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

As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends.

NOTE: If my Twitter page hits 5,000 followers, I'll do a bonus edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed that week. Great deal, right? So go follow my Twitter page, Brian_Cronin!

COMIC LEGEND:

There was a Nova/Spider-Man murder mystery where the Spider-Man writer had to solve the mystery using the clues established by the Nova writer.

STATUS:

True

Reader John W. wrote in about an old Spider-Man/Nova crossover that involved a murder mystery.

He asked, "This question dates back to comics I read in third grade. Spider-Man and Nova fought a villain named Photon in a whodunnit that crossed over from Nova #12 to Spider-Man #17something. I believe the letters page asked the reader to figure out who Photon is, and that the writers (Wolfman and Wein) wrote each issue independently.

{Redacted to keep the mystery a mystery}

That always made me wonder if the writers really worked independently and the Nova writer counted on the Spidey writer to make the {Redacted} connection with the {redacted}. Or did they work out the whole mystery in advance?"

I asked Marv Wolfman about it and sure enough, he did, in fact, write the issue completely independent from Wein, so Len Wein had to solve the mystery by himself, just using the clues that Wolfman provided in Nova #12! Interestingly, it turns out that Wein used an alternate solution and missed the biggest clue that Wolfman left (the one John mentioned in the redacted part of his e-mail).

Nova #12 opens with a splash page showing the key to the story...

Going into the story itself, though, a man named Jason Dean reports a murder and he explains that a villain named Photon burned his way into a room while he was in the house with the murder victim and knocked him out...

Later, the police (along with the murder victim's nephew, Richard Rider, who is secretly Nova) head to the house and they find a number of burned out holes in the house...

So Photon killed the uncle. But who is Photon?

We learn that Richard's murdered uncle loved word puzzles...

Okay, so with just the information provided to you, you should be able to solve the murder!

As it turned out, Wein actually solved it using the ALTERNATE clue that Wolfman had used and once he told Marv his solution, Marv gave him the other clue so that both stories would match. Wein had already solved it, so the challenge was over, ya know?

Amazing Spider-Man #171 opens again with a shot of the dead body....

Check out the calendars...

At the end, the murder is solved because the killer (who is also Photon, of course) burned into all of the walls EXCEPT the outside wall, which we saw was burned OUT, not IN, so therefore Jason Dean was lying about what happened. And sure enough, the murder victim used his calendar and the fact that the first letters of July through November spell out "JASON" and then add December for the D of Dean and, well, there you have it!

What an awesome little challenge between two old friends.

We miss you, Len!

Thanks so much to Marv Wolfman for the information and thanks to John for the suggestion!

 

Check out some Christmas legends from Legends Revealed:

1. Was the Original Ending to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Changed Due to Viewer Complaints?

2. Were Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie Named After It’s a Wonderful Life?

3. Did a Typo Accidentally Make Rudolph’s TV Special Public Domain?

4. Did A Charlie Brown Christmas Drive Aluminum Christmas Trees Out of Business?

Check back soon for part 2 of this installment's legends!