AirLockAlpha.com

In Part I. the topic was creator ownership. In my hurry last time I didn't get a chance to talk about one of the most infamous legal comic book battles of all time ... Superman vs. Captain Marvel.

Believe it or not, Captain Marvel was one of the most popular superhero books during the golden age of comics. It even outsold Superman at times. Captain Marvel Adventures actually sold 14 million copies in 1944! Shazam!

Well, their origins and tone are very different, but not enough to stop Detective Comics (eventual to be called DC Comics) from suing the publisher of Captain Marvel, Fawcett Comics.

The legal battle went back and forth, but eventual the legal costs combined with the lower sales after World War II led to Fawcett Comics settling out of court and closing their doors.

As most of you may know, DC eventually got control of the character and now Captain Marvel plays in the DC playground. Of course DC has to call books starring Captain Marvel "Shazam!" instead of the character's name, because Marvel now has a character named Captain Marvel.

Odd thing, last time I talked about the Todd McFarlane and Neil Gaiman legal battle. One character that Gaiman was trying to gain legal rights over was Miracleman. A character that was originally created in the 1950s by a British publisher as a thinly disguised version of Captain Marvel, they even continued the numbering of the original Captain Marvel's British comic book series. Crazy, huh?

ACT II ? And the audience says ...

I get lots of great e-mails from readers with each column. So, I've decided to highlight the best ones and put my responses here. I picked two favorites that bring up good points: one an email and another from the Airlock Alpha forum.

I play "City of Heroes" and "City of Villains." It is an MMO (massive multiplayer online game) where you play a super powered hero or villain and run missions and such.

Two years or so they were sued by Marvel on copyright issues, as they said certain characters were infringements of their characters.

The funny thing is after they settled the lawsuit, Marvel and the "City of Heroes" designers started designing an MMO based on Marvel characters, so enemies one day, co-workers the next.

One thing also is the agreement for playing the games is that they own the rights to any character you create in the game, so if I create the great hero XYZZY, they own all rights and I can do nothing about it.

-- Bruce

You bring up a good point. I have never really thought much about MMORPG copyrights for characters you make playing a game. I'm stunned that they would actually do something like that and I bet they would have a rough legal battle if that were ever challenged. I think very few gamers would be cool with that.

I recently played "City of Heroes" and was impressed by the game. But if that is true, I'm not sure I could enjoy playing the game anymore. I'm going to do some further digging about the topic.

Well, the reality is that most of these artists sign a "work for hire" contract. That is, they invent it, and the company owns it -- forever for anything. A bad deal if something becomes popular, but when you're young and poor, what can you do?

But the massive appeal of comic stories are well known now, and that's changed things as much as anything. But when you get down to it, the person who owns the copyright is a matter of contract law, not copyright law. Much of these suits are the result of either poor contract writing, or someone trying to hide profits from another party.

As someone who makes films, I'm all for copyrights lasting my lifetime plus 50 years (the current standard). Past that is a bit silly (Disney's been trying to keep Mickey's copyright for years now).

-- John

You're right, John. Work for hire was the norm back then. I'm not sure if it was fair, but sadly that was just how it was during those times. There is some fuzziness about the rights for Superman, but it is usually straightforward. For every Superman or Spider-Man there are hundreds of characters that faded away in obscurity. Some just won the comic book lottery and sadly the creators had signed off their prize.

Luckily there are so many great creator-owned options out there now, which is probably why so few great new characters are created now at Marvel or DC.

When copyrights run out, these creations fall into the public domain. As you allude to with your Disney comment, there has been a legal battle to put off further additions to the public domain.

I plan on talking more about the public domain soon, so please check back.

Thanks to everyone who e-mailed me. Keep the emails coming, folks and I'll be sure to post the best ones up here (unless, of course, you don't want me to post yours). You can send them to mpyle@airlockalpha.com.

ACT III ? Newz Bits & Bytes

Oh Warner Bros., what are you thinking? Marvel has finally started doing their movies in-house, which looks to be a good thing so far with the awesome (or should I say invincible?) "Iron Man" movie (more than $261 million so far domestically). But WB and DC just can't figure out what to do with their properties ? Batman being the only exception. The newest DC superhero movie sounds ... different.

