Welcome to the 892nd installment of Comic Book Legends Revealed, a column where we examine three comic book myths, rumors and legends and confirm or debunk them. This time, our second legend is about whether Barry Windsor-Smith and Marvel actually specifically negotiated how much nudity they would allow in almost every panel of Weapon X.

After leaving Marvel Comics, his hit comic book series, Conan the Barbarian, and the world of comics period behind temporarily in the 1970s, Barry Windsor-Smith (he had added his mother's last name to his name to go from Barry Smith to Barry Windsor-Smith), returned to comics in 1983, and Marvel Comics proper in 1984, doing two parts of an acclaimed Uncanny X-Men story called "LifeDeath," and an iconic Wolverine spotlight story in Uncanny X-Men #205, called "Wounded Wolf."

Barry Windsor-Smith returned to X-Men to draw this Wolverine one-shot story, "Wounded Wolf"

Windsor-Smith then did a few other one off issues of Uncanny X-Men over the next couple of years, roughly one a year (plus an Excalibur fill-in, oddly enough). By the time he finished doing his X-Men fill-ins, the assistant editor on those Uncanny X-Men issues, Terry Kavanagh, had become the editor of Marvel Comics Presents, Marvel's bi-weekly anthology series, and he told Windsor-Smith that he would obviously love it if Windsor-Smith ever wanted to do a short story for the series. Cleary, this piqued Windsor-Smith's interest, even though Kavanagh didn't know that at the time. That ultimately led to Weapon X (as I noted in an old Comic Book Legends Revealed), and with Windsor-Smith doing such a major feature in the series, a GREAT DEAL of extra attention was placed on the project, including a hilarious debate about the nudity within the series.

RELATED: Did Iron Man Inspire the Black Sabbath Song, 'Iron Man'?

What was the problem with nudity in Weapon X?

As I noted in another earlier legend, Kavanagh was surprised to learn that Windsor-Smith had just started work on would become "Weapon X" on his own and handed in two finished chapters to Kavanagh before even asking if Kavanagh WANTED him to do the story (Kavanagh, of course, assumed maybe Windsor-Smith would do a short story, not a whole serialized feature!). Kavanagh now, though, had to convince X-Men editor Bob Harras to allow him to feature a MAJOR development in the life of Wolverine (the reveal of how he received his adamantinum skeleton) not in Uncanny X-Men or Wolverine, but Marvel Comics Presents.

Barry Windsor-Smith's Weapon X serial

Somehow, Kavanagh was able to pull that off, but then he was hit with another obstacle - the now-approved project was obviously really cool (Barry Windsor-Smith telling Wolverine's sort of kind of origin?! How cool is THAT?), but Marvel's sales team thought it was now TOO cool for Marvel Comics Presents. Kavanagh was told by Marvel Editor-in-Chief Tom DeFalco that the project would instead be done as a graphic novel instead! Kavanagh successfully appealed that decision (his argument was basically, if the story was "too good" for Marvel Comics Presents, why even have Marvel Comics Presents, if good stories couldn't appear in it?).

Now that that was settled, though, it meant that the story was set for a Comics Code approved series, though, so there was a major issue about the nudity in the book! As Barry Windsor-Smith told Will Murray in Comics Scene #18, "The thing is, he doesn't have that stupid costume on. In fact, Logan is naked throughout the series. It was tricky. At first, [Marvel Editor-in-Chief] Tom DeFalco was upset when he saw the first couple of stories. But I generally got away with it by deftly shadowing certain areas.

There was one ridiculous panel - I don't know what I was thinking of - where Logan has just killed a bunch of animals. It was a test. And he stands up and he roars. And it's full-frontal nudity! I can't get away with that, so I kept etching it and crosshatching it, until it looked more and more like I was deliberately trying to cover this guy up! I tossed that around for about a year-and-a-half. At the very last moment, I was down at the office and I've got this stupid whiteout pen and I'm trying to make it look like he's wearing underpants, which is even more ridiculous."

Here is the page in question...

Weapon X somehow has "underwear" on

There was another instance in the series where Windsor-Smith seems like he just couldn't figure out anything else to do and also just sort of kind of drew underwear on Logan in a scene where he fights against a bear.

Weapon X fights against a bear

RELATED: Was Nick Fury's Brother, the Villain Known as Scorpio, Meant to be Gay?

How did Marvel and Windsor-Smith have to negotiate on nudity in Weapon X?

The most amusing thing about all of the nudity in the series, though, was when it came to the early scenes in the series. When I spoke to Terry Kavanagh, he told me how fun it was to overhear the times that Windsor-Smith would come into the Marvel offices and would have to go over the pages with DeFalco (and perhaps Harras?) and negotiate with each other over how many bubbles there will be used in every panel where Logan is in a tank...

Bubbles were used to cover up Wolverine's nudity

Can you even imagine how funny that might be to hear? "I'll give you twenty bubbles." "No, I need only fifteen bubbles." "We can't go so low as fifteen bubbles! Work with us here!" So that's what they did in the early scenes of the book, but as you can see from Windsor-Smith's statements for the later parts of the series, he obviously had the general idea of what was allowed by then, and he spent the rest of the series fixing everything himself without incident.

More bubbles covering up Logan

Thanks to Barry Windsor-Smith, Terry Kavanah and Will Murray for the information!

Comic legend about Weapon X and nudity

Check out a Movie Legends Revealed!

In the latest Movie Legends Revealed - See how the James Bond film, Moonraker, has created a strange legend about Jaws' love interest in the film.

Be sure to check out my Entertainment Legends Revealed for more urban legends about the world of film and TV.

Feel free to send suggestions for future comic legends to me at either cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com.