26 Odd But True Comic Book Facts

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.

* Elvis Presley loved reading comic books as a boy. His favorite hero was Captain Marvel, Jr. It is reputed he got the original inspiration for his jet black hair with the curl hanging down in the middle of his forehead was inspired by Captain Marvel, Jr.

* Michael Jackson wanted to play Spider-Man in a movie so badly, he tried to buy Marvel Comics in the 1990's.

* The Incredible Hulk was originally gray, but Marvel changed him to green after problems with ink in their presses.

* When Joe DiMaggio was playing with the New York Yankees, he loved reading Superman comic books, but he was too embarrassed to buy them himself; he thought it tarnished his image. So he would send other Yankee players to go to the local newsstand and buy the latest issues for him.

* The 1940's comic book superhero called Red Bee fought the Nazis using trained bees. His favorite bee was named Michael and lived in Red Bee's belt buckle.

* Comic book letterers avoid words like "clint" and "flick" because during printing the letters can run together, making the words look like profanity.

* In Archie Comics, Jughead had a real name. His full name is Forsythe Pendleton Jones II. He has a sister named Forsythia “Jellybean" Jones.

* The word “Brainiac" comes from a Superman villain of the same name.

* There was a comic book hero in the 1940s called the Green Lama. He was a practicing Buddhist and one of his powers was reincarnation.

* The Adventures of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis was a popular comic book series in the mid-1950s (1952-1957.) After Dean and Jerry split up, the series dropped Dean Martin and became The Adventures of Jerry Lewis. In this solo comic adventures, Jerry encountered Superman, Batman, Lex Luthor, the Flash and Wonder Woman.

* There are over 20 types of Kryptonite, including pink Kryptonite, which gives Superman gay tendencies.

* For a period in the late 1960s to the early '70s, Wonder Woman lost her powers. She did not wear her famous costume, but instead wore white mod clothes, obviously inspired by Diana Rigg from TV’s The Avengers.

* The Joker once served as the Iranian ambassador for the United Nations.

* Superman once had his mind controlled by a villain named Sleez, who tricked him into recording a sex tape.



* During the super hero craze of the mid-1960s, Archie Comics published a few issues with Archie as superhero Pureheart the Powerful. There was even a brief Jughead series portraying him as crime fighter Captain Hero.

* Batman actually had 8 different Batcaves. One is located directly under Arkham Asylum.

* In an alternate reality, Peter Parker was once bitten by a radioactive sheep, turning him into a hero named Sheep-Boy.

* Iron Man used to regularly use roller skates that were built into his suit.

* Nicolas Coppola took his stage name Nic (Nicolas) Cage from the Marvel comic book character Luke Cage.

* An issue of Wolverine was once released with an ethnic slur printed in it when the letterer of the book misread the word "killer.”

* In the 1970's Captain America witnessed Richard Nixon committing suicide after the Watergate scandal.

* Marvel once collaborated on a Spider-Man comic with Planned Parenthood that discouraged teens from having unprotected sex.

* Adolf Hitler is alive and well in the Marvel universe. His consciousness has been transferred into a clone and he now he goes by the name Hate-Monger.

* When the original comics code was created, it prohibited judges and law enforcement agents from being portrayed negatively.

* Clark Kent compresses his spine while in disguise so he'll appear shorter than Superman.

* The world's largest comic book collection is housed in the Library of Congress. It holds over 100,000 individual issues.