The Superman legal battle is apparently over...

[Earth 2 Chris]

...and WB/DC won.

http://www.supermanhomepage.com/news.php?readmore=12336

I've had mixed feelings about this, because Siegel and Shuster were indeed royally screwed over for a good chunk of their lives. But I personally felt this last case was a cash grab by a greedy lawyer and a few of hanger-ons from the get-go.

If you read on in the comments on the Superman Homepage, fans speculate what this means to the comic themselves. The theory has been floated that DC changed Superman so much in the new 52 to distance him from his Action #1 origins, since the Siegels at one time had some rights to that version. It will be interesting to see where DC goes from here...

Chris

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

I kinda knew they'd win. It's a shame; but back in the day, as a cartoonist for comics you normally sold the rights to your characters to the publisher. There really isn't recourse from that.

Don C.

[madmarva]

Hopefully, this will open the door to a more classical version of Superman in the comics. I do believe many of the changes and tweaks were to distance the current Superman from many of the ideas Siegel and Shuster added to the character following Action No. 1, including Superboy.

The worst part of it, though, is the Man of Steel film was also developed under this line of thought. Should the film be a hit, it will only validate those changes in the mind of Warner and those changes may even be given credit for the popularity.

That being said, I do hope the film is good and incredibly successful. I really believe it will be a litmus test for future films featuring Warner's super hero characters. If it flops on the heels of the GL flop, it could be hard for Warner to continue justifying dropping so many millions on the characters.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Hmmmm....

I kinda knew they'd win. It's a shame; but back in the day, as a cartoonist for comics you normally sold the rights to your characters to the publisher. There really isn't recourse from that.

I feel for Siegel and Shuster, but historical evidence proves they really felt Superman was going to be a big smash. I'll never understand why they agreed to DC's terms with Superman, especially since they knew the company and did other work for them. They weren't some neophytes off the street that didn't know who they were dealing with. The deal they inked was maybe a moment of weakness, but we've all had those, and there is really no going back. It's unfortunate, but it's just the way it is. Bob Kane cobbled together a concept that was less original and much of it wasn't even his idea, and he made a very nice living off it his entire life.

My feeling is, they should have always been compensated for their creation throughout the years, not just after WB was pressured into it in the 70s. But they sold Superman to DC...so DC owns him. That was their decision.

Chris

[kingdom warrior]

I feel for Siegel and Shuster, but historical evidence proves they really felt Superman was going to be a big smash. I'll never understand why they agreed to DC's terms with Superman, especially since they knew the company and did other work for them. They weren't some neophytes off the street that didn't know who they were dealing with. The deal they inked was maybe a moment of weakness, but we've all had those, and there is really no going back. It's unfortunate, but it's just the way it is. Bob Kane cobbled together a concept that was less original and much of it wasn't even his idea, and he made a very nice living off it his entire life.

My feeling is, they should have always been compensated for their creation throughout the years, not just after WB was pressured into it in the 70s. But they sold Superman to DC...so DC owns him. That was their decision.

Chris

The thing with Kane is his Dad actually negotiated the deal, since he was a newspaper man and Kane was not of legal age.
His Dad got him a better deal with ancillary rights clause that promised Kane extra money or points if Batman was used in any other formats. That deal set the tone for Kane when he renegotiated contracts later. No one was looking out for Siegel and Shuster and they caved in and made a bad deal.

[Earth 2 Chris]

^Yeah, a lot of that has come to light in recent years. It really is unfortunate that Siegel and Shuster made THAT deal.

But they ended up in better shape than poor Bill Finger, who still receives no official credit for Batman's co-creation, and his heirs only get residuals from reprints alone.

Chris

[MIB41]

It would be interesting to see what that original agreement entailed from 2001. My thinking is they still get something from that. But Warner Bros. is the chief owner of Superman. I've often wondered too if changing his appearance had legal roots in it. But then when you see how they did that with all of the characters, I'm not entirely sure. The essence of Superman is still very much there, so I'm not sure tweaking the outfit would have removed any legal ownership from the principles. My gut tells me this is just a marketing and merchandising scheme to fill DC's coffers. It's why I got out of collecting comics literally decades ago. Companies routinely like to shake things up to regrow interest in their heroes. So they always do the same thing - They "kill" them; reboot them; redress them; change identities; or change realities. It's all done to starve that fan base for the original concept and make them hungry to come back once the company is done "experimenting" and are ready to proclaim, "He's back!" Comics use to be one long story of their lives. Those days are gone.

[kingdom warrior]

^Yeah, a lot of that has come to light in recent years. It really is unfortunate that Siegel and Shuster made THAT deal.

But they ended up in better shape than poor Bill Finger, who still receives no official credit for Batman's co-creation, and his heirs only get residuals from reprints alone.

Chris

Sad that Finger got the Finger.....

[ctc]

>They weren't some neophytes off the street that didn't know who they were dealing with.

That might be why though. Comics at the time were disposable, and nobody really saw them as worthwhile.... even though newspaper strips were marketed out the wazoo and seen as somewhat respectable. They may have felt that $100 or so was the best they could get from a publisher.

>I've often wondered too if changing his appearance had legal roots in it.

I wouldn't think so. Even with the weird, "no he's different.... sort of" ruling from the last legal go-around DC still holds trademark on the name, likeness, most of the back story.... You'd be hard pressed to do ANYTHING called Superman and get away with it. The changes of the last few years are just the usual thing; trying to make a character relevant for a modern audience. They've done that since WAY back in the day. Hell; even that odd, panty-less "Kryptonian battlesuit" thingie seemed like they were trying to hang onto some of the old whiole conforming to the new. It's a pseudo-Matrix costume, like most of the superhero movies since the X-Men. At least they made it blue instead of black....

