Superman Enters The Public Domain In 2034 And DC Plans To Celebrate The 100th Anniversary As They Lose Copyright Protection

DC Comics used its San Diego Comic-Con presence to kick off a decade-long countdown to its own 100th anniversary in 2035, with a booth campaign that will spend the next several years revisiting each decade of the publisher’s history in ten-year chunks. Buried inside that nostalgia campaign is a harder deadline DC can’t spin away: Superman and Lois Lane enter the public domain in 2034, Batman follows in 2035, the Joker in 2036, and Wonder Woman in 2037.

Here’s what that actually means, because the term gets misunderstood constantly. Under the Copyright Term Extension Act, a published work loses copyright protection 95 years after publication. Action Comics #1, which introduced Superman in 1938, crosses that line in 2034. Detective Comics #27, Batman’s 1939 debut, follows in 2035. Once a comic enters the public domain, anyone can legally reprint it, adapt it, or build new stories from it without paying DC or asking permission, the same process that recently put Steamboat Willie-era Mickey Mouse into two separate horror movies within 24 hours of his copyright lapsing.

But copyright and trademark are different protections, and DC still holds the second one. The “S” shield, the name “Superman,” the title “Action Comics,” and Batman’s bat-symbol remain DC’s trademarks indefinitely, protected as long as the company keeps using them commercially. That means a 2034 public domain Superman story can legally use the character as he existed in his 1938 debut, no flight, no heat vision, no Kryptonite, no Lex Luthor, since those elements arrived in later, still-copyrighted issues, but it can’t slap DC’s trademarked logo or title on the cover without inviting a lawsuit. DC’s own deputy general counsel, Jay Kogan, laid out the company’s defense strategy years ago in blunt terms: keep updating the characters so the modern version stays the “de facto standard” in the public’s mind, no matter what the 1938 original loses.

Comic writer Mark Millar isn’t waiting to find out how that plays out in court. The Kick-Ass and Kingsman creator has spent the past two years building an actual production pipeline around the 2034 deadline. In a recent interview with Thinking Critical, Millar laid out a launch plan for a self-published Superman series starting January 2034, followed by his own Batman book the year after. He’s already put artists under contract years in advance, telling the outlet one collaborator is locked in for a twelve-issue run with a quarter-million-dollar advance, paid before a single issue publishes. “2034 to 2039, I’m going to completely exploit all the DC characters with the best artists,” Millar said. “I’m going to steal the best artists from Marvel and DC and do the DC characters with them. I just like causing trouble.” He’s also eyeing film adaptations built on the same public domain footing, telling the outlet, “I’ve got an entirely new way of doing Superman... I’ve got the whole thing planned. And I want to do movies of it as well, coz it’ll be public domain. So there’s no reason we can’t do it at another studio.”

Millar won’t be alone. Comics historian Chris Sims has predicted a flood of unauthorized Batman titles ready to print the moment the clock runs out, and once the characters open up, DC will be competing against Marvel, Valiant, Todd McFarlane, Robert Kirkman, and anyone else with a printing budget and an idea, not just the small-press operators the public domain usually attracts.

DC’s SDCC nostalgia campaign reads differently against that backdrop. A publisher spending the next nine years walking its own history decade by decade, right up to the exact year its founding character stops belonging exclusively to it, isn’t just celebrating an anniversary. It’s building a case, in the court of public opinion and possibly in an actual courtroom, for why the Superman everyone still recognizes is the version DC kept building after 1938, not the one anyone will legally be allowed to publish for free.

First contact with the Oridians was supposed to be humanity’s proudest moment. Instead, their chief engineer is dead, their ship is sabotaged, and an ancient alien technology is stealing souls. Book one of the Valiant Frontiers series delivers exploration, mystery, and the kind of crew you’ll want to follow across the galaxy. Read The Soul Catcher on Amazon and start the adventure.

NEXT: DC Comics’ New “Anti-Price-Gouging” Rules Punish Retailers While Scarcity Stays DC’s Choice