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

As we’ve been doing it for some time now, one legend today, one tomorrow and one Sunday.

Let’s begin!

The mystery villain in the opening credits of the X-Men Animated Series is the old Hulk villain, the Gargoyle.

Basically False

The X-Men Animated Series turned 25 years old this week and this weekend, we will be celebrating that anniversary with three legends about the series! Not only that, but each legend will be based on something that I read in an advanced copy of an awesome new book about the series by the series showrunner (or whatever the 1992 animated equivalent of that term), Eric Lewald called Previously on X-Men: The Making of an Animated Series

You can buy a copy of the book right from the publisher right here.

In one section of the book, Eric discusses specifically the famous opening theme credits of the series.

You might recall that recently, I did a legend about why was it that Thunderbird was on the villain side of the credits. Eric helped me out about that legend and let me know about this cool book (it’s really good, people. Very fascinating stuff).

Anyhow, at the time, people asked about the mysterious big-headed guy next to Thunderbird. I answered someone who asked about it by saying that it was Gargoyle, the old Hulk villain (or perhaps his son, the Gremlin. Whichever – it really doesn’t matter since the answer is that it is neither). The character appeared in an episode of the show early on.

However, in the aforementioned section in the book about the opening credits, Eric looked into it and here’s what he had to say:

“But the weirdest question asked about the titles concerns the little green man with the big bald head. Who is he? Fan sites have hazarded guesses. I thought I just didn’t know the books well enough. But Larry [Houston – the designer of the credits] recently told me (after a fan asked) that the bald guy was a mistake by AKOM (the animation studio) that they wouldn’t fix. He isn’t anybody! Who he may have been meant to be has long been forgotten. He’s just another example of a flaw caused by lack of time and money, but one that seems to have been forgiven by the fans.”

Hilarious. I assume what happened was that he was just thrown into the aforementioned later episode of the series and then another animator assumed he must have been a real character and threw him into the credits.

Thanks so much to Eric! Go get his book, people! The next two days will have some more awesome legends based on info from the book!

Check out some legends from Legends Revealed:

Why Were There No Spaceballs Action Figures?

Was Spock Originally Going to Have Red Skin on Star Trek?

Did Paul McCartney Have a Hidden Message in an Episode of The Simpsons?

Did the U.S. Military Buy A Hundred Thousand Viewmasters During World War II?

Check back Saturday for part 2 of this week’s X-Men legends!

And remember, if you have a legend that you’re curious about, drop me a line at either [email protected] or [email protected]!