Don C.

[madmarva]

The character is still essentially Superman and the changes may have just been choices "to get with the times," but I don't think so.

Tights are out body armor in. The s shield has changed. spit curl out, tousled hair in. Trunks are out. Cape is lengthened from hanging to the upper calves now down to the ankle. The belt is different. The color scheme has darkened. The space ship he landed in changed significantly from it's first appearance.

In and of itself, all of this seems to be minor tweaks, but from my understanding of the law suit, what was in question was the ownership and likeness of the character as he appeared in either the first 6 or 8 issues of Action Comics, not the actual ownership of the character. Any changes, additions or updates to Superman or other charachters in the title were not in question because all of that work was created under contract with National or. Dc Comics. Only the work that the duonhad completed and then sold to DC was in question. There was speculation that if the the Siegels and Shusters won the case they would be able to market their own version of the character as he appeared in those early issues of Action and DC would have its version of the character.

The theory is that the changes made were proactively so they would not have to be made in response to a loss in the law suit. DC could just keep publishing its new and improved version with no additional changes.

Zac Snyder is on record that he wanted to use a more traditional version of Superman's costume. He even had his top choices screen test in costumes similar to Christopher Reeves' version, but the studio absolutely vetoed the use of the traditional costume.

All of that may be total crap, but I've read this in various places over the years prior to DC's relaunch and after. It makes sense to me mainly because in the relaunch Superman changed more than than any other of their primary characters, even though the changes were not significant.

And secondly, because previously DC had been so hesitant to make changes of that nature to protect the image of the character.

[Earth 2 Chris]

^It wouldn't surprise me. Remember, at one time, Superboy was pretty much verbotten at DC, as the Siegels had a minor victory in court over the ownership of that character. Connor Kent was killed off in Infinite Crisis, and SuperBOY became SuperMAN on the Legion cartoon series around the same time.

Chris

[PNGwynne]

Did anyone here read Larry Tye's Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most enduring Super-Hero? I enjoyed it.

It details the creation, development, & media-marketing of Supes. He sympathizes with Siegel & Shuster will still maintaining some objectivity; he's less forgiving in the closing chapters that deal with these recent proceedings & the heirs.

[Earth 2 Chris]

^I need to read that. I've heard a lot of good things about it.

Chris

[hedrap]

The Superman revamp was completely about ownership issues.

The timeline goes...

Siegel/Shuster team wins legal battle, splitting copyright in 2013.

WB prepares to lose some core elements, and as a way to not split revenue in half, begins working on the movie reboot, for anything produced before the 2013 date would still fall under the old contract. The movie then in turns forces an overhaul of the comic, which then leads to New 52. Tail wagging the dog, so to speak. Still a fair amount or doubt as to whether Jim Lee came up with the new look or someone in the film's art dept, first.

This is also why Tom Welling/Smallville was dropped early from moving to the big screen and why he never wore the suit on the show, until that last sequence. If he did, then the Siegel/Shuster Superboy claim would come into effect.

As for their contract...

..What isn’t as often reported, is the amount Siegel and Shuster earned for their work on the Superman comic books, newspaper strips and other appearances in the decade between Superman’s first appearance and when they filed their lawsuit against National Comics in 1947: just over $400,000, which in adjusted dollars comes to around $5 million, split between the two. Where did that money go? While the answers aren’t spelled out explicitly, Tye seems to imply that it was high living and foolish spending.

The pattern repeats over the years, with Siegel and Shuster (usually spearheaded by Siegel, who comes across much worse than his partner) repeatedly returning to court despite repeated settlements that always seem to include a promise not to seek further legal action, which then gets ignored when the money runs out. You wouldn’t think it would be possible for a book about the creation of Superman to make Siegel and Shuster look like the bad guys, but Tye, whether he meant to or not, comes remarkably close. Siegel in particular is painted in a most unsympathetic light, obsessed with the grievances that life (primarily in the form of Donenfeld and Liebowitz) had piled against him, while at the same time completely abandoning his son from his first marriage, who emerges only at the very end of the book’s narrative, all but forgotten and mystified at his father’s seeming total lack of affection for him. Siegel’s second wife, Joanne, is also painted in a less than flattering light, returning to Warner Brothers again and again in Siegel’s final years and after his death, sending poison-pen letters to demand increases to the creators’ stipend, with the constant threat of bad publicity if Warner didn’t comply. The revelation that she had also been taking 20% of Joe Shuster’s annual stipend from Warner Brothers, to the tune of $1200 a month, for acting as his “agent” was also a disappointing one.

Donenfeld and Liebowitz take their licks as well, with Donenfeld coming across as a shameless huckster and publicity *****, while Liebowitz’s abusive treatment of Siegel as seen in passages from correspondence is absolutely shameful. Of all of them, the hapless Joe Shuster is the least unsympathetic, struggling with failing vision his entire life, going along with Siegel’s continued legal battles with National much to his own detriment, and at the end of his life frittering away an $80,000-a-year pension on compulsive spending and overgenerosity to everyone he knew.

Same ol' story. An industry that was created literally from pulp for its disposability mutated into something else thanks to Disney understanding the value of merchandise.

None of this becomes an issue if it wasn't for the licensing aspect, and you really can thank Mego for that.

[Mego Superboy Prime]

Comics today suck...