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.
I cannot wait for this. Thought I worry it will give more ammo to lobbyists in DC to convince lawmakers to further extend copyright.
"Look at how they are perverting our creation! We must stop it!
Here's $2,000,000 and a bill all of us comic lawyers wrote. Just introduce it and we'll take care of making sure we... materially encourage, a majority to vote for it."
Personally, I think the Patent, Copyright, and Trademark systems have become so abused they need massive overhauls. Dare to dream, am I right?
Disney (which, ironically, owns *Marvel*) was trying to do just this. They used to have bipartisan support for this kind of thing but lately have gotten so unpopular with the right for reasons you are probably familiar with that their last attempt got nixed.
Going back to the original batman could be cool. I could get behind a detective that dresses up like a giant bat and solves crimes with the latest and greatest tools.
A big problem is the 'latest and greatest tools' now require a huge number of different people and laboratories, you could see a guy with too much time on his hands studying criminology in the 40s.
I mean, DC's not stupid. They are much more vulnerable to this sort of thing than Marvel because their top characters are Batman, Superman, Batman's sidekick, Wonder Woman, Batman's nemesis, and Batman's nemesis' ex-girlfriend. (Oh, and *Absolute* Batman.)
I suspect they're probably going to spend a lot of money suing people, though I'm surprised Millar put himself out there this quickly. I figured whoever was going to do this would lay low to gain the element of surprise.
A big problem with Batman in particular is many of the most recognizable elements of the character appeared quite early; the Joker, Catwoman, and Robin all showed up within a few years of his appearance. However, the huge # of stories published over the past 80 or so years will make it difficult because DC can always argue that whatever you did is a copy of something they did relatively recently. Old Batman? The Dark Knight Returns and Batman Beyond. Batman in Prohibition? Scar of the Bat. High fantasy Batman? Dark Knights of Steel. Vampire Batman? Red Rain. Batman vs Cthulhu? Batman: The Doom that Came to Gotham. Batman in the Civil War? The Blue, the Grey, and the Bat.
Anyway, for fans of the characters this is overall good; we can see Batman and Superman join the characters of the ages like Sherlock Holmes and Dracula.
Frankly I'm shocked these corporations didn't just pay the politicians they own in DC to change the laws and extend the time frame for them just as Disney did several times. Separate from the various mergers and sells of these companies I have no doubt the current owners, Sky dance, owns people in DC just like most of the fortune 500 corporations do. Granted "own" may not be the right term so much as "lease" since the same politician often has multiples masters that fund him/her.
I've said this before, but when Vox Day eventually buys or licenses DC Comics, I'm reserving editorship of Superman, Flash, and Suicide Squad.
If John C. Wright or The Dark Herald don't want Green Lantern, I'll take that too.
Wait, don't you mean "Lanterns"? Apparently the "Green" part of the name is gay or something.
I have my doubts that will happen, but I hope someone (maybe Eric July?) works things out and we get a few more right-leaning Batman stories.
Technically you could put your own characters in the Suicide Squad and call it something else.
I cannot wait for this. Thought I worry it will give more ammo to lobbyists in DC to convince lawmakers to further extend copyright.
"Look at how they are perverting our creation! We must stop it!
Here's $2,000,000 and a bill all of us comic lawyers wrote. Just introduce it and we'll take care of making sure we... materially encourage, a majority to vote for it."
Personally, I think the Patent, Copyright, and Trademark systems have become so abused they need massive overhauls. Dare to dream, am I right?
Disney (which, ironically, owns *Marvel*) was trying to do just this. They used to have bipartisan support for this kind of thing but lately have gotten so unpopular with the right for reasons you are probably familiar with that their last attempt got nixed.
Going back to the original batman could be cool. I could get behind a detective that dresses up like a giant bat and solves crimes with the latest and greatest tools.
A big problem is the 'latest and greatest tools' now require a huge number of different people and laboratories, you could see a guy with too much time on his hands studying criminology in the 40s.
I mean, DC's not stupid. They are much more vulnerable to this sort of thing than Marvel because their top characters are Batman, Superman, Batman's sidekick, Wonder Woman, Batman's nemesis, and Batman's nemesis' ex-girlfriend. (Oh, and *Absolute* Batman.)
I suspect they're probably going to spend a lot of money suing people, though I'm surprised Millar put himself out there this quickly. I figured whoever was going to do this would lay low to gain the element of surprise.
A big problem with Batman in particular is many of the most recognizable elements of the character appeared quite early; the Joker, Catwoman, and Robin all showed up within a few years of his appearance. However, the huge # of stories published over the past 80 or so years will make it difficult because DC can always argue that whatever you did is a copy of something they did relatively recently. Old Batman? The Dark Knight Returns and Batman Beyond. Batman in Prohibition? Scar of the Bat. High fantasy Batman? Dark Knights of Steel. Vampire Batman? Red Rain. Batman vs Cthulhu? Batman: The Doom that Came to Gotham. Batman in the Civil War? The Blue, the Grey, and the Bat.
Anyway, for fans of the characters this is overall good; we can see Batman and Superman join the characters of the ages like Sherlock Holmes and Dracula.
These are the big guns but the additional name characters that debuted in rapid succession is astonishing. The mind boggles at the possibilities:
1938
• Superman
• Zatara
• Crimson Avenger
1939
• Batman
• Sandman (Wesley Dodds)
1940
• The Flash (Jay Garrick)
• Hawkman (Carter Hall)
• Green Lantern (Alan Scott)
• Doctor Fate (Kent Nelson)
• The Spectre (Jim Corrigan)
• Atom (Al Pratt)
• Hourman (Rex Tyler)
• Robin (Dick Grayson)
• Joker
• Catwoman
1941
• Wonder Woman
• Aquaman
• Green Arrow (Oliver Queen)
• Hawkgirl (Shiera Sanders)
• Starman (Ted Knight)
• Doctor Mid-Nite
1942–1945
• Wildcat
• Mister Terrific
• Various wartime heroes and supporting characters (e.g., early All-Star Squadron members)
1946–1950
• Black Canary (Dinah Drake, 1947)
• Superboy (prominent mid-1940s)
• Additional JSA affiliates and anthology characters
Frankly I'm shocked these corporations didn't just pay the politicians they own in DC to change the laws and extend the time frame for them just as Disney did several times. Separate from the various mergers and sells of these companies I have no doubt the current owners, Sky dance, owns people in DC just like most of the fortune 500 corporations do. Granted "own" may not be the right term so much as "lease" since the same politician often has multiples masters that fund him/her.