Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the seven hundred and thirteenth installment where we examine comic book legends and whether they are true or false.

Click here for Part 1 of this week's legends.

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COMIC LEGEND:

Arm-Fall-Off-Boy was based on a fan parody character.

STATUS:

True

In the past, I featured a Comic Book Legend about Secret Origins #46, which told the origin of the Legion Clubhouse, but the original story was scrapped because it conflicted with DC's new continuity for Superman (DC was super-sensitive about stuff involving Superman's new origin at the time, as noted in another recent Comic Book Legends Revealed. So editor Mark Waid had to come up with a brand-new story for the issue and he came up with one and so then Gerard Jones, Curt Swan and Ty Templeton did it, where Fortress Lad ended up becoming the Legion's clubhouse. First, though, Fortress Lad was one of the first Legion rejects. The VERY first Legion reject, though, was Arm-Fall-Off-Boy!

Oddly enough, the character was based on a character from fandom!

Jay L. Zilber and Jim McPherson invented a character named Ear-Fall-Off Floyd for their fanzine, Fandom Funnies #3, which was a satire of the Comics Buyers Guide.

The character is a general parody of superheroes with dumb powers.

Interlac, the Legion fanzine, picked up the character as one of their own for some jokes over the years and when a Legion reject character was needed, Jones mis-remembered the character as "Arm-Fall-Off-Boy" and so a legend was created!

Thanks to my pal, Michael Grabois, for his history on the character at the Legion Omnicom.


Check out my latest TV Legends Revealed - Were the communicators on Star Trek really the inspiration for the invention of the handheld cell phone?


Check back later for the final part of this week's Christmas-themed Comic Book Legends Revealed!