In "The World Outside," I examine comic books showing up in outside media, like TV shows, sports, novels and films.

Today, we look at the really strange comic book reading in the film, Million Dollar Baby.

One of the most famous narrators in film history is Morgan Freeman. His voice is so amazing that filmmakers routinely find themselves turning to him to narrate their movies. One of the movies that he narrated, 2004's Million Dollar Baby, saw Freeman star as Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris, a old former boxer who now works for an even older boxing trainer named Frankie Dunn (played by Clint Eastwood, who also directed the film). Freeman's role won him his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (he had been nominated once before for Best Supporting Actor and twice for Best Lead Actor).

Eddie was the type of narrator who would say stuff like, "If there's magic in boxing, it's the magic of fighting battles beyond endurance, beyond cracked ribs, ruptured kidneys and detached retinas. It's the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you."

Eddie was also a very simple man. There's a great exchange in the film where Frankie makes fun of Eddie's socks being filled with holes:

Frankie: You got big holes in your socks.

Eddie Oh, they're not that big.

Frankie: Didn't I give you money for some new ones?

Eddie: These are my sleeping socks. My feet like a little air at night.

Frankie: How come you're wearing them in the daytime, then?

Eddie: 'Cause my daytime socks got too many holes in them.

It is not that surprising to see that Eddie was a comic book fan and would read comic books throughout the film. However, it was more than a bit surprising that he was apparently a fan of the then-fairly recent comic book company, CrossGen Entertainment, which had debuted in 2000, about four years before Million Dollar Baby was filmed.

The specific comic book series that he is reading is Mystic, by Ron Marz, Brandon Peterson and John Dell (although the specific issues, #7 and #9, include a fill-in by Steve McNiven, who got his first big break as an artist at CrossGen)....

Mystic, about a young woman who suddenly found herself with unwanted powerful magical abilities via a mysterious sigil, was a good comic book, but obviously it would be a bit out of the ordinary for a guy who can't afford socks to suddenly get into a brand-new comic book company (that charged 75 cents more than Marvel and DC at the time due to their more impressive page and printing quality).

And sure enough, initially, Eddie was supposed to be reading Batman or Superman comic books, but as CrossGen VP Tony Panaccio explained to Bleeding Cool, "When I was at CrossGen Entertainment years ago, we provided comics to the productions of Queer As Folk, Vanilla Sky and Million Dollar Baby (The comic Morgan Freeman brandishes throughout the film is a copy of Mystic #8) because the rights and clearances person on those films could not secure DC comics for the scenes that required comic books. The legal department there has always been very heavy-handed and unsympathetic, behaving contrary to the heroes they portray in their comics and films. These policies are not new, but they are damaging to their brand in many ways."

So that is how Eddie came to be reading Mystic instead!

Thanks to Tony for the information!

If anyone has a suggestion for an interesting time when a comic book ended up getting featured in a TV show, music video, novel, etc., drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!