From the minds of producer David Goyer ("Batman Begins") and writer Justin Marks ("Voltron") comes "Supermax" a film in development about Green Arrow getting thrown in jail with a bunch of super villains. He has to team-up with former enemies to get free and prove his innocence. There will big name villains like Shock Trauma, Cascade and the Aryan Nation.

Don't worry, you may have heard of some of the others like Pied Piper, Blockbuster, Multiplex, Count Vertigo, Merlyn, Count Vertigo and Floronic Man (maybe).

Latino Review was kind enough to review the script for you spoiler-holics out there.

I like "Green Arrow" and I like "Prison Break," but this one is a tough sell for me. Hey, maybe they will surprise me, but this sounds like a better sequel to a Green Arrow movie rather than his first appearance ever on the big screen. It sounds good, but I think this is another case (a la "Justice League Mortal") of wanting to build the house before the foundation. A clever writer might make it work, but a build-up with a good origin movie followed up with, what I hear, is a well written script would be gold.

Speaking of Marvel making movies in-house, there has been more news on what the other Avenger movies are going to look like, before they all team-up in the Avengers movie. "The First Avenger: Captain America" will be a period piece set in World War II (good move). This movies helps set up the Avengers movie that is scheduled six weeks later. If you know your "Avengers" comics, and the "Ultimates" book that re-imagined them, then it is a pretty sure bet that the return of Captain America will be a major point in the movie.

Plan on the "Thor" movie having Thor in Asgard, the mythical Norse realm of the gods, for the majority of the time.

Marvel is doing a great job setting up the "Avengers" film, with subtle things like Captain America's shield in Tony Stark's workshop and having the Super-Soldier Serum in the upcoming "The Incredible Hulk" movie. The "Hulk" movie is not a sequel to Ang Lee's version, but written so it could be ... or in the words of producer Kevin Feige, they took a "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Right now the release dates are: "Iron Man 2" on April 30, 2010; "Thor" on June 4, 2010; "The First Avenger: Captain America" on May 6, 2011; and "The Avengers "on July 1, 2011.

Joss Whedon's ("Buffy The Vampire Slayer," "Firefly") "Dollhouse" looks pretty sweet. Don't take my word for it, check out the trailer. Heck, even J.J. Abrams' new show Fringe is looking good. Not that should be a big surprise; both Whedon and Abrams are top-notch creators.

Whedonites are diehard and don't want to see another Whedon show get canceled. I can completely understand that, but perhaps organizing an effort to save the show before it has even premiered may be a little premature. Of course this is Fox (who is known for canceling their sci-fi shows), so maybe it isn't a bad idea. Want to join? Check out DollhouseForums.com.

If you're fan of Whedon then you should keep your eyes out for his new three-part Web musical called "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" starring Neil Patrick Harris ("How I Met Your Mother") as Dr. Horrible, Nathan Fillion ("Firefly") as Capt. Hammer, and Felicia Day ("Buffy The Vampire Slayer"). Day is no stranger to the Web as she stars and writes her own (hilarious) web series called "The Guild."

FADE TO BLACK

A few more bits real quick before I go. Did you read "Infinite Crisis" No. 1? I know that there is a lot of hatred for green shapeshifting aliens right now, what with the "Secret Invasion" event going on over at Marvel. Apparently, it has spread to the DC universe. Anyway, love what they are doing with the rebirth of the New Gods and I'm cautiously optimistic about the big DC event of the year.

Oh, and a quick shout out for the new "Dungeons & Dragons" Fourth Edition game coming out. It is very different, so people are either going to love it or hate it.

Well, that is it for now. Please feel free to e-mail me your comments or post them on the forum.

Until next time ? Marx out.

Marx Pyle is a staff writer for Airlock Alpha. You can also find him reviewing comic books over at Comics Bulletin. He is not a shape shifting alien sleeper agent, honest. He can be reached at mpyle@airlockalpha.com.