Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the six hundred and seventy-third week where we examine comic book legends and whether they are true or false.

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

NOTE: I noticed that the the CSBG Twitter page was nearing 10,000 followers. If we hit 10,050 followers on the the CSBG Twitter page then I'll do a BONUS edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed during the week that we hit 10,050. So three more legends! Sounds like a great deal, right?

COMIC LEGEND:

The Library and Archives Canada pretended to have Wolverine's military records.

STATUS:

True

Reader Craig B. wrote in the other day to suggest that, since Comic Book Legends Revealed would fall on April Fool's Day this weekend, that I spotlight an awesome prank that the Library and Archives Canada pulled off a couple of years ago. I thought that it was a bit too recent, but then I recalled a conversation I had the other week on Twitter about how sometimes I'll put things off because they're "too recent" and then ten years go by and I've never actually featured it. So what the heck, it IS April Fool's Day, so let's give it a spotlight!

Now Wolverine, as you might very well know, is super old. So old that he fought in World War I AND World War II. Both of the times, he fought for Canada, because Wolverine, of course, comes from Canada.

There's a great bit in one of the X-Men movies about Wolverine's service...

So obviously, Wolverine (or Logan or James Howlett) would have a military record in Canada.

Well, in 2016, that's precisely what the Library and Archives Canada revealed to the world!

The Library and Archives Canada is all about preserving the history of Canada and making it available to people if they want to find out about it (they're also a massive library, of course. They have one of the largest collections in the world. Over 50 million items!).

A couple of their most popular features are the Bell Features Collection, which is a rare books collection containing Golden Age comic books from the Canadian comic book company, Bell Features, during World War II (when the importation of non-essential goods, like comic books, were barred by the government, leading to Canadian companies making comic books to pick up the slack caused by the lack of Superman, Batman and Captain Marvel comics in Canada) and a massive Military Heritage collection, where they have photos and other military records.

So, in 2016, they decided to combine the two by revealing the "real" (i.e. fake) military history of a Canadian war hero, James Howlett, AKA Wolverine!

Pretty darn awesome, no?

You can check it out on their page here.

While it's no "Orson Welles as Batman" prank, it's still a really good prank!

Thanks for the suggestion, Craig!


Check out my latest TV Legends Revealed - Did a TV singing competition trick their live audience into thinking that the contestants were DYING?!


Check back late tonight for Part 3 of this week's legends! Feel free to write in with suggestions for future legends to either cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com!