The Siegels Win Back Pieces of Krypton

I thought the Caped Crusader was Batman's title...?

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Reminds me of "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay"

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I'm not sure if this matters, but the Golden Age Superman's name was Kal-L, not Kal-El.... and his mother's name was spelled Lara, not Lora, but that's not as important as Kal's name. It may seem like it's not a big deal, but DC has made a gone to great lengths to differentiate the Earth-2 Superman (Kal-L) from the more modern incarnation (Kal El) in their stories, and I'd think they'd want it spelled correctly, lest this ruling start to endanger their right to use the characters moving forward. The Seigels' Superman is Kal-L.

Anyway... I saw this story over at CBR as well, with the same spelling discrepancies, and it could be just a blogger who isn't as well versed in the Krypton mythos as... well, a dork like me. :) But... if they're misspelled in the legalese, it could cause more tangles, because in the DC Universe Kal El and Kal-L are not the same character at all.

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This is truly weird...and a bit sad. Superman is an American icon. So DC can't use the origin story. Can they even refer to him as being "Kryptonian?" I guess not. This may be way off, but is it possible DC might just come up with a different name for Superman's home planet? Different name for his parents? and so forth? I know that's blasphemy, but geez. This sounds like a legal nightmare created by Mxyzptlk.

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Kaeli, is the same thing. Any version of Superman is going to be based on the original Superman. If they modify a little the names of the characters, they still being the same charectarers. They are not tearing apart the franchise, they are taking back what belongs to them. Nothing that money couldn't fix.

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I find this events disturbing. Could very well be solved by signing checks. Or not. I fear for Superman's future. It's also sad that the descendants of a person(in Siegels case, Shuster I heard didn't leave heirs.) can just benefit in that person's name from his work. It SEEMS fair to the original creators, but may amount to some mooching relatives.

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The effing lawyers should all be banished to the Phantom Zone as far as I'm concerned.

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In 2013, could Marvel make a bid for Superman? How completely bizarre would that be?

Though DC will no doubt re-up, I'm entertained by the idea of them letting him go. The REAL death of Superman: he just disappears from the comics universe, with no mention whatsoever, as if erased from time, or a dirty secret that no one will talk about.

Let the REAL world live without Superman for a while. I bet we'd be fine with it.

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I personally think it's fair, the Siegels were taken advantage of back in the day and never compensated over the years for all the money DC made off of this icon.They should get all rights back and then license it out.

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Imagine the precidence that could be set. If the Seigels own Superman and DC/WB didn't pony up, couldn't the Siegels sue DC for copywright infringement for all the alleged "superman Knockoffs" DC has acquired over the years? Captain Marvel, Mr. Majestic, etc. Why they could even dig up the old case files from DC's suit against Fawcett back in the Day.

It seems to me that as much as I love the multiverse, DC's insistence that characters like Captain Marvel are that world's superman are a tacit admission to copywright violation of Superman.

For me as a CM fan, I'd be OK if DC's decades long abuse of CM and the Marvel family was terminated.

Hell maybe the Seigels could start their own comic company! I know a lot of creators would love to work for a major comic company not movie centric.

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It's payback for what DC did to Fawcett Publications in the 1950's. DC claimed that Captain Marvel infringed on the copyright of Superman. How's that feel now, DC?

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I think it's about time that a grave misjustice is finally being corrected. It wasn't until the first Superman movie came out in the70s that Siegel & Shuster were even acknowledge as being the creators of Superman and started getting any compensation for it.

They wouldn't have even gotten that if it hadn't been for the writers & artists back in the 70s standing up and fighting for it to happen.

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Thanks to some ardio spots done by the great Neal Adams in the early 1970's, Siegel and Shuster(themselves) were given an annual salary of $20,000 plus health benefits and their byline restored, starting in 1976,which was increased to $30,000 in 1980; all for being the creators of Superman. Jenette Kahn, then publisher of DC, was glad to be a part of it, seeing as she was front and center in the goodwill acts extended to creators at that time. S & S were "dicked" over by superman's first group editor, Mort Weisinger, because he hated artists and writers even more and felt HE was the creative driving force behind superman at that time(1940 to 1970). Keep in mind that this was a man who had in his office the banner, "remember: we are writing to 8 year olds". Lastly, don't feel too bad for the boys, people. They had superman bought from them and then were each paid a weekly salary to produce product on him. This was how it was done back then and if they hadn't burned so many bridges themselves with the powers that were, they might not have been taken off the book in 1948. I recommend for your reading pleasure the book, "Superman vs Hollywood". It will put some hair on your head, so to speak.

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