yet another fight on the set of Geraldo's talk show set.

In the end, though, we find out that Duckula, being a vampire, doesn't show up on television!

Funny stuff, and what a weird crossover.

Okay, that's it for this week!

Feel free to drop off any urban legends you'd like to see featured!