Over the past two years I have developed a Friday ritual of sorts. I sit down to a small lunch at my computer and peruse the comic book news sites. This is generally not long as I often avoid much of the previews and Q&As in lieu of interesting tidbits and gossip. However, I keep perhaps my favorite column for last. That column has been Comic Book Legends Revealed (formerly Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed) by Brian Cronin. The column, part of the larger Comics Should Be Good aegis, shines a light on famous and not-so-famous legends and myths surrounding the comic book industry. It is by far one of the most interesting and informative things I read each week. As well, the legends sometimes have several layers to them that Cronin deftly lays out for the reader.

In February, Cronin announced on the column that a book containing 130 of his legends would be published later in 2009. It would be called Was Superman A Spy? And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed! At first, I was unexcited. Why pay for something I was already getting online for free? As publication came closer, I discovered the book would be split between already featured legends and brand new legends just for the book. This got me a little more interested in the book. Still, the book came out in April and I failed to pick it up. Last week, I was in a Barnes and Noble and the book was being prominently displayed on an end-cap. On a lark, I picked the book up. It then sat on my desk under two new Doctor Who and Star Trek novels. Then Wednesday night I had the sudden urge to read something before I went to bed. I idly selected Was Superman A Spy? It was about an hour later - and nearly 80s pages - that I realized I needed to set the book aside and get some sleep.

The book is surprisingly light and reads rather fast. The legends are told in an as-reduced-as-possible form, which makes them easier to tackle in large chunks for casual reading. However, they are no less interesting or informative in shorter form. I have to give Cronin a lot of credit for actively trying to relate the legends to each other, even loosely, so that as you move through the book there is a growing sense of connectivity - a hallmark of the close-knit comic book industry. Cronin tell everything in as fair and grounded a manner as possible and definitely strives to give credit where credit is due. He even goes against the grain in a few places to make sure readers understand that while creators like Kirby or Ditko were often mistreated, not every idea Stan Lee came up with was originally theirs.

I enjoyed the book immensely and devoured it in a little over two hours. However, while the books is really well put together and flows nicely, I did have a few reservations with it. For one, I felt that Marvel was given a larger section (by 30 pages) and their section featured more legends about more characters, whereas DC's section focused primarily on Batman, Superman and a good number of industry legends with a short, mixed-bag chapter given for the rest of DC's characters. Marvel's section focuses on three characters and two teams and has its own mixed-bag chapter. While I realize that more of Marvel's characters are better known outside of comics, it felt oddly lopsided. This was especially true in that much of the Hulk chapter was dedicated to general industry legends. It is a rather small complaint, however, in that many of Marvel's legends seem to be a little more exciting.

Juxtaposed to these two longs sections is a short section about "Other Comic Book Companies." This section was by far my favorite. I thought it was the most interesting and offered some of the best legends in the book. I think the broader subject meant that Cronin could more easily work with legends that bordered on being comic books proper and reflected more on strip comics or the like. As well, Cronin moves a little bit away from Super-Hero comics with the legends brought up in this section. If Cronin ever returns to the book form to tell more legends, I would love to see more non-Marvel and DC legends. My favorite legends came from the entire book came from this section. From Donald Duck to Elvis Presely to "Fantasy Island" I was hooked!

At times I was unsure who the intended demographic was for the book. Each section starts with a brief history of the company or characters introduced. The legends themselves are often interspersed with bits of parenthetical clarification. However, there are times where Cronin does his best to explain major events in comics in a short space. Often this meant I was filling in blanks with my own knowledge of these events. For the most part, Cronin glosses over the particulars of Dr. Wertham's attack on comics and the creation of the Comics Code and Authority, and tosses out some paraphrases to cover himself. Obviously something that has been written about at length like Wertham and the Code (see Hadju's The Ten Cent Plague) cannot be easily reiterated, but a novice may be at a loss to put some 2s and 2s together. As well, several writers are introduced as if they are household names outside of comics, but time is taken to talk about the Fleischer Company who only have a role in one of the myths. Still, the brief histories Cronin gives are quite informative and shed some light on the founders of DC and Marvel and their notable name changes. Perhaps the book is meant to tread that tenuous line between being layman friendly while not pandering to knowledgeable readers?

Overall, any qualms I had were minor. The book is very interesting and well written. It has a very popcorn movie pace and feeling and makes sure every legend is easily digestible, perhaps even easily repeatable. Because of this last point, one might underestimate the vast amount of research Cronin puts into the project. All of the legends on his column are backed by lengthy quotes from the creators involved, knowledgeable second-hand sources, interviews, articles or, at the very least, very well researched supposition. In the book, some of the evidence comes off as merely anecdotal, which is not necessarily bad, but perhaps not exactly convincing.

I would definitely suggest this book to any reader of comics and anyone who enjoys hearing about the back story to how some of these characters came into their current iterations or perhaps curious about the back office dealings of the 40s, 50s and today! Was Superman A Spy? And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed! by Brian Cronin, published by Plume Books, a division of Penguin. On bookshelves now.

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