The Superboy Lawsuit Request

[WompuM]

My fellow nerds,
I am wondering if anyone has any legitimate articles about the superboy lawsuit. By legitimate, I mean something to the tune of NY Times, Time Magazine, Wall Street Journal. Not CBR or Newsarama. I am attempting to write a term paper about the case but have been unable to locate legitimate articles to back up my thesis. The professors a real pain in the ass and apparently newsarama isn't 'credible'. What an *******.

Anyway, any help would be greatly appreciated. My only hope is that this thread does not fall into obscurity within 10 minutes. I mean, we helped out the dude with the Superman/Batman/Wonder Women pics. Come on guys. Help a brotha out.

 

[Arkady Rossovich]

I don't think there is news about that on this board,i've seen it in other places.

 

[Noir]

What Superboy lawsuit?

 

[Roughneck]

I concur...what lawsuit?

 

[Roughneck]

In a nutshell, a judge upheld a ruling that said the heirs of Jerry Siegel own the rights to Superboy (young Clark Kent in the super-suit). Siegel won the rights back in a 1947 trial and sold the rights to National (DC) in 1948. According to then-current copyright law, the rights were to revert 28 years later (1976), but in 1976 Congress updated the laws for another 28 years (which would be 2004) and gave the rights holders the opportunity to get them back at the end of the 56 years. That's what the Siegels did in 2004, and the judge ruled that since DC bought the rights in 1948, that very fact acknowledged that the Superboy rights belonged to the Siegels. It's likely that the Siegels and DC/Time Warner will come to some agreement at some point, but who knows when and what the details might be. Until then, the appearance of Superboy for the forseeable future is unclear.

 

[DoomJester]

Hmm... sounds interesting... what is the paper on? Also, I think Superboy is now Superman prime... I think that is how DC is dodging that.

Your best bet may be to just write DC and ask them for the case number or something, and then you should be able to get the holdings of the case. If you tell them, they may help you. You'd be surprised just what companies will do to try and keep fans... and ask them what's going to happen to Mary Marvel for me too please?!

But seriously, ask DC, they may tell you at least what the case or case number was called.

 

[Noir]

That's why DC killed Superboy?

 

[BrianWilly]

^Unlikely, considering that his death would have had to have been written some time before the case was even decided.

It may, however, be a big factor in why DC can't bring him back (if they want to), or even refer to him as "Superboy." You'll notice that in most comics now he's referred to as Conner, Kon, Kon-El, or any variation on that, and not Superboy, although several mentions of that still slip by.

Here's a pretty thorough Newsarama article about the lawsuit.

 

[Not Jake]

I'm sure it had a factor in killing him off, I mean, the Siegels have been giving DC trouble since at least 2004 according to the snippet above